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Complete Worldbuilding: An Author’s Step-by-Step Guide to Building Fictional Worlds
Overwhelmed by creating fantasy worlds?Lost in your world? Unsure where to go next?This collection of worldbuilding guides breaks the task into manageable chunks. By following a series of creative prompts, these books will guide you from idea, to full world.These guidebooks will help you the epic task of worldbuilding into easy stepsBuild a full and complete world with prompts you may not have thought ofTie your worldbuilding into your story to increase tension and conflictBring your worldbuilding back to your characters to get your readers hookedThis set 30 Days of Worldbuilding Second Edition: An Author’s Step-by-Step Guide to Building Fictional WorldsHow to Destroy the World: An Author’s Guide to Writing Dystopia and Post-ApocalypseFrom Sanctity to Sorcery: An Author’s Guide to Building Belief Structures and Magic SystemsGet Complete Worldbuilding today, and stop getting lost in your world.
278 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 28, 2020
104 people are currently reading
76 people want to read
About the author
A. Trevena
5 books22 followersAngeline Trevena was born and bred in a rural corner of Devon, but now lives among the breweries and canals of central England with her husband, their two sons, and a rather neurotic cat. She is a dystopian urban fantasy and post-apocalyptic author, a podcaster, and events manager.
In 2003 she graduated from Edge Hill University, Lancashire, with a BA Hons Degree in Drama and Writing. During this time she decided that her future lay in writing words rather than performing them.
Some years ago she worked at an antique auction house and religiously checked every wardrobe that came in to see if Narnia was in the back of it. She's still not given up looking for it.
In 2003 she graduated from Edge Hill University, Lancashire, with a BA Hons Degree in Drama and Writing. During this time she decided that her future lay in writing words rather than performing them.
Some years ago she worked at an antique auction house and religiously checked every wardrobe that came in to see if Narnia was in the back of it. She's still not given up looking for it.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 5, 2024
I finished this series of books (they're 3 short books, sold separately or compiled into one edition, this one) a while ago and went back over them a few times to try and give them some fair thought as to their value.
For people who are very new to worldbuilding, or not acquainted with it at all, I would definitely recommend them as a decent starting point. But, if you are obsessively or intimately familiar with this hobby (since for many people it is a pleasurable writing/thought exercise in itself and I know many people who do it without any intent to write a particular story or novel about their worlds--though if you have that intent, you need to know your world!) then I cannot recommend these.
Most of the advice and questions asked, prompts raised, etc, are things that intermediate to advanced worldbuilders will have already found or been challenged by, by simply spending time online (in communities such as r/worldbuilding for instance) or will have instinctively already addressed themselves without needing to be prompted since those things (and therefore the contents of these books) are what I consider to be "surface level" or basic ideas and points of consideration when it comes to constructive worldbuilding.
I did not find many things in these books that I have not already deeply considered and covered in my own writing, but that is absolutely no fault of the books themselves and just speaks to my personal obsession and interest in this kind of writing. It also speaks to my age. If I could go back in time and give these books to a teenage-me, I absolutely would. She'd love it. They'd help her a lot.
The books are nicely written, by which I mean they are easy to read and have a pleasant authorial voice, and even for people like me, they might provide a nice refresher on some basics if you have spent some time off from your worldbuilding.
All the same, I felt like much of the advice and idea prompts could easily be found online, but here they are compiled conveniently in a pleasant series of pamphlets. I don't mean to demean these books by describing them like this, and I hope this doesn't put people who could benefit from these books off the idea of trying them. It is simply my very biased but honest perspective.
I've given them 3 stars because I *do* think they would be a great starting point for beginners or for people who aren't naturally inclined to spend excessive, obsessive amounts of time on worldbuilding and need a few sound, useful starting points and ideas. Like I said, If these books had existed when I was a teenager, when I was just beginning to try and teach myself how to create fantasy worlds and resources were scant and the internet was very different, I think they would have helped me and inspired me quite a lot.
But, there is far more scope to worldbuilding than these books cover, by a long depth. So far, the most helpful books I've found for intermediate or deep and complex worldbuilding (with or without intent to write a novel) have been the "Forging Fantasy" series of books by M.D. Presley, especially Fantasy Worldbuilding Workbook and 101 Worldbuilding Prompts.
For people who are very new to worldbuilding, or not acquainted with it at all, I would definitely recommend them as a decent starting point. But, if you are obsessively or intimately familiar with this hobby (since for many people it is a pleasurable writing/thought exercise in itself and I know many people who do it without any intent to write a particular story or novel about their worlds--though if you have that intent, you need to know your world!) then I cannot recommend these.
Most of the advice and questions asked, prompts raised, etc, are things that intermediate to advanced worldbuilders will have already found or been challenged by, by simply spending time online (in communities such as r/worldbuilding for instance) or will have instinctively already addressed themselves without needing to be prompted since those things (and therefore the contents of these books) are what I consider to be "surface level" or basic ideas and points of consideration when it comes to constructive worldbuilding.
I did not find many things in these books that I have not already deeply considered and covered in my own writing, but that is absolutely no fault of the books themselves and just speaks to my personal obsession and interest in this kind of writing. It also speaks to my age. If I could go back in time and give these books to a teenage-me, I absolutely would. She'd love it. They'd help her a lot.
The books are nicely written, by which I mean they are easy to read and have a pleasant authorial voice, and even for people like me, they might provide a nice refresher on some basics if you have spent some time off from your worldbuilding.
All the same, I felt like much of the advice and idea prompts could easily be found online, but here they are compiled conveniently in a pleasant series of pamphlets. I don't mean to demean these books by describing them like this, and I hope this doesn't put people who could benefit from these books off the idea of trying them. It is simply my very biased but honest perspective.
I've given them 3 stars because I *do* think they would be a great starting point for beginners or for people who aren't naturally inclined to spend excessive, obsessive amounts of time on worldbuilding and need a few sound, useful starting points and ideas. Like I said, If these books had existed when I was a teenager, when I was just beginning to try and teach myself how to create fantasy worlds and resources were scant and the internet was very different, I think they would have helped me and inspired me quite a lot.
But, there is far more scope to worldbuilding than these books cover, by a long depth. So far, the most helpful books I've found for intermediate or deep and complex worldbuilding (with or without intent to write a novel) have been the "Forging Fantasy" series of books by M.D. Presley, especially Fantasy Worldbuilding Workbook and 101 Worldbuilding Prompts.
December 10, 2021
Lots of useful ideas for themes to think about before starting to write a story in a new universe.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews