the writer's room discussion

how do you guys create worlds? how long does it take? and what countries/cultures do you base them off of?

Something that helps me when creating a world is imagining myself as a character in that world. What happens if I do this? What does my life and the lives of others look like? Visualizing it to a point where I can describe it like I've been there. Which I have... in my mind.

I start thinking about the main idea of my story, and what would be sensible to set that story in. If it’s a realm, a dystopian futuristic world, etc. If the story contains magic, I think of who has the magic and how it affects the world and the people. Does that world hace magical creatures? Does that world have certain levels of hierarchy between social classes? Does that world have problems with wars? And many more questions are a great thing to think of. You can add certain characteristics to the people, like for example elf ears or a certain skin condition. Talking about the cities, think of a historical time and mix it a bit with others, or get creative and add stuff to make it original.

E. Deverell has these amazing free worksheets for world building and brainstorming that really helped me!

Arianna wrote: "E. Deverell has these amazing free worksheets for world building and brainstorming that really helped me!"

Where can I get that?

okay, so i usually stick to a template while also following a tolkien-like strategy.
the template can be mapped out for individual cities and districts, but also large countries. i include things like appearances, landmarks, history, social classes, economy, social expectations, magic systems (if you have one), population, etc.
but i also find it super helpful to think about how j.r.r. tolkien wrote his novels. he literally created an entirely different language, and wrote countless stories around it. a lot of his masterful world building did came from complex and thoughtful imagination, as well as travel experiences, which i understand not everyone has, but we're gifted to have lots of resources via the internet to research places, cultures, etc.
tolkien also developed lots of back stories to lord of the rings, the most famous being the hobbit. i think letting yourself write first-draft quality back stories! they don't have to be perfect, but it's an amazing opportunity for you to not only practice and flex your creative writing skills, but also better understand the world and characters you're building and become more excited about writing it!

hopefully this helps! there are loads of templates out there and probably a lot more talented writers, but my best tip is to just experiment and have fun!

World building is the thing I think I struggle with the most.p because I’m so used to basing my story around already existing worlds, but I’ve come to realize that I can use that to my advantage. As long as it’s not too similar, I can take pieces from other already existing universes and fit them together to create the universe I’m trying to portray (For ex. My current writing piece is based around Hogwarts and what life is like there, but I’ve added alterations like how in the Tv show, Wednesday, there are people like Werewolves and shapeshifters who are all welcome in this environment. It also allows people who are humans, but interested in studying magic join, kind of like Hogwarts, but you need to apply to this school, you don’t just get excepted.)

Two of my stories have worlds in them that are not Earth. One of theses stories involves a utopian kingdom. For this, I just came up with a name for the kingdom, and thought of how daily life could differ here, to be a more perfect, pretty, and overall aesthetic place. In the other story, the world is very similar to our own. The difference is that it has fictional countries. These fictional countries have original names. The inhabitants of the countries have a distinct ethnicity, and the name of the ethnicity is the country they are from. Even though none of the countries actually exist, the people don't look like aliens. The people of one country may look European, for example, while another country's people look Latin American.

Tbh i've been having trouble with the worldbuilding for main WIP because it's based on academic theory that I haven't learned yet. It's a bit inconvenient bc without worldbuilding I can't really write the story. That being said (since this is an advice section), build around things that genuinely interest you! My world is basically a character in my story and, like my characters, needs time and energy to grow. Do what makes sense for your story, but don't base your world around your characters. Make it so your characters and your world can be family, friends, or enemies because you've given them the same amount of attention if that makes sense