World Building World building techniques?

[rusty]

Does anyone have any good world building techniques or structures they use? Any questions you like to ask yourself as you go along?

I'm currently building a world, maybe 17th century England with kings and dragon shifters and such. I have a singular kingdom, and I'm trying to figure out some history and how other kingdoms interact with them.

 

[nighty]

It might be good to sketch out a map of your world. Draw howbte building are formed. Get some grid paper and map out the location of the story. It doesn’t have to be great but sometimes it helps to have that visual of what is where. I find it helps you to just be a bit more concise with where all the main locations are and everything.

Also make up some history and lore for the world. Doesn’t necessarily have to be revealed in the story but the characters that would know it can act accordingly. It will seep in withoutbyou really forcing it in.

Slang and common terms and good for a world too. Just like we have our slang, other time periods had theirs.

Think of what the land your in is known for. Some lands are know for their plants while others known for growing cattle. Show hobbies and interests that most of the town has.


Hope this helps you. A bit >.<

 

[Flowiest D]

Different spelling for different factions areas,
For example...
Some say “hello” another group might have a accent, they say “ello”
Do that but on a grander scale.

 

[Flowiest D]

It might be good to sketch out a map of your world. Draw howbte building are formed. Get some grid paper and map out the location of the story. It doesn’t have to be great but sometimes it helps to have that visual of what is where. I find it helps you to just be a bit more concise with where all the main locations are and everything.

Also make up some history and lore for the world. Doesn’t necessarily have to be revealed in the story but the characters that would know it can act accordingly. It will seep in withoutbyou really forcing it in.

Slang and common terms and good for a world too. Just like we have our slang, other time periods had theirs.

Think of what the land your in is known for. Some lands are know for their plants while others known for growing cattle. Show hobbies and interests that most of the town has.


Hope this helps you. A bit >.<

I should have read this before posting aha

 

[C.DEX]

Create rulers as characters. Instead of simply putting a name and a designation to your rules, say ... Lord Thoribold is an angry man. He has a short temper and is curt with foreign dignitaries, but he holds his own family above the needs of his Kingdom. Another Lord from another country wishes to set a trade deal that would benefit both Kingdoms, but it would also hurt the trade of the businesses that his sons own, etc. Make your kingdoms and places as characters interacting with one another, and once you begin to think on their 'personalities' as places, it'll be easier to interact with one another.

Another example is as such: as a whole, the country of Hamlet is passive. Their ruler attempts to avoid conflict above all else, as he believes lauding strength of a Kingdom instead of its intellectual or economical strength can only lead to bloody warfare. Because of this, more economic-minded countries tend to want to deal with them. However, Hamlet is looked down upon by those who feel it bends too much to the whims of those who threaten them. Because of this, many things could happen. If their neighbor is a strong militaristic power that looks upon Hamlet as something that can be pushed around (once again, applying personalities to kingdoms), they may try to violently overtake the land. However, if they have a neighbor that relies on them economically and has a military presence, they might be safe.

Make a timeline. Play it like a game. Every five years, your country does something drastic, dependent on the makeup of their leaders. However, other countries react in kind. After 10 sets of 5 years, you'll have a complicated and depthful history.

I think above all, treat your countries as if they have needs and wants, because they do. Line out what they need and they want, place yourself in the past (however many years you want to write out), and then begin writing each country as if they were your own player character, attempting to accomplish their goals based on their personalities and needs.

That's usually my process when it comes to worldbuilding; just treating each country / kingdom as if I'm playing them in a board game, and I want each to equally succeed as I shift to writing from their perspective.

 

[Killigrew]

Does anyone have any good world building techniques or structures they use? Any questions you like to ask yourself as you go along?

I'm currently building a world, maybe 17th century England with kings and dragon shifters and such. I have a singular kingdom, and I'm trying to figure out some history and how other kingdoms interact with them.

I love the sound of that! Heck, I'd give you my help if you'd have me and make up a couple kingdoms and help you set up. Sometimes the best way to learn is by example haha, I'm just looking out for my own benefit though.

All I really do is research. I seek out the history of a certain time period, find the main characters of that age, maybe those of some previous eras, and then I speculate ("What would happen if the three witches in Macbeth came to a guy like Hamlet?") and just let logic play out an interesting story that forms the culture or mindset of a kingdom. That's why worldbuilding is fun! It's just mostly stories that define a people.

 

[Idea]

There are a lot of very useful tips here, so I'll restrain myself to saying the fundamental: Consistency.

Good worldbuilding is built out of consistency, which means one thing: Never forsake the internal logic of your world and it's consequences. Do that and the worldbuilding will pratically write itself. Forget that, and your setting becomes contrived, prone to plotholes (setting holes? ) , and the like.

If your world has dragons, then think about what those dragons are like in detail. How are they as creatures. Do they migrate? Lay eggs? Are those eggs edible?

But more importantly:

How did history and societies change by the presence of a giant fire-breathing lizard going around?

If dragons exist, can other creatures like dragons exist? How did humans still come out on top and manage to build civilizations?


This is the edge of the tip of the iceberg regarding this concept, and you may be thinking "that's a lot of work!", and you'd be right. Good worldbuilding is a lot of work, and even when you do take that work, it sometimes is still not enough. But if you want tips, and want a method, that's the best advise I can give you. Everything else I could say, would basically either be a consequence of that, or would involve it in some way.

So, I suppose, two things to remember:
Be consistent, both in rules and the consequences of those rules
Keep in mind that anything good takes proportional work to achieve



If you need any advise on more concrete questions or would just like to talk about or request feedback for your worldbuidling, I am running a discord group dedicated to it:

World Buillding - Pure Worldbuilding Group (Discord) (name subject to changing)

Feel free to join, you and any others that are interested!

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