Creating Worlds for Your Stories

While world building is important to all genres, it is usually the most talked about in the context of sci-fi and fantasy, mostly because it’s these two genres that often require you to create worlds from scratch. The further into sci-fi and fantasy you get, the more elements of world building you need to consider when creating your characters and plotting your story arc. So let’s take a look at some of the things to keep in mind when shaping the worlds that will cradle your wonderful tales.

Culture

Perhaps the most relevant aspect of world building is the cultural setting. Regardless of the number of people your protagonist interacts with or the places they visit, their cultural background will play an important role in how they perceive the world and face whatever hurdles you magnanimously throw their way in your authorial omnipotence. They could sit in a room with no windows and no furniture, alone, for the entirety of your story, and their cultural background would still shine through.

This should be fairly easy to convey if you’re working with existing cultures and ethnicities, but might be a bit more challenging when you’re creating societies from scratch. How do you create a culture fascinating enough to draw readers in and at the same time familiar enough to allow them to identify and form connections with the characters?

Often enough, the answer can be found in the details. Is the cultural norm to shake one’s hand upon meeting them, or to touch the tip of one’s index finger to the other person’s temple, indicating the willingness to listen to them with an open mind? What do people drink in the morning—tea, coffee, or perhaps rose-and-mint iced tea, no sugar, two ice cubes? When someone dies, how do their loved ones say farewell? You can build elaborate, complex civilizations, but many times, it will be the details that stick with the reader.

History

Another important aspect to consider when creating a world is its history. Where did the species that populate this world originate? How did they come to wherever they are now? How did they evolve? Or, if you don’t want to concern yourself with ancient history, what is their more recent past like? Were they affected by wars, famines, depressions? Things like this will leave a mark on a society, which might be more evident with certain members than others. The effect could be as small as being a tedious topic to study in school, or as large as costing people their entire fortunes and flipping their world upside down.

Instead of only concerning yourself with your characters’ present situation, consider their past and where they come from, where their societies and worlds come from. History is the spice you add to a bland dish, and it will make all the difference in your world.

Geography

If you’ve ever read a fantasy novel, chances are you know that fantasy writers have a thing for maps. If you ever try creating your own map, there are tons of useful apps/websites that you can use, even if your artistic skills—or lack thereof—make you blanch at the thought of drawing a mere stickman. A few good websites to check out would be Inkarnate, World Anvil, and Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator.

When creating a map, do try to keep in mind that geography is a real thing, as are geology and climate science, etc. If your protagonist’s tribe lives high up in the mountains but they wear shorts and T-shirts all the time, most readers will have trouble swallowing that. That’s not to say there can’t be a type of magic unique to your world that somehow allows for toasty temperatures at an elevation that would normally be covered in snow year round, but if that’s the case, make sure you think it through and explain it to your readers. If you draw mountains more or less in a square shape without providing any sort of explanation, be prepared for some readers to look at your map and wince.

Magic Systems

There are two schools of thought when it comes to creating magic systems: Team Logic and Team Logic Be Damned. Team Logic likely overlaps with the people wincing at square-shaped mountains, while Team Logic Be Damned rolls its eyes and says, “Relax, it’s fantasy, anything goes!” If you’re a proud member of the latter, you might as well skip to the next section. If you’re a sensible member of the former, keep reading.

Here’s the thing when it comes to magic—it can be really, really cool, but it can also come around to bite you in your pretty behind. If you show your characters encountering and mastering a certain type of magic at some point in the story, that means you have now added it to their arsenal and readers will expect you to use it. You wouldn’t invent a shovel, learn how to use it, and show it to all your friends, then set it aside and continue digging with your hands, would you? No, you’d use the shovel. Because 1) you have it and 2) you know how to use it. So, if you introduce a type of useful magic that could solve some, most, or—worst-case scenario—all of your characters’ problems later in the story, only for them to never use it, you have to explain why they’re not using it.

This is where the fun part comes in. In order for magic to be truly satisfying, there should be a downside to it. A limited reserve of it, or some sort of negative consequence to using it, or something that will limit what your characters can achieve through magic. If they just hop around solving all their problems with a flick of the wrist, that won’t make for a satisfying story. But if there’s a price they have to pay in order to use magic, if there’s something that turns magic from a convenient way to reach the remote to something that might get you the remote but might also require studying a big, fat book for about a week before you master the spell, your characters will think twice before using it, and the story will be richer for it.

Drawing a Line

As counter-intuitive as it might sound, perhaps the most important step of world building is stopping. Yes, you want your world to be as immersive as possible—so real that your reader will have no trouble stepping in, so wonderful that they’ll want to live in it themselves. But if developing the world is keeping you from writing the actual story, you’re doing yourself a disservice. The world is supposed to support the story, not the other way around. So if you catch yourself spending more time world building than actually writing, it might be time to shift gears and focus on your story again. Ultimately, it’s the plot that will draw in readers and make them fall in love with your novel. The world, no matter how beautiful and complex, is just where the story takes place.