Worldbuilding while not being an autistic sperg

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RussianMozart said:
I hope you do well and get published! I'm not much of a writer, but I like worldbuilding as a side hobby to keep my brain active. But who knows? I might get published one day!
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Thank you and likewise! Sometimes, it's just fun to use your imagination! :) I wish more people these days didn't treat imagination like it was a bad thing, but that's another topic for another time.
 
Some people clearly think their worldbuilding is uniquely clever and want the readers to know it too. So they go on and on describing frankly boring aspects of their world which makes them feel superior but lose the reader's attention (this also frequently applies to their protagonists as well). Simply put, people need some normies in their lives to give them feedback (because no, their favorite autistic forum or discord will obviously not do) and they need to be humble enough to accept it. This might be tough because the type of people who's that high on their own self esteem tend to get angry at any criticism and to be terrible at making friends.
 
You take shit from history(read a book, dont use your poor american education...) and put in some agency for the faction involved.
For DND, just use the HRE and change some names.
 
The Curmudgeon said:
Thank you and likewise! Sometimes, it's just fun to use your imagination! :) I wish more people these days didn't treat imagination like it was a bad thing, but that's another topic for another time.
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It is also a good way to keep your mind active and healthy if I recall correctly, but don't quote me on that!
 
Work backwards; start with a handful of fun ideas, scenes, characters, and settings then work them together into a plausible background, being unafraid to change or alter one or all of them to be coherent. Then take whatever background you’ve made, and really flesh it out with rules and webs. Then, just like Tolkien, never publish any of this background shit in your lifetime nor really explain any of it and explain just enough to barely get by (hell, I’d suggest having information conveyed by characters to be inaccurate). Every event that transpires mag make little sense at first glance, but if you obey the outline you’ve set, the reader should pick up eventually that there are rules.

Also, avoid cheap melodrama. That’ll just make any lorework you do pointless because you’re a shitty hack writer no better than a cheap isekai light novel author.
 
Just ranting my dumb thoughts here.

I've never made it further than the conceptual stage, no actual drafting. I'm (overly) careful not to lift ideas directly from other works, I try to only allow myself to be influenced by the general themes and ideas, not structural or narrative concepts. Otherwise I'm afraid I'll end up with that same Frankenstein problem.

Theoretically the solution is to write something both good and wholly new, but literature has existed forever, so that's nearly impossible. I think a good middle ground is taking more heavy influences from obscure, older works and reinventing them.

It's harder to get anything that feels original going when you are constrained by genre conventions. I like westerns for example, but there's only so much you can do without modifying it. Like Steamworld Dig, they mixed western themes with steampunk/sci-fi elements to create something original. Good games too, but they don't feel "pure", like they're cheating. Is it possible to have a fresh story in the western genre? How many ways can you spin cowboys before you inevitably have to add something else into it and end up with Cowboys VS Aliens?

This is what I struggle with, and seemingly every writer does. RDR got a pass for being a generic cowboy story because it was the first video game to do it so well. If it had been just a movie then it'd not have been as well received, I think.

I think some genres are easier than others. Where western, noir, and war are pretty much dry wells as far as I can tell, there's no end to less grounded genres such as sci-fi, horror, and high fantasy. I'm just less interested in those, personally.

Then again, I guess there's nothing wrong with wearing your inspirations on your sleeve, and heavily mixing genres. Dragon Ball is my favorite series and started out with blatant Journey West inspirations before shifting focus to martial arts and then leaning heavily into sci-fi. Maybe you can just cherry pick shit and stitch it together, you just need to be good at it.

I wonder what people think about refining stories. Take something and fix it. Dragon Ball is my favorite series but it's heavily flawed. Would it be bad writing to basically lift DB, and fix its problems? There's so many issues that just fixing them alone would yield a significantly different story in the long run.
 
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SSj_Ness said:
Just ranting my dumb thoughts here.

I've never made it further than the conceptual stage, no actual drafting. I'm (overly) careful not to lift ideas directly from other works, I try to only allow myself to be influenced by the general themes and ideas, not structural or narrative concepts. Otherwise I'm afraid I'll end up with that same Frankenstein problem.

Theoretically the solution is to write something both good and wholly new, but literature has existed forever, so that's nearly impossible. I think a good middle ground is taking more heavy influences from obscure, older works and reinventing them.

It's harder to get anything that feels original going when you are constrained by genre conventions. I like westerns for example, but there's only so much you can do without modifying it. Like Steamworld Dig, they mixed western themes with steampunk/sci-fi elements to create something original. Good games too, but they don't feel "pure", like they're cheating. Is it possible to have a fresh story in the western genre? How many ways can you spin cowboys before you inevitably have to add something else into it and end up with Cowboys VS Aliens?

This is what I struggle with, and seemingly every writer does. RDR got a pass for being a generic cowboy story because it was the first video game to do it so well. If it had been just a movie then it'd not have been as well received, I think.

I think some genres are easier than others. Where western, noir, and war are pretty much dry wells as far as I can tell, there's no end to less grounded genres such as sci-fi, horror, and high fantasy. I'm just less interested in those, personally.

Then again, I guess there's nothing wrong with wearing your inspirations on your sleeve, and heavily mixing genres. Dragon Ball is my favorite series and started out with blatant Journey West inspirations before shifting focus to martial arts and then leaning heavily into sci-fi. Maybe you can just cherry pick shit and stitch it together, you just need to be good at it.

I wonder what people think about refining stories. Take something and fix it. Dragon Ball is my favorite series but it's heavily flawed. Would it be bad writing to basically lift DB, and fix its problems? There's so many issues that just fixing them alone would yield a significantly different story in the long run.
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I prefer calling that sort of fan fiction “tuning up” a story, rather than fixing. Fixing implies that the story is really broken and doesn’t work at all, whereas tuning it up is just adjusting elements of it to make it work better. Same series, different take. That’s 100% human nature too, been doing that for as long as we’ve existed. I wouldn’t expect any publication, but I’d say do it for fun. It’s what I end up doing most of the time anyhow.

Japanese comics always have some sort of fun or interesting premise that they gradually beat down into something incredibly boring and drab. I actually enjoy isekai, but they’re usually only fun for 1-10 chapters at most before they go complete shit.

Frankly, that’s what fan fiction should be; tuning up a story, rather than constant shipping or batshit crossovers.
 
Mnutu said:
I prefer calling that sort of fan fiction “tuning up” a story, rather than fixing. Fixing implies that the story is really broken and doesn’t work at all, whereas tuning it up is just adjusting elements of it to make it work better. Same series, different take. That’s 100% human nature too, been doing that for as long as we’ve existed. I wouldn’t expect any publication, but I’d say do it for fun. It’s what I end up doing most of the time anyhow.

Japanese comics always have some sort of fun or interesting premise that they gradually beat down into something incredibly boring and drab. I actually enjoy isekai, but they’re usually only fun for 1-10 chapters at most before they go complete shit.

Frankly, that’s what fan fiction should be; tuning up a story, rather than constant shipping or batshit crossovers.
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"Tuning-up" seems like a better term for sure.

I've only recently tried any "isekai" stuff, but the couple I've checked out were mostly good. Re:Zero was a slow burn but had legitimately interesting scenarios and mysteries, and the other was Konosuba which was just easy watching, very quick paced and funny but a bit repetitive.

Fan fiction, at its best, always seems to play it to safe and act as unofficial sequels. That's a little boring and predictable, and usually misses the mark (wrong tone, or inconsistent themes).
 
SSj_Ness said:
"Tuning-up" seems like a better term for sure.

I've only recently tried any "isekai" stuff, but the couple I've checked out were mostly good. Re:Zero was a slow burn but had legitimately interesting scenarios and mysteries, and the other was Konosuba which was just easy watching, very quick paced and funny but a bit repetitive.

Fan fiction, at its best, always seems to play it to safe and act as unofficial sequels. That's a little boring and predictable, and usually misses the mark (wrong tone, or inconsistent themes).
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Tone and theme are the second and third casualties in any fan fiction, after characterization. Too many people focus on the first problem, and almost consciously degrade tone and theme as being “irrelevant” or easy to fix after correcting characterization. I’d say it’s ass backwards, a good tone can make a work with weak themes or bad characterization seem worthwhile, and nailing the theme can really put a fanfic on a whole other level. These three work together, but because no one really works that it falls a part.

To try to tie it back to the topic, world building is an important factor in all three aspects, but those should be front and center. It’s just depressing to see how many people degrade theme. I had a conversation with a young sperg about something similar not too long ago. He was complaining that Korra was shit because the plot and story was just terrible. I pointed out that it’s real problem was the theme and tone was terrible, that those should take priority over plot. He couldn’t understand that, and went so far as to say that theme was shitty without a strong plot. It was an exhausting and depressing conversation.
 
I actually think you want some random bullshit in your world. For example you want your readers to want to go to Valyria or Asshai even if you never actually go there, and you have the option of going there if you change your mind or want to do another series in the same world. You can have people theorize about something instead of telegraphing your motives.
 
I mostly just take inspiration from history and world cultures, hold on to the stuff I like, skim off the stuff I don't like and throw in my own material. I don't like using myths all that much cause fiction tends to be a lot less believable yet paradoxically less absurd than actual history.
 
Something Terry Pratchett did was to start out by taking typical fantasy tropes and asking awkward questions. For instance, he took Tolkien-style dwarves and asked questions like, if male and female dwarves are outwardly identical, what would their equivalent of gender politics look like? If there’s a Thieves’ Guild, what does that say about the criminal justice system in this state? How could a reptile breathe fire? Why don’t wizards solve everyone’s problems? As a result, what started out as a fantasy parody became a vividly-realised world in its own right.

I think looking into the implications of the way your world differs from ours is a good way to add depth.
 
There are two types of worldbuilding in any works. First is the worldbuilding to help pad the story and the world to feel believable. This is the type where the story is the focus and the worldbuilding is just a bonus. Your usual stuff.

Next is where the worldbuilding itself is the focus. Instead of the story and character being the main appeal of the work, its the world that sold the audience to buy it. Its quite rare, since not many people want to buy into a fictional world without any sort of attachment to it. And since the process of building a world that not only believable, but also full of detail that its almost life-like is very hard, not many people can do it.

To do the first type, its quite simple. First write the plot points and basic narrative of your story first. What kind of genre do you want to use? What kind of story? What kind of characters and setting. Once you've finalized that, you then need to pad the work with "useless" details about the world. Something that can explain the story and characters motivation, plot, motives, and twist. Often times by doing so, you can find the flaw of your plot and/or characters, and then revise them

The second type is very different, and often times is a very garagantuan task to do. The easiest and perhaps the most common way to do it is by isolating the "world" you want to create into just a certain region. That way you can minimize the work you needed to create cultures, history, language, and so on. An example of this method are the campaign setting books of TTRPG (my personal suggestion is Interspecies Reviewers, however)

Note again, however, that the most important things of worldbuilding are: Inventions, Completeness, and Consistency. Basically new things that is still familiar to your readers/audience, details that are not too much but also not half-assed, and consistency or how you just can't change things in just a page or so
Usually people are struggling with the Completeness and Consistency parts, especially Consistency
 
depends on what kind of story i am building. if it's set in the past (1800's and below) i try to think what is there for people in this area to come live together, good water, soil, etc, etc. then i usually work on what kind of government and system these people have, and why. let it be because their god, personal beliefs, or a power struggle. then i work on what the normal person here is.
 
one of the biggest pet peeves I have in world building is that there is always mutual intelligibility between different cultures. there's never a time where someone enters a new country and doesn't understand the natives, no need for translators, and characters from vastly different cultures can easily talk to each other like there's no problem. In reality, even within countries there was a good chance a person living 50 miles away could speak a dialect completely unintelligible from your own.
 
Make sure you don't make everything too logical. People have a habit of hyper-rationalising everything, but in real life people do dumb stuff that doesn't make sense and/or that is out of character. You need to make sure there's some amount of people doing dumb stuff that doesn't make sense.
 
soy_king said:
one of the biggest pet peeves I have in world building is that there is always mutual intelligibility between different cultures. there's never a time where someone enters a new country and doesn't understand the natives, no need for translators, and characters from vastly different cultures can easily talk to each other like there's no problem. In reality, even within countries there was a good chance a person living 50 miles away could speak a dialect completely unintelligible from your own.
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This right here is why I appreciate fantasy authors who at least mention characters having specific sounding acccents (for example, a person from a northern region puts less emphasis on vowels compared to someone in the south- but someone from the west tries to keep the vowels ‘balanced’ while the easterner just doesn’t acknowledge them in speech).

I also want to add that there’s usually a difference between a kingdom and an empire. A kingdom is usually a sovereign nation ruled by a king while an empire consists of multiple kingdoms led by an emperor; a person who a king within an empire would answer to.

Empires also were “united but different” in the sense that the individual kingdoms benefitted from having access to a large army while (most times) still maintaining their cultural identity ans customs so long as it’s somewhat compatible with the rest of the empire.

It doesn’t always work out in real life, or maybe it does in the fantasy world because there are deities at work in this case who ensure the emperor nor kings cannot oppress the people? Or maybe the Emperors/Kings are literal gods, but with some kind of limit? Could be interesting.

Also, I mentioned in another thread that if you’re going for fantasy then maybe have fantastical creatures be on the list of domesticated animals. Wyverns, hippogriffs and any other winged flying steed could add avenues to different cultural customs.

There is also fashion to consider in workd building. Do the people like simple yet elegant clothes or do they go ham with intricate designs?

Obviously don’t make it into a tangent that readers will skip. Sum it up in two sentences or less
 
Aight, generally I start with a base idea. Normally, this is things that I have lifted from other places.

As an author, you know damn well theres no such thing as an original idea. What we do now is more our own unique autistic takes on what someone has done before, probably better. So, lift those ideas, but don't make it too noticeable. Mostly, I go more for themes than a one to one lift, generally taking the core idea of what I want, and then warping it to actually fit in with the world I want to make. So, I want a robot army, and I like the Vex from destiny. But I don't need radiolarian, or the timetravel, and I think that the look of the Vex is fake and gay.

Make the robots drones, add in some heavy support, and an overarching machine intelligence. Add more as I go along.

Spreadsheets help.

The key to being an author is that you need to know everything. Basically, if it affects the story, you need to know it.

However, if you try to put that everything in the story, your gay and retarded enough to deserve a thread. Think of world building like an iceberg, if your on the surface like a reader would be, you should only ever see that tip poking out above the waves.

You can also thing of successful worldbuilding like a series of webs. At the very heart of the web is the story. And each time an aspect of the worldbuilding intersects the story, it makes it own micro-web of ideas branching off. The reader should only see some of these ideas, not all. What you are looking to do here is to create the illusion of a real, breathing world, not an actual breathing world. Where you can, leave things shrouded in mystery so as not to waste the readers time with unnecessary shit, but at the same time, make sure that the readers understand something is there. In the real world, people go through their days all the time and find things that they don't understand. You have the answers for your reader if they ask, but otherwise, they don't need to know.

Research is key. Seeing how other people have done this via history, or how other authors have done this is both valid methods. The internet is out there, use it.

If there are things that I like to focus on, its probably logistics.

I actually went into the stock market and used one of those tree graphs that divided every industry in the world up and conveniently labeled them. This gave me basically all the categories my budding civilizations needed to be successful. Taking these categories and putting them in a list, I went through them one by one, answering the questions that they raised as I went along. As I did this, I also considered natural advantages and disadvantages. If you have say, infinite clean energy, then there is going to be more electrical cars than there is petro-fuels so long as the grid can handle it. However, further out, where there is no grid, you might have petro-cars. This naturally makes a divide between the people who have reliable acecess to the extensive grid, and the people who don't. These fracture points are places you can make distinct subcultures around: IE, the smooth, polished city slickers, and the hicks in the country.

Things like rivers are going to change the trade routes of a country. More goods going by boat than by truck for example.

Cities tend to be industrial centers. Raw materials flow into them, finished products come out. This means that for each city, you should have a web of small towns that supply the city with the resources.

Stuff like this is useful for when you write wars and conflicts because you understand where the enemy could hit to do damage. They don't actually have to bomb london-town, they can just have their tanks roll Shit-ville and suddenly London-town doesn't have the raw iron ore they need to make swords. Or they can embargo the trade route between London-town and Shit-ville.

Figuring out the logistics of a place gives you a real insight of what the culture you are trying to make is going to consider important. If they are smack dab in the middle of an ugly desert, then you are probably going to see lumber as a luxury item. Really nice lumber would be to domain of rich guys and nobles. If they are by a river, they are probably going to have a bunch of river dieties, and the river is going to have a place of religious importance because of how vital it is to everyones survival. If they are in the land of japan, with really shitty iron, they are going to have Damascus steel to get those impurities out.

This gives you alot of really small, but really useful tidbits for you to just drop in wherever you want. Its small stuff like this that makes a world really feel alive.
 
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