The insomniac and OCD

Well, you have to start writing at some point. That's all there is to it.

You're going to create more material than you need. Most writers who bother with worldbuilding only put in a small subset of the details they create.

Some people are natural worldbuilders, and they don't have much interest in telling stories. Such people can make money creating game settings. They might consider working at Wizards of the Coast or Games Workshop or something like that.

Once you set up an interesting situation (a law of magic, the way magic effects society, some event in history, w/e), combine that with a character and build a story. It might just be a short tale, or an epic trilogy (heh). But start writing. Ideas are important, but the craft of writing can be very difficult at first.

And you don't have to stop. 75% of my world building occurred as my characters moved further in the world I'd created. I thought I'd had it all sussed, but nope, there was more! Dynamics are important to world/character building. Throw in some tension and conflict, and keep rolling forward. Next thing you know you've got plot and a story to get out of your head and onto the page.
And then you can discover the horrors and joys of editing.

I have OCD myself so I know all about that kind of thing. I could spend forever just typing up character bios, timelines, descriptions of locations, etc. But I don't, because that keeps me from getting the actual writing done. (Plus I've found that, if I try to make up such things first and then write, the story often informs me that I've gotten a lot of details in the profiles wrong, so the best way for me to learn about my stories is to write them first. Similar to what Bahamutchild said, learning during the actual writing.)

Organization is a good thing if it helps you finish something, but if it keeps you from actually getting something concrete done, whether that be writing or anything else, then it's a bad thing. Where the line between the two is, you have to find for yourself.

MentalChaos said:

Due to both of my wonderful conditions that I have grown to adore, I find myself doing almost more organizing than writing. I have spent countless sleepless nights creating tables and formatiing Characters, Locations, Timelines, etc ...
So here it is, the BIG question: how much is enough!? I seriouly don't think I can stop, but perhaps the other fish in this sea can help me.

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This isn't OCD... It's a specific chronic condition that occurs amongst fantasy and sci fi writers, most notably among those who also spent significant time playing roleplaying games.

Worldbuilding is *fun.*
Writing (writing well, that is) is *hard*

It is a natural process of the brain to want to do fun things over hard things (read Anthony Robbins book Awaken the Giant Within for some interesting ways of changing how your brain associates pain/pleasure with various tasks you want to do/not do).

Since worldbuilding happens on paper, your "this is fun and the other stuff is hard" part of your brain convinces the rest of the committee that what you're doing is actually a part of the writing process.

How to fix this? At the point you have enough information to write your story, start writing. At the point you're just building backstory and color, go write. The trick is to remember that writing is fun, too. It's just not always to convince your brain of this.

dclary said:

This isn't OCD... It's a specific chronic condition that occurs amongst fantasy and sci fi writers, most notably among those who also spent significant time playing roleplaying games.

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Preach it, Brother Deek.

That's when you usually find yourself owning every single sourcebook for that game...

With my current project, I did the opposite. I had the characters show up and do their thing and I had to build the world around them.

Mental: exactly what Baha said. Find a character in that world who has the story you want to tell. Write that story. Fill in details as you go along.

Ace, I did the same thing with my first novel. Nice to know I'm not the only one...

I avoid those types of details unless they are important/significant (or if a character is obsessed with seeing such details- that's POV filter, but even so, there are limits)

If the author can't keep it straight, why would the average reader

I've named one person's eye color and two dragons' scale patterns (actually the same dragon, but nvm that). A few characters have their hair color made an issue of, but that's it for little stuff. Other than that it's a limp, or a habit, or a typical look they give (one guy sneers a lot)

(As an aside, I did have a small plot point involving the combination of magic elements. My beta, bless her soul, pointed out that I'd switched the combo two pages later. The point is, little details can make a fool of you when you botch 'em up. Worry about the important stuff and let the little bits slide...)

(And yeah, I do keep a few tables, but I rarely need them. Character profiles? I tried and went Blagh. They can help, yes, but they aren't for me)

Does that help?