How much world building do you do?

NINA28

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Hey!
Even though I do write Fantasy/dystopian I put more effort into my characters and plot than I do setting. I tend to work out the details I need to get my plot and to create (hopefully) no holes. Then I just write it and add the details once my book is completed. I think fantasy writers can become bogged down with world-building. Then they see all this work they did and they're only adding in 10% into the story so then they try to add more of their beautiful world-building and you spend more time reading about how a community disposes of it's waste than you do about a character's life or struggles.
 

Dan Rhys

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I do no world building per se. I describe only what seems immediately relevant to the main character's present situation in order to keep the focus on the story.
 

Rojack79

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I'm a bit of both in the plotting/pantsing department. I'll usually start out with a simple idea and then blow it up with as much research as I can, just so I don't end up making a fool of myself, and then I do a sparse outline from the beginning of the book to the end. Then I write. If the story deviates from the outline a little bit I make a note of it and follow the new train of thought seeing where it will take me. Never know what little things can have the biggest impact in a story.
 

Barbara R.

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I'm just curious as to how much worldbuilding you guys do before you start writing. Do you work out all the intricacies and details before you start? Or do you add things as you go along? I've noticed that a most of the time I just go in with the basic ideas and characters and flesh out the world around them as I write, essentially ab libbing. What's your method?

That's a great question, and I'd like to put it to God. My sense is that he's a pantser.
 

Cephus

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I'm a complete plotter, I know everything about a story before I write the first word. I know as much about my world as I need to know to put the current story down on paper. That doesn't mean I may not make discoveries along the way, but the general nuts and bolts are known and I fill in the rest along the way when I need to know it.
 

kujo_jotaro

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I was also used to developing the world as I went along.

Most recently though I decided to change it up and have a strict plan about how the story would pan out from the beginning because I felt like my other manuscripts were maybe coming out looking like a hot mess. I found having a step-by-step plot made things a bit easier to write, then I did a few mind maps for each scene beforehand and tried to have vague descriptions of how things would look/work. Although for me personally it made the process a little boring in some spots, since I already knew what'd happen, I think its helped me craft a much richer story on the whole.

But yeah, any plans you have in advance probably work better as templates to follow as opposed to feeling too boxed in if you think of something better along the way.
 

Biffington

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My worlds come off the top of my head. They're easy as dirt for me to make, modify, all that stuff. Mostly I follow the rule of logic. First off, what cool idea do I have? What is the simplest way to change the world to pull it off? What are all the after-effects of that, and how can they mess up the cool idea? (Messing up the cool idea is just as important as having it. Otherwise you get a Mary Sue instead of a conflicted, vulnerable heroine.) This usually doesn't take much work, if you focus only on the big picture things.

At that point, the outline almost writes itself, based on cause and effect.

It's a lot easier to do this writing genre fiction than literary fiction, of course. I pity people trying to write literary fiction. I don't look down on them, but I see just how hard their job is.
 

Roxxsmom

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I tend to wing it, except in stories where moving around in the world is a thing, I do like to create at least a crude map. It help with knowing how long it would take to get somewhere etc. Elements that are major drivers of the story are also things I may set aside the story and spend some time on. For instance, if a story centers around political intrigue, I do need to have a sense of how politics works in that world.

It's a challenging balance, because it's easy to get too "sidetracked" by world building and to fall down a rabbit hole. But if I ignore a world building detail and try to write through it, I can get "stuck" not knowing what a character should, would, or could plausibly do next.
 

Dave.C.Robinson

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I write it as I go along, but do keep notes on my world and characters so I can refer back to what's happened in the past and make sure that characters don't change height or age in the middle of the story.

I did end up doing up a more cohesive "Bible" for my world but that only came out when I licensed the IP to an RPG publisher for a setting guide.
 

lizmonster

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Learn the mechanics of writing and hone your storytelling skill by writing. Beyond that, things like "write every day", "write what you know", "story A must be X words long", and "Plotter vs panster" are obstacles to creativity. Good writers create when they are inspired and utilize whichever techniques work best for them and the current story.

As stated, this paragraph seems to present contradictory ideas. Either the stated suggestions are obstacles to creativity, or they're used by good writers as appropriate for each work. I've certainly adhered to all four of those rules at various times, with success.

I suppose I don't think of worldbuilding as a particularly unusual storytelling element. Character, plot, and worldbuilding are all kind of an intertwined mash in my head, with character being the least malleable of the three. The first thing I learn about a story is the journey my characters need to take; plot and worldbuilding are created around that journey, and are always subordinate to it.
 

lizmonster

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Plan what needs to be planned to maintain continuity while leaving it open enough for new ideas to flow. I have mapped and even 3D modeled locations, but then let my characters exist in those locations organically.

Happy?

As I haven't read your work I can't attest to my happiness over it, but your methodology sounds interesting and I'm glad you shared it. It might resonate with others as well.
 

amergina

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Let's not get tetchy over worldbuilding, eh? Too much going on in the real world to deal with noses out of shape. Different techniques work for different people.

As for the question of how *much* worldbuilding, it's really the same answer as how long should a piece of string be.

The major pitfall to worldbuilding I see is spending too much time building the world or researching or things like that, and not enough time writing the story. (And I am currently looking at myself in the mirror.)
 

Kjbartolotta

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I currently have one setting that's all worldbuilding no novel (might release the guide someday, but it's mostly just for fun and relaxation), and another that's all novel no worldbuilding. It's actually been working for me.
 

be frank

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Too much going on in the real world

Honestly, whoever did the real world's worldbuilding sucks at it. Totally unrealistic drivel.

The major pitfall to worldbuilding I see is spending too much time building the world or researching or things like that, and not enough time writing the story.

^^ This x1000
 

kwanzaabot

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A lot of my worldbuilding is as I'm writing.
For example if I'm writing a character from a certain, made-up culture, and I need to decide what they would call something, or how they'd react to something. Do they know about this world? What do they just accept as normal and talk about without explanation, and what needs explaining? What time of year is it, and what does that mean for them? What are they wearing, how is their hair styled? What do they eat? What kingdoms neighbor them, what are their relationships with them?

I can plan for everything that I decide is important before I put finger to keyboard, but once I'm in the thick of it, there's always something new I need to worldbuild.
 

The Black Prince

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This subject seems to come up a bit...at least the plotting/pantsing part.

I've only once done what I'd really call serious world-building prior to prose generation. That world building included essays on the nature of society and its overt/covert conflicts. Essays on major characters and how they plugged into the world, and even essays on the prevailing ideologies.

I wouldn't say much of that was consciously used in the novel but a great deal was unconsciously used. I like to think that made the novel and its world feel real.

Although I write a lot of spec fic, most of my stuff starts off in the here and now so doesn't need much world building until it starts to get a bit far out...which it usually does.
 

AwP_writer

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I do ALL the worldbuilding. When GRR Martin asks something like "Tolkien can say that Aragorn became king and reigned for a hundred years, and he was wise and good. But Tolkien doesn’t ask the question: What was Aragorn’s tax policy? Did he maintain a standing army? What did he do in times of flood and famine?" , I have answers to those questions. After a certain point, questions you may have about a culture just answer themselves because you have such understanding of how they work.

The major pitfall to worldbuilding I see is spending too much time building the world or researching or things like that, and not enough time writing the story. (And I am currently looking at myself in the mirror.)

Yes... This is true.
 

LadyRedRover

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It depends on the project.

My first two novels had minimal world-building, which worked fine for one and caused complications with the other. The current project I'm working on has more in-depth world-building because the culture of the world is intrinsically tied to character and plot. My plan is to use the World-Building Leviathan to 'draft' my world-building while I write because I like the feeling of discovery but know that I'll need to have a definite vision of the world by the end of the draft. Plus, having daily exercises forces me to think about the world and how it affects character and plot before my writing each day. I'll keep doing that until I feel I have a firm grasp of my world, however long that process takes.

I also think my approach to world-building has changed as I've developed my writing process. I wrote the two previous novels over two years ago. Since then, I've learned more about how culture affects the people living in it and have been a Dungeon Master for a group who didn't want cookie-cutter medieval Europe settings to play in. Those things-- curiosity/learning about culture and having real people play in a make-believe world-- made me more aware of world-building and my current writing reflects that awareness which is pretty cool, imo.
 

DeleyanLee

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Someone mentioned LeGuin--truly a master worldbuilder. I read one of the essays many moons ago (can't remember which one it was anymore) where she mentioned that she can create stuff on the fly because she has the "world feel" (my phrase) so firmly in her mind, she knows instantly what works and what doesn't. I've used that philosophy as my goal for years now. For the most part, worldbuilding is obvious to me as I'm going along, but I do have to do have to do the work to nail down that "world feel" before writing word one.

That said, I'm presently writing a Fantasy series where magic is a natural force like gravity and electro-magnetism, so it's integrated into the world differently than I've worked with magic before. Because of this, I've spend a great deal of time figuring it how, how individual spells and abilities actually would (and can't) work here. It's the most work I've ever put into a magic series, but it's showing me options for how planned scenes will play out (oh so much better than originally envisioned), so I can't say that I'm regretting the effort.
 

dickson

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I tend to improvise my world to meet the needs of the story, neither of which starts out especially well-formed. They evolve symbiotically. My worlds are what you might call notional, in that they are at best lightly backstopped by information the reader never sees. There's a bit of that kind of scaffolding, but too much of that and things can go down a rabbit hole.
 

suzannelen

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Given I have a 50,000 word scrivener on my world I would personally say far too much. I get very distracted by minute things that no one really cares about other than me. On the plus side I now have a detailed world where I can write multiple stories from - some connected, some independent. From now on whilst i'm outlining my novel (and future novels) I'm really trying to avoid any further world building unless absolutely necessary.

Leigh Bardugo (at a book signing I went to last year) and Brandon Sanderson (on his youtube lectures on the subject of worldbuilding - i highly recommend these if you haven't watched already) both warn about the dangers of 'world building disease' for fantasy/SF writers and if you're anything like me I do think you have to be very careful not to let world building distract you from developing characters, plot and actually writing.
 

Drascus

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When it comes to plot, I'm a huge plotter; I even use detailed chapter outlines. For worldbuilding, I'm a pantster. It's a weird dynamic. I usually have a main idea of the worldbuilding and then change it and layer it over subsequent drafts. Klope3, I really like the idea of having categories and details for each category. I feel like that can really organize the worldbuilding, especially when a person starts writing. I keep trying to find ways to streamline my process since I'm a slow writer. I find outlining the plot beforehand is helpful for me in cutting down the amount of rewriting I do. Everyone's process is so different.

I try not to do too much worldbuilding. I think my process is similar, though I don't have quite as detailed an outline. I do some basic worldbuilding, what will the overall culture be like, races / species, etc. Just very broad strokes so I have something to work with.

Then as I'm working through my outline I try to identify what else I might need to know. Those bits get some up-front work but again, broad strokes. Everything else will get filled in as needed when I'm writing. It works pretty well for time efficiency and flexibility in my writing. I never find myself constrained by something in my worldbuilding when I'm writing.

On the other hand it does sometimes knock me out of 'flow', when I run into something that I realize needs more detail and I have to stop writing to figure out how that bit of the world works.
 

Cephus

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Given I have a 50,000 word scrivener on my world I would personally say far too much. I get very distracted by minute things that no one really cares about other than me. On the plus side I now have a detailed world where I can write multiple stories from - some connected, some independent. From now on whilst i'm outlining my novel (and future novels) I'm really trying to avoid any further world building unless absolutely necessary.

That's nothing. My main writing world has at least 500 pages of world building, including a detailed 4000-year history of multiple empires. Of course, I've been working on it since the 80s and it's nothing that gets in the way of actually writing, but as I add more through writing, it gets included to the overall tome. I really do need to make a wiki.

Leigh Bardugo (at a book signing I went to last year) and Brandon Sanderson (on his youtube lectures on the subject of worldbuilding - i highly recommend these if you haven't watched already) both warn about the dangers of 'world building disease' for fantasy/SF writers and if you're anything like me I do think you have to be very careful not to let world building distract you from developing characters, plot and actually writing.

It's only a danger if it gets in the way of getting things done, when you world-build rather than write. Distractions are everywhere if you allow them to interfere.