Bored? Inspired? Stuck? Fantasy World Builder to the rescue!
This little system I developed is used for creating fantasy worlds from scratch. Read over each category and write down in complete sentences on a Word or notebook your response about your world to the questions. Review what you’ve written. You’ve written a world.
The Basic World
Physics
- What type of fantasy will you create? Mainstream? High? Erotic? Elfpunk? Here’s a description of the types you’ll need to consider before deciding.
- Describe the laws of physics in your world. Are they a rip-off of this world or another? Are they like Paul Stewert’s Edge? This should work out with question one. If you’re making a Narnia-like world, you’ll probably have all these crazy gravitational and biological theories. If you’re making a fairy tale in general, you’ll have to put together a good pamphlet about this. However, if you’re writing about an alternative earth, or, maybe about earth itself, you can skip this question.
- How long ago, from where, why, and how did people get here? Did they originate here? Did they evolve? Were they made by the gods? Are there people at all?? Are you writing another Ga’hoole series?
- What is the population? Do people breed like rodents? Do they even breed at all? How are people created, how many are there currently?
- What is the water/earth ratio?
- How many moons does your world have? Suns? Rings? How does this effect it? If there’s more than one sun, how long and how frequent are nights? Are they feared? If your world has moons, how does this effect the tides? The people? Do people live on the moons? How do they get there? What’s the view like? Are the races and laws of physics different here?
- Now use this list to come up with additional ways to alter normal things in your world.
Races
- How many races are there?
- Does each race symbolize a higher power? An element?
- Which races can use magic? Which can’t? Which to a certain extent and what is it?
- What geographical area does each race occupy? (Example: the dwarves live in mines, the elves live in forests, the orcs live in swamps, etc.)
- Do the people of each race live together? How big are their settlements? Why? Is it because they’re bigger than elephants and would attract too much attention? Is it because they’re really smelly and hate each other?
- What kind of culture does each race have? How is this effected by the geographical areas they inhabit? Do those that inhabit the dessert believe that gods will take away water of the people are mean to each other? Do elves believe in eternal nymphs that will make them stronger if they eat snails?
History
- How old is your world? Is it brand new? Are you writing of it’s creation?
- Make a few time lines following each race and it’s movement through the world, wars, rule, etc.
- How did previous laws and wars effect people’s behavior and thought? How does it show up in their dialogs?
- How much of history has been lost? You don’t have to tell your readers everything, but make sure that you yourself know everything about your world before you start.
Geography
- Make a map of your world. Decide how to create landmasses by your previous paragraph about physics. Go back and edit this as you go through the questions to suit what you write.
- Climate: What kind of climate will each place have? Make a key showing what symbols mean what type of climate.
- Economic: What natural resources will you find where? What magical artifacts are produced, mined, farmed or created where? What food is made where? Where are the mills? The blacksmiths? The butchers? The castles? If your world is based on consumable mana, where is it located?
- Political: What divides the boundary between the empires? Are these boundaries largely based on geography? Is it common for roads to follow rivers or mountains, or are they pencil-straight like in Rome?
- Biological: Where do what creatures live? This is a repeat, but it’s important that you have this stuff on your map and your essay. Make notations about where what kind of dragons live and where the major goblin tunnels are.
Note that you don’t have to include any of this in your story. It’s always good to have it when you’re writing, though.
I’ll be writing some follow-up articles with the next questions. Please subscribe to this page or bookmark for revisions.
EDIT: Lucky you. It’s finished.
