Rants about Worldbuilding

 

 

 

Who cares?

That was my main thought while reading this. I see a lot of worldbuilding articles who do checklists saying, "how's your world do this or that?" Who knows, who cares, who wants to care.

"How do they get their water?" Well, I had assumed from their planet.

"What do they eat?" Food, usually.

"How do they transport resources?" Maybe they don't, they just sit and eat.

Anyway, so I'm just gonna tell you what I think. The best way to fulfill your questions is to have a world the people like to live in.

These people care about art. Your peoples care about their traditions, even if they hate said traditions. People care about politics.

I very rarely sit down and ask questions, but here's what we know about Wysdom (Empire of N:Era):

Transportation.

-Teleportation is a method of transport. Particularly from Sunnyvilla, Sandrun, and Luxworth to Sumhyr's Meadow. However, teleportation is very specific and has to be maintained by coders.

-Trains are a more common method of transport of peoples and perhaps supplies, meaning that trains are easier to move around and require less maintenance.

-That ain't even getting on about boats.

I answered all of those questions without ever even asking them. I just did what I thought was a good and asked how people worked.

About cultural festivities, we know they celebrate birthdays. Perhaps in a later story, two characters will get married and we'll see a marriage ceremony. Do we need to know how marriage works in this world right now? No. There's nothing of value. I really doubt anyone's gonna go at the end of Fangs of Liberty, "Hm, but what about marriage?" I'll answer All Lover's Day in my comic, where we see the girls already have different opinions - some are more dismissive than others.

If you wanna answer how toy production in your world works, go ahead. But don't just randomly start ranting about, "In those days, those distant days, in those nights, those ancient nights, we just threw play-doh at kids."

I guess, basically, if you're asking about the trade routes of your story, you should be asking about your characters going through those trade routes.

Maybe characters need to sneak into a forbidden kingdom. Then they might figure out that hunters usually operate just slightly beyond, and so characters lay down in a blanketed wagon right next a butchered deer.

Maybe a character comes from another culture. Not necessarily country. They might even come from around the block.

Have a character who goes to school.

Diversity really helps here. Characters who are different ages helps you figure out how each of those ages interplay with each other. Characters of different professions. Actually, not all your characters are just adventurers, what are their professions, what are their hobbies?

Worldbuilding, Character, Plot, all interplay. If you want a good worldbuilding, you need to have characters who want to be in that world and a plot who explores that world.

Sometimes good worldbuilding can also come from you having to figure out a plot issue. Perhaps your world has clerics but you don't want someone healing from injuries. Maybe bring up how as healing is from the gods, maybe sometimes the gods want someone to peacefully die, or have determined this is that person's last day. And then you can talk about whether that cleric can peacefully accept this, knowing that is their deity's will, or maybe they proclaim that to be bull-ish, and start praying to another god just so they can bring their friend back.

Maybe you realize that during a feast scene, they're clearly eating meat but all your characters are literally rabbits and foxes and hyenas and wolves. Who's lunch? Maybe birds or fish are allowed on the menu or some other beings that have no sentience. Maybe the rabbits are like halflings from Dark Sun and they're just freakin' cannibals.

Maybe instead of killing off the villain, you can use him later, and also simultaneously explore the justice system.

I started off by asking "who cares"? Well... really... who cares?

Next: An intro to trade... maybe. I dunno.