forum How much worldbuilding? is too much worldbuilding

Started January 04, 2019 by @Va_Vanilla

tune

I've found myself constantly creating more aspects to my universe rather than actually writing it. Any tips on what motivates you to write?

Stick with what you're good at writing. Or what you like.
Write for yourself rather than to please.

the best book series ever, aka LOTR, has insane amounts of wordbuilding in it.
do what you want. itll be awesome.

Right. LoTR has insane amounts of history put into each character and their grandfather's grandfather… It's actually quite good.

I think the general rule of thumb (that, at least, I follow), is this:

There can never be too much worldbuilding, but there can be too much worldbuilding jammed into your story. Even in LOTR, you don't have worldbuilding jammed down your throat from the get-go – it's a cohesive world (built before writing), but it's slowly revealed as the plot necessitates. Having it built ahead of time avoids a lot of headaches for the writer, but IMO it should be seen as a tool for engulfing a reader in that world, not just dumping worldbuilding docs onto the reader as a story in itself. :)

I like to build worlds and tell stories about the people/places in that world. When your stories live in your world (instead of your world being your story), I don't think any amount of worldbuilding is too much worldbuilding.