forum How to start worldbuilding?

Started October 20, 2020 by @CryingPluto

tune

I have tons of ideas in my head, and I want to build a world with them, but I have no idea where or how to start. Any help and tips would be appreciated!!

Personally I would start with the creation of said world, move up to how races and species came to be, add some influential events, then get to your main story!

For world building I usually start with the basics and then move up from there. I usually will start with a concept (like if I have a certain place or time period that I want to draw inspiration from). So think stuff like what are the borders? Are there any? What are the physical features of the world (deserts, mountains, lakes rivers, etc).
Once I have that I can start focussing on stuff like the people, culture, and the history.

It's kind of like creating a character. Idk about you but I usually start with like a name, appearance and basic info and not stuff like "He was really obsessed with dinosaurs when he was four." It's kind of the same with world building.

with mine, I started with my characters and where they are in the world, then I build the world around those central ideas and the main story. Ex, they live in magic land, but I know I want one character to be from normal land so I'll figure out how the two lands relate, the borders, etc. Same with religions, races, locations, pretty much everything.
This also keeps me from getting to deep into world building im not going to use. As much as I love coming up with super in-depth stuff, it doesn't matter if it's not going to be relevent or even revealed to the readers. I know this method probably wont work for everyone, but it's what I use.

Also, start with basic broad strokes, then go into details so everything fits together. It's great to have details, but if they contradict eachother it wont work. Plus it's hard to go into details with pieces missing. Like if you had a race that worships a certain deity, you can't go super deep into that without the deity existing, or the land they live in, the language, etc.