There’s nothing I love more than seeing how other people do the things I do. Like writing. Do they start with a character and work outwards from there, or do they think up a plot and fit characters inside it? To me, it’s helpful to understand what other people are doing so that I can improve my practice. And so, let me introduce Writing Resources as a blog series, gathering together some of my favourite bits and pieces that have helped me learn to be a better writer.
Today, I’m focusing on worldbuilding. It’s important for any story that the world, while not necessarily ‘real’ in our terms, feels real, and this is especially so in sci-fi and fantasy. I’ve gathered together five of my favourite spots on the internet that I go to when I’m obsessing over worldbuilding – hope you enjoy!
Artifexian (@Artifexian on Twitter)
If you’ve ever wanted to build as realistic a world as possible, Artifexian is for you. Take the videos about building a realistic climate as an example: there’s discussion of rainshadows, currents, and the placement of climate zones. It’s beautiful. There are also a number of videos where Artifexian has created helpful excel sheets to help viewers with some of the more complicated calculations – so much fun! I fully blame an Artifexian binge for the creation of the goddess Solzari in Shifting Sands.
Not gonna lie, the reason I first started watching Hello Future Me was less to do with worldbuilding and more to do with the fact they were talking about Avatar: the Last Airbender. I think that’s a strength of this youtube channel though – you get tips about writing alongside some great analysis of relevant examples. Their video about Fictional Histories is one of my favourite watches, as it looks at the many factors that can influence how your world’s history is viewed. A world with the ‘true’ history buried in different perspectives, time, and complications is much more fun than one with a simple a+b=c world.
I don’t just binge youtube for my worldbuilding resources – I also find blog posts! As with Hello Future Me, I’ve linked to the main page where all of the “rants” are gathered, but they cover a lot more than just worldbuilding. There’s so much in there about everything to do with creating stories that it’s easy to end up spiralling down the rabbit hole of this page. But, they have thankfully also been helpfully named to make it easy to find what you need. In writing Shifting Sands, for example, I skimmed through posts related to building fantasy worlds, (rant 5), cities (rants 286 and 287), and religion (rant 26). The rants are all based on someone’s opinion, so obviously it’s important to read them with a pinch of salt, but I find them useful to trigger ideas and to consider areas where I have perhaps been lazier than I meant to be.
Back to youtube (because this is who I am), James Tullos talks about way more than just worldbuilding, but I first found them through their worldbuilding analysis series. Ah, how I love to watch someone rant obsessively about small details in a story. They then set up a worldbuilding playlist, which is the one I linked above, so that they could talk more about how to actually worldbuild well. While a tad snarkier than Hello Future Me, and with less of a hard science exploration than Artifexian, Tullos makes some really interesting points through their videos. Given that the ruling religion in Shifting Sands is a key thing, I naturally was drawn to their video about Religion, but they also talk about empires, wars, and worldbuilding genres, like dystopias.
WIPWorldbuilders (@WIP_WB)
Twitter has many great writing games and authors who ask questions to help you develop your story, but #WIPWorldbuilders hosted by @pepperdaphoenix was the first I stumbled upon and my favourite for worldbuilding. The questions are well-considered, with themes running across the month, and there’s a good level of engagement from other writers. Even if not every question applies to you, it’s fun to think about why you have or haven’t included a particular element in your world. And, you know, to just play on Twitter for a while instead of doing what you should be…
Other
There are so many different ways to go about worldbuilding, with numerous resources to suit each preference, but probably the most important thing is to observe and learn about things from real life. For me, this usually comes in the form of documentaries or Youtube learning channels, usually history or culture based because this is who I am as a person. I’m not someone who lives in a desert area and, while I’ve visited such places, I don’t have a lived experience of day to day life. Especially not in early history, where a settled, agriculture-based existence is fairly new. Obsessively watching documentaries about the fertile crescent helped. And, you know, they let me embrace my love of learning about the history of writing (not gonna lie, I probably watched more documentaries about this than about early farming but I can’t help what I’m interested in!). But, depending on your world, you might also find it helpful to explore the city you live in (ala Pullman’s Oxford), or watch/read something that takes place in a world that inspires you. Basically, do lots of research and let it inspire you.
So, writers (and daydreamers), how do you worldbuild? And readers, what kind of world do you hope for when you pick up a new book?
