Dissecting World Building

            The creation of just about any fictional works – be it book, short story, movie, or game – begins with the world building. Certainly, some need less than others; a real world setting requires less than a fantasy setting, but world building still needs to be done to create a convincing world for any story to take place in. A world is a huge thing though – and the idea of building one can be daunting.

            So, how do you tackle building a world without investing years in it? Well, the first part is to remember that you don’t actually need to create a whole world – you just need to make enough of it to make it look like you have. Like the two-dimensional facades stereotypically used for movie sets, all you need is what the audience will see – plus a little bit extra to hint at so they think more had been done.

            Take characters, for example. Each character you intend to present needs to be well thought-out and designed to be realistic, but you only need to make the characters that will be part of the story. Creating the entire population of a city would be tedious an exhausting, so how do you make it seem like the rest of the world still exists? Throw in a few names, and references to events that take place outside the story. It could be as simple as a character commenting on a paper written by someone notable – you don’t have to worry about the identity of the person, or what the paper says, beyond what the commenter needs for their line. The details don’t matter – the fact that someone was given a name and did something noteworthy that has nothing to do with the story makes the world feel more real.

            The same works for places, and is even easier. Just make up a place name, like Drexa’s. The characters a talking, and someone comments on something that happened at Drexa’s, or perhaps suggest it as part of a list of places to go. The reader has no idea what the place it. A restaurant? A club? It doesn’t matter, because the characters know, and it makes the world feel bigger than it is.

            When world building, it’s important to keep to the essentials. What’s important to the story? What do you, as the writer, need to know to maintain consistency within the story? If you aren’t going to use it, don’t worrying about making it – all you need is a hint; enough to make the world seem like it has more depth.

            Of course, if you enjoy building the world and want to go ahead and flesh out every little detail, go ahead and do that, too! Just keep in mind that, if you start to get overwhelmed by the size of your creation, you can always step back and do less. There’s a reason for the saying, “Less is more.” If you ever find out you don’t have enough, you can always add more later – just make it one little piece at a time and, before you know it, you’ll have a healthy little world of your very own, ready for whatever use you put it to.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.