Introducing Worldbuilding For Writers

I'm excited to announce a new blog series: "Worldbuilding for Writers, Gamers and Other Creators." Every Wednesday — Worldbuilding Wednesday, if you will — I'll present a step-by-step guide to creating your own realistic, Earthlike planet for use as a core setting in the storyworld for your book, game, movie, transmedia experience, or other creative endeavor.

I'm going to attempt to cover everything, and I'll be using the "top down" approach: starting with the wide view and allowing each macro topic to lead to closer examination of related topics. That means we'll be starting not with the creation of the world… our worldbuilding will begin with the star your planet orbits.

Yes, there will be math. It scares me, too… but the math required is more basic than you might expect, and there are lots of tools and offboard brains (it's that Internet thing you're soaking in…) to help us in that regard, so how bad could it be?

My aim, more often than not, is to show how to build a world that obeys the laws of physics and is in line with our most current science. As we select an appropriate star, muse on the size, mass, and orbit of your world, its geography, climate, weather, biomes and habitats for life (including the sentient variety!) and more, I'll use my own storyworld setting, The Shaper's World, to provide examples. Together, we'll share resources and information to make this series a dynamic repository of worldbuilding knowledge.

Throughout, it's my intention to keep a big part of the focus on how and why a realistic and internally consistent setting is critical to the success of your storyworld, whether you're a writer, role playing gamer, video game designer or some other variety of storyteller.

Next up: Selecting A Star. See you next week!

Matthew Wayne Selznick - Telling stories with words, music, pictures and people.