5 Benefits of Worldbuilding Challenges

In my last post before beginning my hiatus, I wanted to share something that would be relevant over the summer, so I’ve decided to talk about worldbuilding challenges–like World Anvil’s upcoming Summer Camp challenge.

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I’ve participated in various worldbuilding challenges over the years–mostly World Anvil‘s* various events and the worldbuilding week of my own Preptober Prompts event–and they’re always a lot of fun! In my case, they make an already enjoyable part of the process even more fun, but I believe that worldbuilding challenges have benefits even for those who aren’t so naturally disposed to enjoy worldbuilding, and today I want to talk about some of the benefits I’ve seen from such challenges!

Worldbuilding Challenges Stretch Your Skills

Some worldbuilding challenges–like World Anvil’s Summer Camp–encourage you to think about new elements of your world (or flesh out things you’ve already started to build), and some focus on strengthening your worldbuilding process and/or skills. In either case, they can be a great way to develop your worldbuilding skills, as even those that focus on developing new elements of your world can often focus on areas you might not have ventured very far into before!

You may find yourself learning more about how to develop certain elements (which will then pay off the next time you have to develop something similar), how to research certain things effectively, or how to tie in different elements that you haven’t had to tie together before.

And, of course, when a challenge is specifically focused on helping you grow in your worldbuilding skill or refine your process, the growth is even clearer.

Challenges Expose Gaps

When you participate in a worldbuilding challenge, you may find that some of the prompts are about things you’ve already fleshed out, but you’ll likely find that there are also of plenty of prompts that make you stop and think about things you’ve never considered before. Sometimes, these unexpected gaps are just for-fun areas–maybe even areas you’ve skipped on purpose–but you may also find from time to time that you’ve missed something that could add great clarity or color to your world!

Another great thing about worldbuilding challenges, though, is that they don’t only expose gaps; they also help you fill those gaps! Some challenges may offer more support in this area than others–there might be additional tips & tricks attached to various challenge prompts (like in my Worldbuilding Checklist mini-course), or you may have only a prompt to work with–but, at the very least, the challenge offers an opportunity to flesh out that new area, and focused time to do it in.

Challenges Add Fun to the Worldbuilding Process

Whether you’re already a fan of worldbuilding and want to have fun with it alongside others, or you find worldbuilding challenging and need encouragement to find the fun in it, worldbuilding challenges are great for adding fun to the worldbuilding process. (Plus, often, competition, for those who need a daring push to get into things.)

Worldbuilding challenges aren’t meant to be taken too seriously. If you’re feeling obligated to accomplish every challenge step and it’s no longer fun, take a step back and reframe it. Worldbuilding challenges are for fun. They’re meant to provide a break from your normal worldbuilding routine, challenge you to think outside the boxes you may be stuck in, and work on whatever prompts are fun for you. Nothing says you even have to keep everything you develop for a worldbuilding challenge!

When approached with a playful attitude, challenges are great for making the worldbuilding process fun and for encouraging community and collaboration around the craft!

Worldbuilding Challenges Provide a Break from the Norm

If your worldbuilding process has started to feel stale, a worldbuilding challenge might be just the thing you need to pump life back into it! Worldbuilding challenges offer something different–usually from outside your own brain, though you could also build your own worldbuilding challenge for yourself if you wanted to–and add new variety to the worldbuilding process (and sometimes to your world as a whole, depending on the prompts and how much they do or don’t line up with what you develop out of habit).

Worldbuilding challenges are great if you need a break from another part of the writing process, from your standard worldbuilding process, from a particular world, from a particular part of the world, etc.

Challenges Offer a Great Opportunity to Receive Feedback

Lastly, challenges are almost always community events, and many involve constructive and encouraging feedback as part of the fun. If you’re interested to know what parts of your world are most interesting or connect best with people, where your world could use further fleshing out, what readers want to know, etc., worldbuilding challenges are a great way to get that sort of feedback on your world.

This is particularly the case with World Anvil, as their events include live pages that collect “featured articles,” leaderboards, etc.; they make presenting your worldbuilding and receiving comments easy; and they encourage community feedback on “articles” submitted for events! (And for anyone nervous about getting such feedback, I’ll assure you that I’ve gotten several comments on articles over the years and it’s all been very positive, even where people have had critiques or suggested areas to flesh out.)

Interested in participating in worldbuilding challenges? World Anvil’s Summer Camp takes place in the month of July, so now is a great time to give World Anvil a test run*, if you haven’t already, and prepare to participate this summer! World Anvil also hosts a month-long worldbuilding challenge in December, plus various smaller challenges throughout the year.

If you’re interested in worldbuilding challenges with a smaller community, and/or challenges that focus on worldbuilding skills and process as well as prompts for developing your world itself, you should check out the Worldbuilders Guild! The Guild isn’t open yet, but it will be opening to the waitlist this fall (with a limited-time discount) and to everyone else (at full price) early next year. If you want to be an early part of the community and one of the first to start the journey to worldbuilding mastery, you should join the waitlist!

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