Making a World

First off, sorry for the radio silence, helping get my new roomie settled in was a little more complicated than expected… but oh so well worth it. We have the most AWESOME APARTMENT EVER! We’ll post pics soon.

Anyways…

One of my weaknesses as a writer is world building. I have a really time imagining an epic spanning world, which breaks my heart because fantasy… in epic worlds… is one of my favorite genres and is something I’d love to write. But when it comes to do it, I end up with a generic ‘fantasy, medieval’ style village…

You mean not all fantasy worlds have to look like this?

That’s not to say that I don’t like fantasy worlds that have castles and towns that look just like I’d imagined… but I love my fantasy worlds that have nit-picky little details about the world. This is a more than a backdrop for the story; this is a living, breathing world that changes around the characters. These are the worlds that stick with you for hours after you’ve put down a book; the world that you want to live in.

That’s the kind of world I want to create, but how do you even begin to do that? I think about all the complexities of the world that I live in and cannot imagine trying to put together all of that detail. BUT, I’m determined to do it. Fantasy has always been my passion and I’m ready to jump back into that pool.

One of the very, very best, most extensive sources I’ve found for help on this is here. It’s almost 53 pages of just questions to think about when building a world. It’s amazingly detailed and has already made me feel a lot more confident about being able to create a believable world.

What do you do to work on world-building? How do you go about it? Give me some words of wisdom!