Worldbuilding: 3 Mottos to Fuel Your Creation

Like the main event itself, NaNo Prep is always better with an incredible writing community around you. Luckily, our forums come with such a ready-made community. We’ve asked Gwen Hicks, former intern, to scout out the Worldbuilding forum and report back with her findings:

Ah, worldbuilding. The breathtaking process of creating a place—a universe, a galaxy, a kingdom—all your own, concocting everything from languages to governments to geography to races to religions (and also probably dragons)… all for the express purpose of raining unmitigated destruction upon it by means of an epic, calamitous war!

Okay, I’m kidding. Worldbuilding can seem daunting at first—believe me, you’re looking at the Earth’s biggest worldbuilding-ophobe—but, really, be you planner or pantser, with a little Wrimo gumption, you’ll find it’s just as exciting as every other part of the whirlwind NaNo Prep process. And do you know what the best part is? After poking around the fantastic NaNo Worldbuilding forums, I’ve gathered three essential tips to get you started.

Look Outside.

No matter how fantastical your fictional world is, the one around you is your greatest resource. Sure, it may not (provably) have dragons, but it’s made up of facets that are probably so natural to you that you’ve never even paid attention. 

We fiction-writers can learn a lot from the Real World, because it’s mastered how to be one of the best things fiction can be: so naturally lived-in and breathing.

You’re Not Alone.

Use the NaNo worldbuilding forum with abandon. It is chock full of writers just like you who are there for you to lean on and brainstorm with, and they are brilliant, and bursting with questions you hadn’t even thought to ask. 

This thread

in particular—where you respond to a most recent poster’s worldbuilding thoughts, answer a question they’ve posed, and then ask one of your own—is already helping me! Some fantastic sample questions:

If people in your setting were to ask “where were you when… happened” what event would they be thinking of? Would it be different for different generations? (dreamingentity)What’s a large, dramatic, or otherwise noteworthy natural landmark in your story? (Xenomorph)Is there anything in your world that exists or happened, but is generally dismissed as myth? (SparrowNR)It’s Yours.

Don’t get so caught up worrying that your world is too similar to an already-existing one that you get discouraged. If it feels right for your story and your characters, then it probably is. Besides (and this is the NaNo mantra that has kept me going every year), you can always fine-tune it later. What matters now is the creation—the mad, beautiful creation—that drives all of us to shoot for that 50K in the first place.

It’s tough to impart “general wisdom” regarding worldbuilding, because maybe you’re inventing something—continents and history and all—completely from scratch, or maybe the maps you’re drawing will be star maps and Ganymede is a cultural melting pot, or maybe your backdrop is a modern-day Pompeii that was never devastated by a volcanic eruption. 

These endeavors require three very different approaches, but the focal point should ideally be the same: shaping something— some streets, some forests, some wide open skies—so inviting, so organic, that you and your readers and your characters can’t imagine being anywhere else. That’s what made Hogwarts so nice, right? From the very beginning, it was home.

Just like NaNo is to me.

All right, gross. Moving on.

Gwen(dolyn) Hicks was the NaNoWriMo Editorial Intern for the 2014 NaNo season and is now working at Copperfield’s Books, wearing sweaters and caring too much about comic books. She tries to act cool and jaded but is actually very sensitive and emotional, especially about the song “Bye Bye Li’l Sebastian.” She aspires to learn witchcraft and also earn an MFA in fiction from someplace crazy enough to accept her. You can find her on Twitter and Tumblr.

Top photo by Flickr user S3ISOR.