Tips and tricks for new authors

Organizing: World building

World building

Okay, so you have your initial idea,you've done your research and made up your characters. Now, you need a world for those characters to live in and you need to apply your research to your initial idea. How? Well, lets start with where you are in the story. Does it take place in a kingdom, town, city, country, ect.? Okay, then name it. Does your story take place on earth or somewhere else entirely?

On earth, find where on a map and look at the countries involved. Now, are you writing speculative fiction or are you giving a historical account? These things are important to know. Speculative allows you freedom, for example: Lets say you are writing about the Elizabethan Era, but Queen Elizabeth is not the ruler. Okay, who is? What happened differently that changed the tides of history? Historical fiction takes place sometime in the past, notably with some sort of recognizable event that actually happened in history, like say, the black plague. Now, why is this important? Well because if its historical, you must use a setting in or around an already established place. If speculative, you can change the name of whatever as long as you mention what it was before. Ex: After King Jeff overthrew King Henry the (whatever number), he renamed the once great country of England, Jeffland.

Don't forget, you need back story. So if Jeff overthrew King Henry, what did he change, what happened that was so important that it shook the country into submission?

A different place entirely? Well, What is the name of your world? How many kingdoms reside inside of this world that matter? Who rules them? Do some hate the others? Why? Any cool wars or critical events happen there in the past or are they still happening? Who used to rule? Are they important? Does your world have a religion? Who do they worship? Are there fanatics? Are there creatures that are mystical and important? What are they, what do they represent and what do they add? Races; Are there Humans, Elves, Dwarves, demons, angels, aliens, cat girls, what? Figure this out before hand so you can write better after. Fantasy depends on great world settings, societal and political ties between kingdoms, the people, the creatures, the lore. It may sound overwhelming, but if you want to make an entire world, you have to do just that.