Hey guys, what's up? Welcome back to the channel. My name is Megan Tennant and
today we are talking about one of my absolute favorite things in the world,
the thing that I do when I should be writing or editing or any of the other
stages of writing, and that is world building.
Now before I go any further, huge shout out and thank you to Senita. Senita is
one of my patrons she has been a longtime supporter there from like the
beginning and on patreon there is a monthly suggestion box and she made the
request of a world building topic go check her out. I will link her channel in
the description down below as well has her Twitter. And if you want a video
dedicated to you patreon . Cloud Kitten Chronicles dot com slash......
Patreon.com/CloudKittenChronicles. I know how to word. You could be a fire kitten
a snow kitten, a lovely space kitten... No one's been brave enough to try that one
yet. On to the topic! World-building. Let's talk about it. So you guys probably
already know worldbuilding is hugely important. It can easily make or break a
sci-fi or fantasy book. Which is what I told myself when I spent months and
months and months world building. But I'm not too hard on myself because if
you look up reviews of Aletheia there is one praise that you will see
over and over again and that is the world-building. So you know don't world
build forever but if you go over for a couple months, you know, it doesn't hurt
that much. But this video is not about the argument of how much time should be
spent on world building because I cannot be trusted with that type of power. We're
gonna be covering the basics, because before I talk about the specifics of
economics or magic systems or how to use evolutionary knowledge to create a truly
unique species of flora or fauna for your alien planet... and I really want to
do that one and because of that I'm gonna put it off for months and months
cuz I'm never gonna feel like I've done the script justice and so it's probably
gonna be like a year before I do that specific video. But before I cover that
stuff I need to talk about the basics. First things first is where are you
gonna keep track of this stuff. Yeah I know not a super shiny question in the
treasure trove that is this topic but it's something that needs to be covered.
So you have a couple different choices. My personal favorite right now (what I'm
currently using) is world anvil. You could also just use
Google Docs, you could use Trello. Ooh yeah those last three I did videos on those.
I also did a video on how to do a serious Bible which covers some
alternate methods that I haven't experimented with yet. I'm just gonna
throw all of those videos into a playlist and then I just put the link to
the playlist down in the place... you know... But basically figure out what series
Bible method you want to use from the get-go so you don't end up spending
hours later transferring from whatever notepad sticky note type method you used
to something more long-term. And take it from me, books do not make good series
Bibles. They don't. They're full of all sorts of filler like character
development and dialogue and then you end up with this. I thought I'll remember
all this stuff and so then I had to reread Alethea and highlight the hell
out of every freaking world-building thing that I need to keep consistent for
the rest of the series and now I need to transfer all of this over the world anvil
and it has been less fun than it sounds and it already doesn't sound fun.
And yes I highlighted this copy of Aletheia. I know it hurts you. It's okay
it hurt me too for like the first two pages and then after that you just kind
of accept the fact that the book is ruined and then it gets kind of fun.
Next question, are you building your world from the inside out or the outside in?
Basically do already have a premise or do you have an idea for a world but no
plot to go along with it. If you already have a premise it's a good idea to use
that as a seed for your world. Think about what world-building would most aid
your plot. Would having religions and deities contribute to your theme?
Does your main character's arc require them to be exposed to violence in their
childhood where maybe having a war going on would be beneficial? Do you have a
scene in mind that would take place during a festival? In an inside out
method you would think up a list of things that would best service your plot
and then you think of what worldly foundation and geography
and history would have most likely led to the creation of these things that you
need for your plot and then you can fill in the blanks of whatever's left over.
Alternately with the outside-in method you have a world idea but not a plot one
yet so you're developing the world in the hopes that by digging into that
world you will eventually find a gem of a plot somewhere. Which will happen.
Eventually. Theoretically. Probably. I don't know I haven't tried it yet.
But it's beneficial to know if you're using this method because that will help you
decide how much time you're gonna give yourself for world-building. If you
already have a plot unfortunately you can't just let yourself world build for
the rest of forever. You have to write eventually, I know it hurts,
it hurts me too, believe me. Also if you already have a plot you should only
really be world building the things necessary to tell the story that you
want to tell. There's no reason to name all of the countries on your freaking
planet if your character is only gonna be in one of them. So I do recommend you
try to come up with a plot idea before you start worldbuilding because if you
don't you do risk getting sucked in to the beautiful black hole that is a world
building syndrome and then you're never gonna write a book. Next question!
What's your foundation? So the first thing you need to decide... Not the first
thing, this is like the third thing I've covered... I don't know why I said first
thing... What you need to decide next is what mood you want to create. What
feelings do you want to invoke in your reader? Whimsical environments and upbeat
cultures work for an upbeat type of story. If you have a darker book that
whimsical setting isn't gonna match with it. You also want to consider off the bat
what areas you want to differ most from our current world. You can't create a
world 100% from the ground up because readers don't give us enough pages to do
that. So for example if you're writing a fantasy book with magical races and mystical
creatures you might want to stick to a twenty four-hour-a-day structure and 365
days a year calendar format. Whereas if you want to write a story where it's
always nighttime you might want to stick to a more familiar government method
like monarchy or whatever other systems of government
there are. So choose what aspects can be left familiar without harming the story
you want to tell. Now to the meat of the world building. The categories of things
you need to figure out. And most of these can be broken down into entire videos
but I'm gonna touch on them briefly in this video so you know what to look out
for and more importantly so you know what content to demand from me cuz you
guys are gonna be helping me choose which things to cover first. Yeah that's
how I'm managing this channel going forward. I'm gonna make you guys do the
work. First things first: geography. If you're
starting from scratch especially geography is a perfect place to start
because it will be the greatest influencer of your world. What's the
landscape like? Is it mountainous? Is it flat?
Is it a desert? Is it Tundra-- I wrote dessert not desert. Don't have your
setting be a dessert, I don't think you can pull that off.
What's the climate? Is it cold? Is it hot? Is it dry? Is it rainy? Keeping in mind
that the landscape will affect these. Also where's your water source?
Are there bogs? Rivers? Oceans? How is water transported? Is it clean.
Water availability affects more than you would think. And what's the general layout of
your world? Take a pen and paper, forgive yourself for your horrible artistic
abilities, and just scratch out a rough drawing of kind of where the continents
are. This is of course assuming it's not taking place on earth, but if it's like
an alien planet you're gonna kind of want to know at least where the land
masses are. Or maybe at least the territory border of the country in which
your story is gonna be taking place. Next up: society. Language, jargon, curses,
swear words, those two are the same thing... Naming conventions, what are the gender
norms? Or other societal norms? Maybe in your world it's a really
freaking hot so the women in your world wear their hair short because they don't
have whatever past history influence led to why ever the hell women in
current-day have long hair. What about economy? Imports and exports,
not super important. But you're gonna want to figure out what your currency is,
is there poverty? Keeping in mind all of these things are
affected by the resources available in your area, including
what currency is used. For example dogecoin has value because there are
only 120 882 825 122 Doge coin in the world
Why are there only
120 882 825 122
dogecoin in the world?
Hell if I know. But dogecoin is only worth .0026 cents
whereas Bitcoin is currently worth 10 386 dollars
So clearly the bit mines have more doges than standard
Bitcoin in them. Could I have used a more relatable gold comparison here? Yes, yes I
could have. Next up, what resources are abundant? What resources are rare? This
matters because again if there were less dogecoin they would be worth more.
Probably... I don't know how Bitcoin works. But this would also affect things like
our next list item which is architecture. If your setting is in the desert your
houses won't be made out of wood and if they are you need to think about where
that wood came from. Wood doesn't just pop up out of nowhere, and I feel like
there's a sex joke in there but I don't know how to finish it. Carpenter joke,
humor at its finest. Next up, laws, government, politics. What
about social classes? Power balances? Education? Does the average person in
your world end up with 11 million dogecoin in college debt like in the
u.s.? How do people tell time? What's the average year length?
Are there other lands? What are their relations to each other? Next up, culture.
What are their myths and superstitions? What about traditions, customs?
Do they have religions? Are there deities? Do they pray to the stars?
Is there a god of time management because if there is I would like to pray
to them or make a sacrifice for them or something.
Are there festivals, ceremonies, holidays? What food do they eat? What do they drink?
And more importantly are any of those foods or drinks worthy of the
resurrection of savory stories? What about ethics? What is their view of right
or wrong? What about entertainment? Are they the
type of people who like to watch 24 children thrown into an arena to fight
to the death or are they more the type of people that like to watch 100
adults thrown into an arena to fight to the death?
Tough choices there. Next up: People. What are their standard physical appearances
like? What is the style of clothing? In a super post-apocalyptic world you can
make use of leftover scrap metal as we see in horizon zero dawn which by the
way is an excellent example of abundant resources being used to influence
culture and clothing. What are the races that one might find on this world?
Are there any common deformities? What about body mods like tattoos, piercings, cyborg
enhancement, tails.... You know you've thought about it, don't
you try to pretend. Next up you're gonna want to think about history. Depending on
your story this can range from mildly important to essential. Genres like
dystopian and post-apocalyptic history tends to matter a lot more because we want to
know how we got from our current position in society, to this mess of a
world. So some things that you might need to consider are epidemics and pandemics.
What about wars? Especially more recent ones still influencing the culture of
your world. What about famous power shifts? Natural
disasters? Famines and plagues? Also keep in mind that unless you're writing far
future sci-fi, generally history will not be well documented. We know so little
about the 1500s of France that some people mistake Reign as being
historically accurate. Though admittedly, that may also have to do with how little
attention we paid in history class. But look up some history and look at how
many gaps there are in it. Not a lot of details survived. And how many details
survived is of course gonna depend on how historical events were documented at
that time, so if your world has books and paper or if they write everything on
stone slabs or if it's all word of mouth. If it's word of mouth it's gonna end up like
a really messed-up version of telephone and your history is gonna be all tied up
in knots. What about magic? That's a fun topic. What
are the limiting factors of magic in your world?
What is it sourced from? Can it be learned or is it genetic? How does
society view magic? Does it influence health or healing? Is it soft?
Is it hard? Our items required like amulets? Or wands? Or the blessing of the
local cat? Next item of importance: science and to tech. What are your
people's level of understanding of science? What's used for communication?
Transportation? Weaponization? All the other ations that you need.
What's the availability? Is it something that only the rich get access to or is
it more openly available? Who's creating it? Is it something that's just leftover
relics from a long pre-apocalypse of world or is it something that's being
currently manufactured? What powers the tech? Is it magic? Is it science? Is it
electricity? You know.... because electricity that doesn't fall into the category of
magic or science? Apparently keep in mind also that a
magic world doesn't have to exist without science or tech. You can marry
the two, and it's very interesting when done properly. And last but not least:
biology. Yes, I made this a category. I'm just trying to ease the pain of those 11
million dogecoin college debt for a degree that I don't currently use.
But you're gonna want to take biology into account especially if you're working
with an alien world or a world with vastly different geography from our
current world. For example, what size are the creatures in your world? If they're
massive they'll need to consume more. For plants this will mean bigger leaves,
bigger surface area on leaves, more layering to leaves, and other leafy
things. Is gravity on your planet lighter? Is your planet almost entirely covered
in water? These things, unless they're very recent developments in the history
of that planet, will vastly affect what kind of animals you're gonna have
available. And consider ecological balance. If you want a setting where
birds are everywhere then you're gonna need to account for what those birds eat.
That means that you're gonna need to have more nature everywhere, or more bugs,
or maybe your birds eat people because birds are freakin terrifying so that's a
plot conflict you could have. Like look at those evil demon beaks? Unlike my soft
adorable cats, they're completely not dangerous, it's not like they're built
with tiny daggers in their hands.
As you can tell there is a lot to unpack and explore and most of these topics deserve
a much deeper dive. Which is exactly what I'm gonna do. Some I've already covered
like curse words, birth control in post apocalypse and dystopia, birth control
and fantasy, both of which are demonetized... But there's tons of these topics which I
haven't covered. Help me decide what to do next! Comment down below.
Aletheia, dark new adult post apocalyptic hardcover paperback you know the drill.
Thank you guys so much for watching and as always I will see you in the next video!