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Literature Text
World Building Formula
Section 1: Real Life Influences
Before we delve into creating an imaginary world, we must understand the importance of using real life influences as a base. No one can imagine anything not based on real life.
The best way to start creating or to fine-tune an imaginary world is to find influences from our world to be inspired from.
If a fantastical world has cargo full of imaginary species and magic or alternate laws of physics, the reader needs something, at least a few principles, that are the same as Earth’s so that they have grounding in your story. There’s a fine balance, as many wise writer types will say between patronizing and keeping your audience in the dark enough that they want to know more. The correct balance allows them to understand without confusion while being drawn on through the book by suspense.
Section 2: Nature
Reality, or at least what we perceive as reality, is probably the most key factor in what we, as people, believe and do. The following are factors of reality that may prove quite important to your story.
Weather and Climate
How’s the weather in your world? Is it consistent, or unpredictable? How many seasons are there, and how long does each last? What is the difference of temperature between night and day?
Geology and Time
What country or countries is or are the geography of your world most like?
How many and what kind of land biomes does it have? Do you have a bizarre blend of land biomes in any particular areas? For example, you could have a place with Arizona’s rock arches, except covered in dense rainforest plants.
How has shape of your world changed over time? How is it different from X amount of years ago, and by what means has it changed?
This may not be important at all to you, but bear in mind how this may be different in science fiction and in fantasy.
Proportions
In geology, weather, land features, types of species, etc. etc. etc. you must bear in mind proportion. Unless your world has limitless space, there isn’t going to be room for a limitless supply of everything. What takes up the most space and what takes up the least? Which resources are most abundant and which are the least abundant? How does this all affect the battle for survival among living things and people?
Flora and Fauna
Every known living thing must perform the following: Obtain and use energy, produce waste, grow/develop, respond/adapt to their environment, and reproduce.
Let’s get more in depth than a list of imaginary or real plants and animals and discuss the relationship between them. How do your plants and animals each fit into the food chain which they are all inevitably part of? How have they each adapted to their environment? How do they grow/develop, and are their particular stages which incite different species to attack one another? What types of symbiotic relationships do your species have: Mutualism, Commensalism, Parasitism, or Neutralism?
Your Place in the Cosmos
In science fiction, your world will most likely have a specific place in a solar system. How does this position effect how the world works, in terms of nature and the psychology of the people? For example, being at the center of the universe could give a certain race a large ego. What would happen if they found out they really weren’t at the center of the universe?
In fantasy, perhaps your world has no need for a specific ring in the solar system. Perhaps the stars up there really are the cosmic heavens where the gods live! Keep in mind how the reality of your world may be incorporated in religious or other beliefs. How would you draw a model of your world? It’s popular in many ancient mythologies to have the world exist in layers or planes of existence. Norse mythology models the world to be like a giant tree.
One could always have a fun blend of science fiction and fantasy. Such meanderings in imagination have gotten so popular that many people have a hard time seeing how the two genres are specifically different. For example, you have two worlds inextricably linked. Perhaps the magic of Perela gets its energy from residue energy of Earth’s car engines. How does this work? That’s up to you. Or perhaps there is a similar mingling of science and fantasy in one, strangely cohesive and yet divided world.
Ways of Magic and Alternate Scientific Laws
Ok, this part must be the most fun to create! Obviously, things don’t need to make total sense when you’re messing with alternate ways for reality to operate. However, if you are consistent and have just the right amount of believability, and create deliberate meaning in your hypothetical situations, your stories may become ten times richer and more suspenseful.
I honestly get ticked off when a fantasy’s magic does not have consistent rules. When things can happen obviously just because the plot needs them to it becomes easy to slip into Mary Sue’s contrived plot twists.
Plus, when rules for reality are consistent and revealed bit by bit, the reader begins to get an anticipated notion of how this imaginary world works. Just think what will happen when the reader finds out the last key to the imaginary world’s reality that turns the anticipations upside-down! Betraying anticipation is the key to suspense and delightful shock in your reader. At the point where you betray your reader, the reader must be able to look back and see all the hints that could lead up to the current state of reality. Most likely these hints were within the subtext, making your reality all the more an addicting puzzle for your reader!
Researching your influences and showing consistency build up believability. Remember, all imagination is based on reality. The reader needs to be hooked, and settings that are too unbelievable make a story confusing to read. There needs to be a careful balance between catering to your reader to lead them through your reality (because the reader can only see what you show him or her) and writing in enough abnormal things to keep your story interesting and unique.
Every story is a peek into the author’s perspective of our reality. Whether you even realize it or not, your story will take on such a shape as to exaggerate and downplay certain aspects of your worldview. When one plays with this concept and builds up their world to make commentary on humanity and their world, the reader may see all new layers of perspective unique to you story. Imaginary worlds riddled with metaphor are far more likely to be respected as classics that stand the test of time, such as C.S. Lewis’s “Chronicles of Narnia” or his lesser-known science fiction, “The Silent Planet”.
Section 1: Real Life Influences
Before we delve into creating an imaginary world, we must understand the importance of using real life influences as a base. No one can imagine anything not based on real life.
The best way to start creating or to fine-tune an imaginary world is to find influences from our world to be inspired from.
If a fantastical world has cargo full of imaginary species and magic or alternate laws of physics, the reader needs something, at least a few principles, that are the same as Earth’s so that they have grounding in your story. There’s a fine balance, as many wise writer types will say between patronizing and keeping your audience in the dark enough that they want to know more. The correct balance allows them to understand without confusion while being drawn on through the book by suspense.
Section 2: Nature
Reality, or at least what we perceive as reality, is probably the most key factor in what we, as people, believe and do. The following are factors of reality that may prove quite important to your story.
Weather and Climate
How’s the weather in your world? Is it consistent, or unpredictable? How many seasons are there, and how long does each last? What is the difference of temperature between night and day?
Geology and Time
What country or countries is or are the geography of your world most like?
How many and what kind of land biomes does it have? Do you have a bizarre blend of land biomes in any particular areas? For example, you could have a place with Arizona’s rock arches, except covered in dense rainforest plants.
How has shape of your world changed over time? How is it different from X amount of years ago, and by what means has it changed?
This may not be important at all to you, but bear in mind how this may be different in science fiction and in fantasy.
Proportions
In geology, weather, land features, types of species, etc. etc. etc. you must bear in mind proportion. Unless your world has limitless space, there isn’t going to be room for a limitless supply of everything. What takes up the most space and what takes up the least? Which resources are most abundant and which are the least abundant? How does this all affect the battle for survival among living things and people?
Flora and Fauna
Every known living thing must perform the following: Obtain and use energy, produce waste, grow/develop, respond/adapt to their environment, and reproduce.
Let’s get more in depth than a list of imaginary or real plants and animals and discuss the relationship between them. How do your plants and animals each fit into the food chain which they are all inevitably part of? How have they each adapted to their environment? How do they grow/develop, and are their particular stages which incite different species to attack one another? What types of symbiotic relationships do your species have: Mutualism, Commensalism, Parasitism, or Neutralism?
Your Place in the Cosmos
In science fiction, your world will most likely have a specific place in a solar system. How does this position effect how the world works, in terms of nature and the psychology of the people? For example, being at the center of the universe could give a certain race a large ego. What would happen if they found out they really weren’t at the center of the universe?
In fantasy, perhaps your world has no need for a specific ring in the solar system. Perhaps the stars up there really are the cosmic heavens where the gods live! Keep in mind how the reality of your world may be incorporated in religious or other beliefs. How would you draw a model of your world? It’s popular in many ancient mythologies to have the world exist in layers or planes of existence. Norse mythology models the world to be like a giant tree.
One could always have a fun blend of science fiction and fantasy. Such meanderings in imagination have gotten so popular that many people have a hard time seeing how the two genres are specifically different. For example, you have two worlds inextricably linked. Perhaps the magic of Perela gets its energy from residue energy of Earth’s car engines. How does this work? That’s up to you. Or perhaps there is a similar mingling of science and fantasy in one, strangely cohesive and yet divided world.
Ways of Magic and Alternate Scientific Laws
Ok, this part must be the most fun to create! Obviously, things don’t need to make total sense when you’re messing with alternate ways for reality to operate. However, if you are consistent and have just the right amount of believability, and create deliberate meaning in your hypothetical situations, your stories may become ten times richer and more suspenseful.
I honestly get ticked off when a fantasy’s magic does not have consistent rules. When things can happen obviously just because the plot needs them to it becomes easy to slip into Mary Sue’s contrived plot twists.
Plus, when rules for reality are consistent and revealed bit by bit, the reader begins to get an anticipated notion of how this imaginary world works. Just think what will happen when the reader finds out the last key to the imaginary world’s reality that turns the anticipations upside-down! Betraying anticipation is the key to suspense and delightful shock in your reader. At the point where you betray your reader, the reader must be able to look back and see all the hints that could lead up to the current state of reality. Most likely these hints were within the subtext, making your reality all the more an addicting puzzle for your reader!
Researching your influences and showing consistency build up believability. Remember, all imagination is based on reality. The reader needs to be hooked, and settings that are too unbelievable make a story confusing to read. There needs to be a careful balance between catering to your reader to lead them through your reality (because the reader can only see what you show him or her) and writing in enough abnormal things to keep your story interesting and unique.
Every story is a peek into the author’s perspective of our reality. Whether you even realize it or not, your story will take on such a shape as to exaggerate and downplay certain aspects of your worldview. When one plays with this concept and builds up their world to make commentary on humanity and their world, the reader may see all new layers of perspective unique to you story. Imaginary worlds riddled with metaphor are far more likely to be respected as classics that stand the test of time, such as C.S. Lewis’s “Chronicles of Narnia” or his lesser-known science fiction, “The Silent Planet”.
Comments11
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Wow, this is a must read for all writers of fantasy and science-fiction. Beginning writers tend to take out a lot of stuff without explaination or because they haven't done their homework in any field (biology, religion, sociology, etc.). Even fantasy has to be plausiable.