#world building advice

[the-hawthorns-ocs]

how does your creative process work? i always struggle to have ideas and create worlds that still have cats but are unique with unique roles. any advice?

Ok so the biggest piece of advice I can give is don't get caught up worrying about if your story/world is unique enough! Everyone gets inspiration from somewhere, especially in fandom spaces! Plus with so many of us making silly little cat worlds, our ideas are bound to overlap!

Tbh I think some of the best ways to make your world come across as unique is to take inspo from lots of different sources and just mix them together in your own fun ways! Just think about different things that you like the world building for and make a world building soup out of them!

For the Kinship world I took a lot of inspo from The Guardians of Ga'hoole, I love the owl society in those books, I liked the idea of multiple roles that one could train to become a part of, I liked the more advanced tools, materials and weapons, I liked that the world took place in a post human extinction that is just never explained. I took all of these things and made them my own for the Kinships! I mixed together ideas from Warriors with TGoG and then customized it to fit the vibes and setting/environment of the Kinships!

Also speaking of environment, the setting of your story can really help make your world your own. Coming up with a cool place or just a place that you like a lot can really help in giving you ideas for your world and story! I love Yosemite National Park and California's Pacific Northwest in general so I decided to set the Kinships in a territory that is very similar to that area! Deciding this really helped me come up with more ideas, how would this society interact with the environment? How would they need to adapt to the seasons and world around them? What sorts of things would they eat? Ehat plants could they use for healing? What objects from their territory would they use as names? Idk.. it just really helps get the creativity flowing!

[redd956]

3 Amazing Youtube Channels for Worldbuilders/Writers

I myself and another victim to the glorious yet cruel oversight of Youtube, and have a depressing amount of hours heaved into it. When stumped on creative ideas I often turn to Youtube Channels dedicated to writing, art, and worldbuilding. Here are some of my favorites, and why I think you should check them out

Tale Foundry

Tale Foundry is a very down to earth world building and writing channel. Their cast frequently goes into the depths of world building and writing on the stories, books, and concepts they cover. Their videos are accompanied by a kindly sounding narrator, and beautiful art, making their videos incredibly calming to listen to and watch. 

They tackle and talk about many unique writing concepts, especially with settings, which I sometimes struggle with. They also run the world building lofi stream. Some of their videos are straight up tutorials or advice videos about writing and world building. They also touch on folk lore and folk tales, which I always love indulging in.

Terrible Writing Advice

Now I know what you’re thinking. With that title that sounds like the last channel I’m looking for, but hear me out. Terrible Writing Advice is a hilarious channel which purposefully strives to give great writing advice by doing the opposite. With the great use of reverse psychology and excellent humor, they quickly teach you the pitfalls and traps of writing.

Their videos point out many bad tropes, and secretly how they’re made. Often the narrator pauses in goes into sudden depth about how these bad decisions gets made, and what good decisions and writing pondering sounds like, only to jokingly throw that all out the window. If you can handle good reverse psychology, and love crude humor, this is the channel for you.

Map Crow

Map Crow is a newer channel. They primarily focus on TTRPG world building, and I love their creativity and great ideas. I also adore their art, and strive to be able to draw something like them. I myself really like drawing maps too, so they’re amazing to watch while doing that.

Map Crow’s creativity is infectious. They show the concept design process, and how that can branch into many great creative ideas. They also tackle bland by not inherently looking at them as something bad but showing how you can crazily improve upon anything to make it dynamic for either stories, art, world building, and especially TTRPGs.

[ecoamerica]

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

[sablesroundthebend]

Grrrg. I want to post about this project but I have no clue where to start. I guess I should start outlining for the first part of the story, but I can’t get it out of my bones.

I’m gonna try a poll. I don’t know if anyone will see it, but I really need a starting point to post on here like I used to do on the platform I developed this story on, prior.

See my pinned post for relevancy!

This is pretty… general? I’ll get to it all eventually! It’s just I need a starting point, and it’s a lot easier to pick when there’s outside input. This blog is JUST to throw ideas at the wall and keep me interested in my own ideas, so it all has room to change after posting until the actual comic goes up. I do better thinking when it’s phrased like… helping others? I don’t like talking to air or brick walls.

First two options will probably get secondary or tertiary polls, because those are still very broad! There’s three groups, plus the out groups/origins, then the architecture, members, roles, culture, food, etc.! I’m not going to be revealing everything about these broad topics, but I really wanna deep dive into these ideas again. Love the topic of food, in particular, but it would be a little dumb to start gushing about it without giving a grasp on the world. These topics ARE heavily important to their respective arcs, though, so either are good starting points.

General world history will get you some art pieces, concept sketches, and an overview of the main source of conflict for the first “arc.” It would be revealed really early, anyways, so there’s no issue thinking it out loud here. I’ll make spoilers tag for each topic, anyways! Basis for basically the whole saga. Early world history, a war, an overview of religious and cultural beliefs, regional differences, stuff like that. Very fun stuff.

Finally, world flora + fauna / geography would likely offer various artwork, concept sketches for possible plants or creatures, a couple maps I need to get onto a page, and labeling for important areas and landmarks for each of the arcs. Again, love the topic of flora and fauna because it heavily relates to foods. A possible deep dive into species anatomy is probable.

I believe all of these are pretty fair stating points. Old Kingdom is 1st arc location, the Packs are highly important to 2nd arc, world history is world history, and the geography and animals are just the basis for the entire environment. Grounds everything.

Help lol

[kcwritely]

On Realizing Dreams and Becoming a Writer

Hi! I’m a writer just dipping my toes into posting my original works. I’ve spent a lot of time on the fan side of tumblr, writing for my favorite shows, books, movies, and games. But I was always worried my own works wouldn’t live up to the same positive reception and praise as my fan works. So, I’ve been hesitant to share.

But now, I want to branch out and bring my personal writings to the public! Which I find absolutely terrifying, but we all have to start somewhere. I’ve already posted some of my old poetry, but that hasn’t exactly met the welcome I hoped for. So, I thought I would take a more personal approach and share a bit about myself.

I’ve been writing and creating stories ever since I was a toddler. Of course, it was all about pretend and play rather than actual literature at the time. My interest in writing began in earnest when I was around ten years old. My personal life had become unstable at that point, and it was during this time that I truly began to connect with and find solace in books.

I started seriously writing my own stories when I entered middle school. These were, of course, a bit silly. They are undoubtedly full of all the classic middle school tropes, hang-ups, and pitfalls. But this was the very beginning of a lifelong passion. So, I look back on those old works with fondness.

It wasn’t until I reached high school that I began to write and plot out novels. These, too, were ‘cringe’ and are still a bit embarrassing to look back on. But they were the foundation of who I am as a storyteller today. It was during this time that I discovered my love of world-building. I genuinely believe it is one of the best parts of being a writer.

Unfortunately, I also suffered from crippling self-doubt and a severe case of imposter syndrome. So, I never shared my work with others. I often felt that what I created was not refined enough to be read by anyone but myself or my supportive mother. This mindset followed me for many years, making it difficult to chart a clear path toward my future.

When it came time for college, I wasn’t entirely sure what to do. I have other passions and briefly considered following them. However, I ultimately chose to pursue my love of language and literature. I wound up becoming an English major. Although, I had no intention of becoming an author. At that point in time, my confidence as a writer was low. I just thought it would be better to put my talents to use as an editor. So, I pursued a minor in editing and decided that would be my career.

It wasn’t until the pandemic, after graduating college and a horrible stint in Corporate America, that I realized my life was my own. And I could pursue whatever dream I wanted. At first, this meant pursuing a career as a tattoo artist. A very different path, I realize. But I could not deny my love for the craft. Not to mention, this was another dream I had convinced myself was unattainable just because it was I who looked to attain it. Once I realized I could pursue any path I desired, as long as I put in the work and tried my best, everything changed.

I began practicing for hours daily to improve my art and become a tattoo artist. These efforts eventually led to my skills growing dramatically. I was so surprised to realize what I could accomplish if I wasn’t standing in my own way. It was the first time I truly thought of myself as someone with talent. I followed this dream for quite some time, building my portfolio and researching local shops that might need an apprentice.

It wasn’t until one fateful night when I was driving home from a bridal shower that the idea hit me. An old book concept from my high school days resurfaced in my mind, and I suddenly knew what the story needed. When I finally got home, I began writing these ideas down immediately. I didn’t even realize it was three in the morning by the time I finished. From that moment on, I became infatuated with my story. Rekindling a love I had long thought was lost.

With a renewed interest in my lifelong passion, I dedicated myself to my dreams. I decided that this time, nothing would keep me from achieving my goals, not outside influences and certainly not myself. Through this new resolve, I began working on my largest project ever, a seven-book epic fantasy adventure exploring a vast and diverse world of my creation.

Now, I want to share the process of such an undertaking with all of you! From conception to plotting, world-building to character creation, I’m sharing it all! I encourage anyone who is a writer or wants to be one to reach out to me. I am happy to share my experience and help other writers realize their dreams like I have begun to do for myself. If you have read this far, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for doing so. I wish you all the best in your writing journey, and I hope you, the reader, can learn something from my experiences.

Please feel free to reach out to me with any questions about writing!

[heavenlyraindrops]

World Building Checklist

Have you ever started writing a story and realized your world has a bunch of unexplained shit and you have to fill in the gaps as you go? Me too, buddy. Me too. Here’s a checklist so that you can fully flesh out your world to the max. (I’m dying)

How does Time work? (Minutes, hours, days, the daylight cycle, years, ect.)

Species (if Fantasy. Will probably make another post on this.)

Countries, Nations, Tribes, ect. (nationalities/ races. Will probably make another post on this.)

The geography of the world (draw a map. Doesnt have to be good. Just for a general idea.)

Rivalries between races (includes prejudice, racism, ect.)

Religions

Technology

The Magic system. (Will probably make a whole other post on this.)

animals, plants, ect.

The sky: Sun, Moon(s), Stars, Constellation, Are there rings? (If the planet has rings)

Educations system

Government system

Politics

Methods of transport (Vehicles)

Medicine

Can’t really think of anything else. If you have more to add then reblog and add to the list! :) bye bee

[sas-soulwriter]

What to give a fuck about,while writing your first draft!

I`ve posted a list about things you don´t need to give a fuck about while writing your first draft. Here are things you NEED TO CARE about! (in my opinion)

Your Authentic Voice: Don't let the fear of judgment or comparison stifle your unique voice. I know it´s hard,but try to write from your heart, and don't worry about perfection in the first draft. Let your authenticity shine through your words.

Your Story, Your Way: It's your narrative, your world, and your characters. Don't let external expectations or trends dictate how your story should unfold. Write the story you want to tell.

Progress Over Perfection: Your first draft is not the final product; it's the raw material for your masterpiece. Give a fuck about making progress, not achieving perfection. Embrace imperfections and understand that editing comes later.

Consistency and Routine: Discipline matters. Make a commitment to your writing routine and stick to it.

Feedback and Growth: While it's essential to protect your creative space during the first draft, be open to constructive feedback later on. Giving a f*ck about growth means you're willing to learn from others and improve your work.

Self-Compassion: Mistakes, writer's block, and self-doubt are all part of the process. Give a f*ck about being kind to yourself. Don't beat yourself up if the words don't flow perfectly every time. Keep pushing forward and remember that writing is a journey.

Remember, the first draft is your canvas, your playground. Don't bog yourself down with unnecessary worries.

[novlr]

How to write the cold

The way we feel cold is universal, but the way we contextualise it is not. Cold has a variety of connotations for readers, so it's important to decide how to use it, and what mood you want to convey in your scene.

While cold is often associated with negative aspects in writing, if there's anything the winter season teaches us, is that it can be a positive thing as well. Rather than just using the word cold, in your next writing project, try to contextualise it. Describe the weather, the light on the snow, the comfort of warmth after an icy swim, or the fear and loneliness of the dark on a cold night.

Here are our quick tips on how to write the cold:

In nature

Clean mountain air

Glittering ice crystals

Unique wildlife, like snow hares or polar bears

Snow muffled sounds

Steam rising from hot springs

Icy water in rivers and lakes

Overcast and rainy

Bright sun on fresh snow

Icebergs, glaciers, and ice floes

Storms and blizzards

Branches moving and creaking

Frozen ponds

Morning frost on grass

Snowdrops pushing through snowdrifts

Crisp and clear night skies

Wolves howling in the dark

Bare branches scraping against windows

Eerie shadows

Foods and objects

The scent of cinnamon and nutmeg

Heavy winter coats and scarves

Rich, hot meals with lots of gravy

Tea or coffee left out too long

Ice-cream, sorbets, or ice-lollies

Metal that is cold to the touch (like pots and pans or door handles)

Cold beverages straight out of the fridge

An icy bath

Freezer trucks or walk-in refrigerators

Dry ice

Crisp, fresh sheets on cold nights

Ice sculptures

A tap with a drip that freezes in place

Frozen celebratory drinks (like daiquiris)

A single cube of ice floating in a whisky glass

A cold pack for an injury

Character moods

Isolated

Lonely

Aloof

Sad

Comfortable

Snuggly

Focused

Panicked

Indifferent

A lack of affection

Calm and calculated

Disengaged

Serene

Depressed

Awestruck

Anxious

Reverent

Melancholy

Nostalgic

Impatient

Frustrated

Reflective

Character body language

Hunched shoulders

Crossed arms

Shivering

Snuggling into something warm

Rub hands together for warmth

Tight or strained expression

Biting dry lips

Furrowing brow

Glaring against brightness

Tense and rigid stance

Stand close to others

Slow, deliberate steps

Move quickly to somewhere warm

Sitting relaxed in a warm space

Actions and events

Start a fire or build a shelter

Winter hikes

Outdoor activities like skating, skiing, or sledding

Traffic jams or snowed in cars

Frozen lakes cracking underfoot

Dodging icicles falling from rooftops

Going ice-fishing

Long sea voyages

Frostbite

Suffering from a cold, the flu, or pneumonia

Brainfreeze

Snuggling under a warm duvet

Sipping from a steaming hot drink for comfort

Cold-water swimming

Walking to work in the rain

Christmas in the Northern Hemisphere

Chrismas in July in the Southern Hemisphere

Reading a good book by the fire while it snows outside

Positive aspects

While cold is often associated with negative emotions, using it as a juxtaposition can often help to accentuate the positive feelings you want to convey.

If it's cold outside, a character enjoying a hot chocolate under their duvet will give a much more positive impression than if they were simply staying in bed.

The beauty of the natural world in winter, like snow, ice, and winter foliage can also be used to create a scene of happiness and wonder.

Negative aspects

Cold is often used to describe characters who are emotionally detached, calculating, or generally unfeeling. It's become an easy way to clue your readers in to how they're meant to feel about your character.

There are also more creative ways to use the cold, however, like describing the disappointment of forgetting about a hot drink you put down somewhere and only remembering when it's already gone cold, or the feeling of shock after you first step out of a warm shower.

Helpful synonyms

chilly

frigid

icy

wintry

frosty

cool

nippy

freezing

glacial

brisk

chilled

cool

polar

bitter

snowy

raw

refrigerated

arctic

rimy

draughty

[uncanny-tranny]

The absolute biggest thing I've learned as a trans guy: there is nothing more masculine and manly than not caring about looking or acting masculine or manly. Growing your masculinity or manhood takes time and care - you have no obligation to let the world water your garden when you can do that just fine (and you can, even if it doesn't feel like you can!)

[daisywords]

Conlanging for cheaters

quick tips for creating fantasy language(s) that look believable if you squint

Pick a few rules about what letter/sound combinations can and cannot exist (or are common/uncommon). For example, in English, "sp" or "st" can begin a word, but in Spanish they can't. The "ng" sound (or the voiced velar nasal if you want to get technical), can't appear at the beginning of a syllable in English, but it can in at least of third of languages around the world. English allows for consonant clusters (more than one consonant together without a vowel), but some languages, such as Hawaiian, don't. Picking a few distinctive rules that are different from English or the language you are writing in, and sticking to them, will yield a lot better results than just keysmashing.

Assign meaning to a few suffixes, prefixes, or roots. A simple and useful example of this is making up a particle that means -land or -city or -town, and tacking it onto your appropriate place names. You could also have a particle with a similar meaning to the "er/or one we have in English, such as in "baker," "singer," or "operator," and then incorporate it in your fantasy titles or professions. It's like an Easter egg for careful readers to figure out, and it will make your language/world feel more cohesive.

Focus on places and names. You usually don't need to write full sentences/paragraphs in your conlang. What you might want to do with it is name things. The flavor of your language will seep in from the background, with the added benefit of giving readers some hints on background lore. For example, you could have a conlang that corresponds to a certain group of people, and a character with a corresponding name could then be coded as being from that group without having to specify. A human-inhabited city with an elven-sounding name might imply that it was previously inhabited by elves.

You don't have to know what everything means. Unless you are Linguistics Georg R. R. Tolkien, you probably don't want to (and shouldn't!) actually make up a whole language. So stick some letters together (following your linguistic rules, of course) and save fretting over grammar and definitions for the important stuff.

(Bonus) This isn't technically conlanging, but it can be fun to make up an idiom or two for your fantasy culture (just in English or whatevs) and sprinkle that in a few times. The right made-up idiom can allude to much larger cultural elements without you having to actually explain it.

Congrats! You now have a conlang you can dust over your wip like an appropriate amount of glitter. Conlangs can be intimidating, just because there's so much you can do, but that doesn't mean you have to do it all. So yeah anyway here's what I would recommend; hope y'all have fun :D

[writingdirectory]

Notes from a 5-day creative writing course:

Motivation

Make it a habit. That way, each time that familiar voice of self-doubt makes its appearance, it’ll be easier to ignore it, because writing will become something that you do-your thing-and you’ll gain confidence in it.

Visit your novel every single day. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to write something every day. You could outline the plot, or write character portraits, or draw a special part of your world. Your subconscious will work on your story even when you don’t. So, each time you visit the story consciously, you’ll find that things have developed in the story.

Manage the time of writing in a way that it is manageable for you. (It can be that one hour between classes or your lunch break or the morning before you go to work or at night before you sleep - Schedule it in a way that suits you and then, be serious about it.

Set a goal. For example, 100 or 500 words a day.

Character Development, Word Choice & Description

At first, characters incarnate ideas. A poor man who wins the lottery, a young boy who travels to a magical land. As we develop the story, they become people - real people with backgrounds and unique choices.

Ways we perceive character: through actions, thoughts (conflict), dialogue, interactions with others.

Bring intentionality to the representation of a character.  Don't give arbitrary information.

How a character reacts is a question of how you want to represent them through all those multiplicities that are dialogue, actions, interactions, etc.

Characters always want something. They are never static. With wants come obstacles and transformation.

Create tension between what a characters thinks, feels and says. For example, set external confidence and internal fear and then change that as the story develops. Characters can also be comfortable or scared depending on the situation.

Explore complexity. How a character talks to their lover is different from how they talk to their friends and family.

Give secondary characters a characteristic beyond their function to make them more prominent.

Make a hierarchy out of characters.

Exercise: Write the portrait of a character, how you would introduce them in the story and a description of them from a character that a) likes them and b) dislikes them.

Word Choice. When it starts sounding like writing, cut it out - Kill your darlings. Example: The car was spotted with rust - shows the car. As opposed to: The car was acned with rust - shows the writing. Sometimes a more refined word works against the object/image.

Description: Don’t just put in details. The details need to be significant for the image you want the reader to see.

Don’t use metaphors and lyricism in the expense of clarity. Be precise. Metaphors and similes should fit the narrative and not distract the reader. For example, saying “He barked like a dog” sounds fine, but if there are no dogs in your world, it is out of place and breaks the narrative. Be specific. Name things. Don’t be vague. Precision grounds your fiction.

Determine if you need static or lively description. Lively description is when you describe things through actions. Like “She passed her fingers through her blond hair”, instead of “Her hair was blond”.

Sense of authenticity. When you describe a place precisely, you gain your reader’s trust. A column is different from a golden column. That kind of attention gives a sense of authority and makes the narrative convincing.

Parts of description: smell, sound, sight, taste, touch, temperature, pressure.

Dialogue & POVs

Dialogue a) informs the character, b) moves the story forward, c) develops relationships between characters.

Dialogue isn’t just about how people talk.

What’s said can suggest what isn’t being said.

Use dialogue interspersed with description and visuals.

Choose the POV that suits your story.

(From David Lodge, ‘The Art of Fiction’.) A fictional story is unlikely to engage our interest unless we know whose story it is. Even with an “omniscient” narrative method, the writer should privilege one or two “points of view”. An objective approach may be a worthy aim in journalism, but not in fiction.

Pros and cons of 1st person POV. Pros: personal and direct, immediacy, intimacy, immediate credibility, easier to build character. Cons: limited, biased, unreliable, writing can become simplistic. When writing in 1st person, keep in mind that characters change, hence their perception changes. That has to be obvious in the narrative.

Pros and cons of 3rd person limited POV. Pros: thoughts can still be on the page, flexibility, wider view of the world, more complex language can be used (usually we think in simple words, so complex writing might sound pretentious and out of place in 1st person POV). Cons: distance (he/she).

GOD MODE. Or, commonly, 3rd person omniscient. You can jump in and out of characters’ minds, but there’s a danger when writing with such freedom. Be aware of structural harmony. Don’t write 10 pages in Sally’s POV and then jump into omniscient.

Use free indirect speech (1st person thoughts in italicized form, eg. No!) to eliminate the distance in 3rd person POVs.

Change POV with reason. Don’t suddenly jump to another POV just because it is interesting. Plan it. Make the change of the POV deliberate and make the reason clear.

Give equal weight to all POVs.  

Setting

The setting of a story is mediated through a character’s experience. It amplifies the theme. It shouldn’t be an arbitrary decision. The setting can make achievements more difficult for characters.

For children, places have magical properties, they are places of significance. The place of someone’s childhood can transform later in the novel, because the character has transformed. There’s a fluidity of meaning attached to places. But keep in mind that, places don’t change. Characters do.

How a character views a place is stated through the language we use.

When writing about a place that exists, have fidelity at the facts.

Editing

Be open to ideas changing.

If it’s not working after 3-4 rewrites, cut it out!

Make sentences active. Things don’t happen to characters. They do things.

Pay attention to rhythm.

Every sentence needs to have a reason to be there.

Usually, we overwrite in dialogue. Use context. Dialogue should be suggestive, rather than explicit.

Edit backwards, because perfectionism kicks in at the beginning.

Isolate. Edit single parts of the story. A chapter, a scene.

Read aloud. It will help find long sentences, pretentious words and unreadable language.

When words become over-familiar, put it down, give it to someone else to read.  

What to look out for: a) Character confusion. Make sure minor characters are introduced properly and find subtle ways to remind your readers who they are. b) Too much exposition. c) Plot holes, inconsistencies - there must rational reasons for coincidences, you must be able to provide logical and credible reasons behind the actions of a character. d) Over-written description.

What to do when editing: cut things out, put new things in, change sentence order and structure, look for repeated words, strengthen verbs (or prune), expand, trim, look for continuity errors, change order of events, introduce a delay in the reveals, rewrite using another POV or tense, determine if each sentence is pulling its weight.

Techniques: a) Prune. Delete text you don’t need. b) Isolate repetitions and delete or substitute with synonyms (look out for pretentious words). c) Cut and paste paragraphs to change order and rearrange. d) write a whole new draft, only looking to the previous one for factual material. e) Use a reader.

Bibliography

Hills Like White Elephants, by Ernest Hemingway (suggestive dialogue)

Concrete Island., by J.J. Ballot (how setting makes goals harder to achieve)

Driving Through Sawmill Towns, by Les Murray (lyricism, setting)

The Art of Fiction, by David Lodge (POV)

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

On Writing, by Stephen King

[plotandelegy]

Crafting Future From Ruins: A Writer's Guide to Designing Post-Apocalyptic Technology

Photo: Standard License- Adobe Stock

Crafting post-apocalyptic tech involves blending creativity and realism. This is a guide to help you invent tech for your post-apocalyptic world:

Tinker, Tailor, Writer, Spy: Start with modern tech. Take it apart (conceptually or literally if you're feeling adventurous). Using the basics, think of how your character might put it back together with limited tools and resources.

Master the Fundamentals: Understand the basic principles underlying the tech you're working with. Physics, chemistry, and biology can be your best friends. This understanding can guide your character's resourceful innovations.

Embrace the Scrapyard: The world around you has potential tech components. Appliances, vehicles, infrastructure - how could these be deconstructed and repurposed? Your characters will need to use what's at hand.

Cherishing Old Wisdom: Pre-apocalypse books and manuals are the new internet. A character with access to this knowledge could become a vital asset in tech-building.

Indigo Everly

[jadiealissia]

Worldbuilding Countries (Part 1)

I've lived in and visited a few countries in my life, which gave me a lot of inspiration for my fantasy novel. I'm not an expert, but I thought I'd share what I learned!

Climate

The climate will most likely come up at some point. Do you mention the cool breeze, or the orange leaves on the trees? All those nice weather descriptions will depend on the climate!

If you have a couple of different countries, it may be a little weird if they all have the same climate (especially if they are far away from each other), so there's a few things you can consider to make them a bit more specific.

Climate is of course a very complicated topic, so I will simplify it a bit.

Temperature

I like to pick a real country/city and look at its temperature graphs on Wikipedia. One important thing to note is that countries aren't simply colder/warmer than one another. I know a lot of people think that a country like Russia is cold all year round, but it is actually quite warm in summer. Some areas have a larger variation between temperature throughout the year than others (normally, the closer to the equator a country is, the less variation there is. They also tend to be warmer).

Look at Singapore:

The temperatures are basically stable all year round (the letters up top are the months). The numbers are the average minimum and maximum daily temperatures. You can see that on average the variation every day is less than 10°C.

Here is Moscow:

The temperature changes quite a lot throughout the year. Note that the maximum temperatures (summer) will occur at the opposite times of the year in the Southern Hemisphere.

You can see this demonstrated in Copiapo (Chile):

This city is in the Southern hemisphere, so their coldest months are June and July :)

One thing you may have noticed is that the bars here are taller, which means that the variation for the daily min and max are higher too. Why is that? I'm simplifying it a bit, but generally, the dryer a place is, the more variation you will get in daily temperature. Which brings us to the next thing to consider:

Humidity/Precipitation

There are a few things to consider:

Rainfall. This can vary month-by-month, and due to some complicated factors, some countries have more rain in their colder months, some have more rain in their warmer months. Some places don't follow a neat pattern or stay consistent throughout the year. Have a look at climate pages on Wikipedia to get some ideas! Even just this page on Chile has a lot of cool examples. Each city is quite different!

Although of course the "wetness" of a country related to rainfall (e.g. you'd expect greener grass somewhere with more rainfall, brownish dry grass or a desert somewhere with less rainfall), it's not that simple. UK is a wet country, right? And if you've heard of Gold Coast (Australia) it seems pretty dry, right? Well, actually the Gold Coast gets twice as much precipitation (rain) as London!

To demonstrate, I took a screenshot (randomly selected street in each city) from Google Streetview.

Why this difference? I suspect it's because the Gold Coast is much hotter. Living in Australia, puddles are normally gone by the next day (often the rain even evaporates as it hits the ground!), but in UK, the puddles would always stay around for a while.

The UK is always mossy, often the clouds hang in the sky for ages. It can look quite grey. When it rains in the Gold Coast in summer, the raindrops evaporate as soon as they hit the pavement, which makes the air feel very humid and smell strongly of rain. You can use these sorts of sensory details in your stories :)

Also, one thing I noticed, is that in hotter weather, rain can be much more heavy than in colder weather. In Australia we often get heavy rain that causes flooding. In UK the rain usually dribbles all day but doesn't get heavy. In a place like the Gold Coast you can get rain that last 10 minutes but soaks you all the way through and floods the street.

The rainfall may also vary year-by-year. Australia goes through periods of floods and droughts that last a couple of years. The mechanism is a bit complicated so I won't go through it now, but it gives you something to google!

Humidity: Deserts have low humidity, which means that you can cool off more easily in the shade and the nights are colder. The breeze feels more refreshing at low humidity as your sweat evaporates.

High humidity (like Singapore) will feel much hotter at the same temperatures and it is normally still quite hot in the shade. High humidity feels really muggy, the air feels thick. The sweat doesn't evaporate as much, so you are left all wet and sticky. The breeze can feel much less refreshing because of this.

When the temperature is below freezing, the humidity gets very low, so your skin may need more moisturiser or your lips may crack.

Those are just some things to consider while describing your weather!

Generally, closer to the sea will be wetter, further inland is dryer. Have a look at some climate maps on Wikipedia, you will learn a lot! Climate is quite complicated since there are so many factors, so there's a lot you can do with it.

UV: This is one thing that people often forget about when they think about weather. In the UK, even on a very hot and sunny day, you are unlikely to get sunburnt (unless you are very pale). In Australia, you can get sunburnt very easily in even Tasmania, which is our coldest state, even when the temperatures are chilly.

You can't actually feel being sunburnt, which I fully understood when I visited Tasmania. I was freezing, but the whole time I was being sunburnt.

Normally, UV index is higher closer to the equator, which is why people who live closer to the equator tend to have darker skin. The melanin acts as protection against the sun. Still, this protection isn't perfect, so in the real world people in Africa used different methods to protect their skin, such as using clay as a "sunscreen".

Australia has the highest rate of skin cancer in the world. This is partially because most people in Australia have pale skin (originally from the UK), but the UV index is high.

This is something to consider in your story, since it can play a bigger role in behaviour than you'd expect if you live in a cold climate. In Australia, they recommend staying indoors between certain hours of the day to avoid sunburn, and if you do go out you should wear clothes that cover your skin, a wide-brimmed hat and sunscreen. Someone with very pale skin can get sunburnt in minutes. Wide-brimmed hats are compulsory at schools in Australia - you are not allowed to play if you forget your hat.

In low-UV areas, there is the opposite issue. People with darker skin can have problems getting vitamin D. Same goes for people who cover their skin with clothing (e.g. for religious reasons). However, this is a bit simpler to fix with some vitamin D supplements.

How do I use this for worldbuilding?

If you have a map of your countries, you may want to keep their location in mind when deciding on the climate :)

I like to draw up some graphs with the temperatures throughout the year for each country and some quick notes on the humidity, rainfall and UV.

You can also add some other elements to your story. Is it a fantasy? Maybe magic affects the weather! Sci-fi? You can play with the distance of the planet from the sun, axial tilt, sun size etc. (I won't go into that since it's a whole another topic and really complicated as well)

You probably don't need to know the exact details of the climate for most stories, but having a general idea will allow you to consistently describe what sorts of clothing your characters wear, the weather etc. Those are the sorts of things that comes up in almost every story (if it's long enough).

If you read this and found this useful, please reblog so I know that it was helpful. If it seems like people enjoyed this post, I will make more (I was going to talk about so much more, but this is already too long).

[redd956]

Worldbuilding questions to get the creative juices flowing 15

Theme: Death Ritual

Keep in mind death rituals change from culture to culture, religion to religion, family to family. These questions likely do not apply to an over all place, but instead a singular subset culture.

(Ex: American funerals, French catacombs, death dances, alters)

Is death celebrated, mourned, or both? Does more than one ritual take place? If so how are they spaced out? (Many American funerals feature a church ceremony, burial ceremony, and an after party; making three rituals)

How is death viewed by the society? How does religion and culture affect that?

Do death rituals change depending on how the person died? Are there actions that lead to the dead being disrespected or unceremoniously laid to rest? How did these changes come about?

What do they do during these rituals? How is their culture brought into it? How different do these rituals look across income/social classes?

Believe of afterlife plays a major role in death rituals, views of death, and how people move on from it. However it is incredibly complicated and I’m still struggling to grasp how worldbuilding with it looks. So I say truly do your research in this part, and see how it affects your worldbuilding’s death rituals.

What is done with the body/remains? What happens when a remains cannot be found or recognized?

Do societal roles add or change to rituals? (Soldiers/veterans, royals, priests, etc.)

If there is magic or fantastical elements how are they incorporated into the rituals? Does environment find its way into the rituals?

How do people mourn? How is mourning viewed? What is expected from the living?

[daisy-mooon]

Sci-fi worldbuilding ideas for your city planets :)

If the planet is entirely city, where does the oxygen come from? Are their farms dedicated to producing oxygen? Special factories? Are there plants that produce oxygen very quickly all over the planet? Do you have to pay an oxygen tax?

Does the planet have natural water? Are the oceans untouched, incorporated into the city, or have they been drained and the water used for things in the city? What is it used for? Drinking, dams, hydroelectricity, food production, etc?

How deep does the city go? Has the planet been mined into to create more space? Is geothermal energy used? Are the bottom levels reserved for things such as sewage, electricity production, factories, prisons, etc?

What is transportation like? Are there roads, floating roads, or are trains and trams used instead? Are planes used? Is transportation fast enough to quickly travel across time zones?

How is food produced? Is it imported, or is it grown on planet? A combination? Think about greenhouses, factorised farms, vertical farming projects, etc. If oceans are left relatively untouched, is food produced in it? Are fish kept? Are there ration laws?

Are the poles less occupied than the rest of the city? Are they used for storing frozen goods, super computers? On a planet with no oceans, is ice and snow valuable?

The same goes for the equator of the planet. Is it more or less occupied? Is the heat used for anything? Are there solar panel farms? Air conditioning?

Are there parks and protected areas of nature? Ancient gardens, important forests, sacred land? Are there laws about chopping down trees? Are there farms for trees and plants? Are their plant shops, and are they expensive? In Star Wars, a part of Coruscant's highest mountain is a public monument that you can look at - are parts of mountains, rare ores, fossils, etc, preserved?

Not all sci-fi cities look the same. Coruscant has skyscrapers arranged in a very chaotic manner, stretching incredibly deep and incredibly high, and there is almost no plant life or natural parts of the planet to be seen. Xandar is arranged neatly with very similar style buildings whilst remaining relatively low rising compared to other city planets, and has lots of greenery and a fairly untouched ocean. Wakanda is relatively defined in layout, with a mixture of plants and buildings, houses and skyscrapers, with every building being unique. Draw inspiration from whatever you like.

Write whatever you want, even if it's common or cliche. It doesn't matter if it has been done before, because it hasn't yet been written by you.

Happy worldbuilding!

[mistblossomdesigns]

Tips for Creating Fantasy Creatures

Start with imagination. If you're tired of seeing the same creatures in fantasy novels, then branch out.

If needed, gain inspiration from myth. Perhaps try to merge two mythical beings to create an entirely new species. Or imagine how a creature from folklore may have evolved over the centuries.

If you're creating a fantasy species from scratch, try to brainstorm these topics to get started:

Dwellings and shelter

Land of origin

Habitat

Average life span

Species name (and any other names they go by)

Physical description

Temperament

Magical abilities

Legends and lore surrounding them

Food sources

Predators

Ecology and history of the species

Their relationship to your characters and others within their environment

[pangur-and-grim]

I’m glad I sat on the book for a bit, because now I’m like 👀 parts of this worldbuilding exist in my head, but are never explicitly stated, and so will seem like massive glaring holes to anyone reading. I’m going full geek now and making a map with all the divided territories etc, so I can go through in one last juicy editing spree and solidify this world.

people like opening a book and immediately seeing a map, right? what kind of half assed fantasy doesnt have a map?