The Beauty of World-Building

And how to begin crafting your own universe

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Like many others, I grew up enamored with the worlds crafted by world-building authors like J.R.R. Tolkien, Neil Gaiman, C.S. Lewis and Philip Pullman. Their worlds and characters helped shape me into who I am today and helped inspire me to write. The worlds they created were ones I wanted to climb into and live in. Hobbiton always ranked as the number one place I wanted to live while Narnia brought me the wonder of watching a world grow from the ground up with The Magician’s Nephew.

I am creative thanks, in large part, to a diverse background in literary works that began as a child. I’m not proficient at painting, or music, nor am I talented in sculpting. Still, I enjoy pouring my creative energy into something I’m passionate about. Usually this takes the form of writing, whether on Medium or simply for myself. I’ll occasionally spend time writing a character initially intended to be used in an RPG only to realize it is no longer a character I want to share, instead keeping them for myself — one of the benefits of not relying on writing for my livelihood.

Another facet I sink time into is world-building, that is constructing a world from the ground up. This is done by authors to shape the world their work takes place in; by RPG players to sculpt the setting of their next campaign; and by me, often only for fun. Although I would love to one day write long form, right now I simply don’t have the patience, I prefer shorter writing challenges that I can complete and mark “finished.”

An incredible hybrid of the two is world-building. It is a project on a larger scale, like writing long form, but made up of many smaller projects that connect to create a larger, more complete whole. You can start with something small, say a problem in the world. And from there you can write about those trying to solve it, those worsening the problem, and who that problem affects.

Starting small and building outward is the type of writing I can accomplish regularly. Not always can I carve out the time to write a multi page short story, but I can always find time to write about a person in the world, a city, or even a plague affecting the populous — if I want to be topical. When you build outward it is easier to look at your work and see your progress. When you look at a series of interconnected articles each covering one facet of a work created entirely of your own accord, you can’t help but feel proud.

World building is often looked at as something related intrinsically to the fantasy genre. Thankfully for those who do not enjoy fantasy, that is far from the truth. World-building can be used to create any world. Yes fantasy is included, but it doesn’t end there. Sci-Fi, Slice of Life, or even worlds largely identical to our own, each benefits greatly from world-building. For someone crafting a world for their novel (or just for fun) which is, for all intents and purposes, identical to our own, you save time. You get to skip the process of deciding what species, fauna, cities, etc are in the world and can instead focus on the people, organizations, and other facets that will come into play.

Some, including myself, greatly enjoy the process of creating new life, planning cities and chronicling the world's history, leading to many of us creating fantasy and soft Sci-Fi worlds. Worlds often so divorced from our own that the primary species being set entirely apart from humanity. It is this freedom to be allowed to choose how many elements of our universe you take with you into your new world that makes it so freeing.

If you find the idea of crafting a universe from the ground up daunting — which is perfectly understandable — the freedom to play around with adding to our own world is something I would highly recommend. Neil Gaiman is, in my mind, the master of penning books that accomplish this. American Gods is set in America as we know it except for this: every god ever worshiped, from the Abrahamic God, to Allah, to even more recent creations of society such as Media exist. The simple act of belief in them is what creates and sustains them. This allows Gaiman to take a world already fleshed out and build upon it.

This method of world-building is still difficult, choosing where to deviate from our world's laws and history can be daunting, but it is undoubtedly easier to begin with than immersing yourself into an entirely new universe right off the bat. It allows you to bypass whatever parts you may find to not be fun and start work on what you are passionate about.

The joys of world-building reveal themselves quickly. You are given complete control. So often, in art, you are part of a larger whole. If you play music, often you have band mates or co-writers. Likewise, those who pen screenplays for films don’t have the say in who plays the roles or how a scene is handled by the director. A group of people coming together to create something is beautiful, but allowing others to alter your vision can be heartbreaking.

When you world-build, however, that freedom is unlocked. Suddenly you become the master of your own universe, and what you say goes. If you find an idea for a character compelling, write to them, breathe life into them. You determine how they look, where they live, and how they act. Want to do more with them? Set them in charge of a guild hall, or make them the leader of a separatist group.

I admit, all of these are things you can do while writing a novel. The uniqueness comes in the expectation. In a novel you must take time to set things up. You must introduce characters in a proper order, not reveal everything at once. When you world build you don’t have to worry about these constraints. As Neil Gaiman puts it, you play God.

“I think that the joy of world building in fiction is honestly the joy of getting to play God. Because as an author, you get to build the world.”

— Neil Gaiman

As a god you don’t have to worry about ensuring everything has been set up before introducing a new concept. You can flesh it out later or leave it as a mystery. This can lead to sloppy habits of not finishing work, but is a wonderful break from the usual expectations of formal writing.

So often I find myself slipping out of the mediocrity of everyday life and into a universe under my own control. I breathe life into it and, with my thoughts, shape and mold it into a newly formed universe. World-building is not only the method by which you create the world, but also the thoughts that spring to mind of universes you wish existed. It is the creativity that springs forth when you wish your life was filled with more excitement. It is the license to create your own life and meaning.

As an aside, though it should be obvious I find it worth noting that while I don’t use world-building for writing long form, it is an incredible tool, one I can only assume to be among the best ways to plan out your novels setting. In short, though I don’t use world-building to create novels or RPG campaigns I still benefit from it. I can free myself from the constraints that come attached to formal writing. If I like, I can be derivative or, should inspiration strike, I can be entirely original and unique. World-building is an incredible tool, one more should employ.

Here I have compiled a list of resources that I have found useful, both in growing my talent at world-building and at putting it to use. Some of these links are commission links and will be marked appropriately.

This is a 30 day exercise in world-building wherein each day you complete a different task.

Here is a list of books that I curated that should help you learn, or give examples of, world-building.

World Anvil is a website that allows you to create a wiki-like setup for your worlds. You can create articles for cities, people, technologies and more. There are free and paid tiers with various features.