Worldbuilding
Right now in my Fantasy class – that is, my Directed Reading: Fantasy class as opposed to a class that only exists in my mind – we are studying worldbuilding.
I love worldbuilding. It’s the legacy of my roleplaying games, I suspect. I’ve put together dozens of worlds over the years, with gods, nations and other such details. I enjoy thinking about different cultures, and figuring out new ways to look at old ideas. I could spend hours putting together maps and figuring out boundaries, and the hows and whys of cultural and regional expansion.
That’s the problem really. I can spend that time easily, and before I know it the hours have turned to days, the days to weeks, or worse. There are always more details to invent, new ideas to implement, new regions to develop. And if I do that, weeks have been spent happily developing the fine points that can make for a wonderful story.
The problem is, that not a single word is written in all that time.
Oh, sure, it’s developing important background data, but without a story it has no meaning.
Worse yet, what if I start telling a story in that world and bang my head on some of the background? Some cultural more stabs a plotline, and the bleeding isn’t spotted until page 110. Another plotline depends on that more, so which goes?
Thus, do I compromise. I build on the fly. I sketch out enough details to get me going, and write. Whenever I run across something I must know to continue writing, I make it up then and there, noting it down in the process.
Then, when the day’s session is done, I look at the notes I have and brainstorm a bit. I like to do it by mind mapping. There’s very good software available for this, but I find it easier on paper, to save myself switching between keyboard and mouse. Once I have it down on paper, though, I preserve it in the computer using one of those programs, often refining it a bit in the process. Then I have these maps to consult, aiding me in my worldbuilding.
