Becka's World Building Workshop ~ Post #1

WBW Post #1

For the next few weeks on my blog days here (every two weeks) on the Fantasy and Enchantment blog, I'm going to be running a feature called Becka's World Building Workshop. There are seven "classes" in all, and I'll be labeling each post with their number and linking back to them so you can find them with ease. Hope you enjoy the workshop!

~*~*~*~

For those of you who might be building a fantasy world or a sci-fi world, or even a world of your own creation for your books, this will be a tremendous help in building up your world and making it "real" for the reader. Even if you do not use all the information you think of in your book, it helps to flesh out your world to the Nth degree, so you know what you're talking about. Believe me, readers "know" when the author isn't "feelin' it". :)

If you would like to follow along and build your world with the workshop, feel free! You can post comments and give updates on how you're doing. :)

We'll be touching on a few of these topics, and we might spend more time on some than others, but we'll give at least a little time to each. We'll start out slow at first and then delve into other aspects as we go along. I'll also be giving you a little homework with each subject for those who'd like to jump in and make their world as we go. It's not going to be too hard, so don't sweat it,
really!

Don't worry, you don't have to do the world building exercises that I lay out if you don't want, but if you do, you can report what you've come up with and share it with us.


We're going to cover:

• Your country or world's name
• You world's history
• Leaders of your country, kings or politicians (hierarchy)
• Your money system (economy, trade, & currency)
• Mountains, valleys, & rivers (terrain & maps)
• Crops & Agriculture
• Races of creatures and customs (culture)

I hope you guys like this idea. :) I held a workshop on world-building once, and people found it informative then. I thought you guys would like some tips as well. I'll be posting some more articles on it as time goes by. :)

Let's get started!

The first thing you should do with your world is name it. This name can be completely made up or based off of something else such as mythology or folktales.

This is probably the easiest part of building a world. I know some of you might be lamenting the thought of naming your world right off the bat, but a good, solid name may give you ideas for your hierarcy and history.

To give my world as a reference, I'll be telling you bits and pieces about it over the course of this workshop. Using it as an example, you might better understand the creation of your own.

My world is known as "Lyndaria". I decided to base it loosly off of Medieval England. With that as a base, I created a line of kings and knights, along with a castle and titled lords, but there is also an element of magic. You may not choose this for yourself, especially if you are into sci-fi, but now is the time to decide what you want to create.

"High fantasy" is a term often used to describe magical worlds such as mine that resemble Medieval times. These worlds are usually heavy with magical influence and have many magical weapons and talismans that can be used by the characters. But you can create anything, from an ice planet to an alternate reality if say, the British had won the Revolutionary War.

You want to think about a feasible name for your world, something that will fit within the setting. If you are writing fantasy, you want your world's name to sound fantastic. Likewise, a Sci-fi world might have a name that fits with our current naming system of planets and moons.

For example, my fantasy world is called "Lyndaria" as I've stated above. Other names from popular fantasies are Xanth, Middle Earth, & Narnia. Sci-fi worlds could be Aphrodite, Pandora, or Hera, keeping with mythological names of gods & goddesses. Other names of Sci-fi worlds from fiction include Arrakis, Abados, & Chulak.

Once your world is named, then think of how you want it ruled. Is it ruled by a king? A president? A dictator? What is the chain of command on your world? Do you have titled lords? Politicians?

When you figure out those two things, then the history of your world should come soon after. But we'll talk about that more in depth in another article. For now, I want you to name your world and chose your hierarcy, whether you are going to base it off of an earth culture either past or present or make up your own system of government.

Once that foundation is laid, then we can move on to the other aspects of world building. Once you think of your name and government, post them here if you'd like. Don't worry about names of leaders and such, as that can be worried about later. Right now, we just want the basic building blocks.

If any of you have questions about naming your world or chosing a government, feel free to post them in this thread as well.

:)

~~Becka


My example of Lyndaria comes from my fantasy/romance novels The Legends of Mynos, currently published at http://www.SamhainPublishing.com.