[Discussion] Worldbuilding

[gimmepie]

I'm not asking about your worlds specifically. Rather, what I'm interested in is the process you follow when building a world? Do you start small and build out? Or do you prefer to work at the macro scale and then focus in on progressively more minute details? Do you try to keep things like real world physics and geology in mind as much as possible? Or does the rule of cool prevail? Tell me everything about how you construct a setting.

 

[Bay]

I admit to writing fanfiction for so long I totally forgot how to worldbuild from scratch. Sometimes the canon's setting has a country mentioned but little else, so a lot of times I think up of towns/cities and any shops/transportation/nearby nature like forests used. Sometimes I would also think up of the town/city's backstory if there's a need for that.

 

[Megan]

I like to start big and divide the progression of the world in sorta episodal formats. Those are usually just explained in only few details up to the point when the actually important events happen. I also try to keep things fairly contained within these historical episodes as it allows me to simply replace them whenever I think they don't fit anymore. I also find it useful to base parts on rl history and deviate whenever I feel like it. I may even occasionally involve multiverse-setups just to make it easier to explain away certain deviations that may not make sense otherwise. ^^"

The benefits of creating a completely new world is that I can freely introduce new complicated concepts as I please. The downside is that it comes with a lot of additional work and a lot of scrapped ideas. xD