Making Your World Come to Life—Wielding Your Writing: A Guide Series for Writers

#thatweirdwriter #worldbuilding #setting #blogger #blogpost #writers

World-building and setting are two very important parts of your story, especially if you're writing fantasy or sci-fi. Your fictional world is a huge part of what makes your story unique. Imagine Star Wars set in our world instead of the extravagant universe with the cool planets like Tatooine and Naboo and the Death Star. Imagine Harry Potter set somewhere different than the Wizarding World. There wouldn't be a Hogwarts or Hogsmeade or quidditch pit! Not the quidditch pit!

Setting is a huge part of how the readers connect and immerse themselves into the story. It's the first thing they think about, other than the characters, when describing the story to someone else, so it has to be memorable.

Having a different and unique world is hard. Some writers love creating crazy settings and weird worlds, and some don't. Personally, I don't mind world-building, but I'd much rather work on my characters and themes. This has lead most of my worlds to be lack originality and overall interest for my readers. They don't really deliver, and that has forced me to look deeper into world-building to discover what my worlds are missing and what I can do to make them better. Below are 5 tips to help you awe your readers with your world and help it come to life.

1. Introduce it Early

What's unique about your world? What makes it strange? How is it different from the world we live in? The goal of the first few pages of a story are to draw the reader in and get them to ask questions. You have to show them that something is going to happen. You have to show them that this world is different. You can't mention your setting for the first time on page 120. You have to hook the reader with your setting from page one even if you just write a single sentence about how the wind doesn't make people cold, it makes them warm, or how the water isn't blue, it's orange.

I'm guilty of this common mistake. In my first novel, that was a high fantasy novel, I didn't explain the world much until chapter two. You need to mention the unique characteristics of your setting as early as possible. Doing this is going to make your reader think and intrigue them more about the journey they're about to set off on.

2. Plan it Out

Just like you outline your plot and your characters, you should also outline your world. World-building is a lot more than just location. It includes things like time period, the government of your society, the laws and rules of your society, what kind of people live there. Are there religions, classes, different groups? How does their economy work? What's the climate like? What are the buildings like? What language do they speak?

You should keep all of these things in mind when planning, and give thought to each of them, especially if you're writing sci-fi or fantasy. Make a map or a list of questions to answer about your world and go through them one by one. Doing this will help you a lot in the long run, and will eliminate potential re-writes that deal with your setting.

3. You Should Know Your World

As the writer, you should know everything about your world, even if your readers never find that information out. Now this doesn't mean you should spend years on world-building or that your world has to be as complex as the one in The Lord of the Rings. You need to know more about your world than anyone. This was a huge mistake I made when working on my fantasy novel. I didn't plan my world out. I didn't ask questions about my world, and that left a lot of plot holes and a very inconsistent and scattered world for my readers to navigate. Don't make your readers work. Don't make them pause and try to put the pieces of the puzzle together. That's your job. Their job is to enjoy the finished picture and the journey that you've created for them. Make your world complex, but you have to know it inside and out. It has to make sense to you, but more importantly it has to make sense to the reader.

4. Setting the Scene

One of the biggest struggles I had when I started writing was writing descriptions. Some writers seem to be able to write marvelous descriptions naturally, and I was not one of them. Writing descriptions is hard because you have to look at the world and describe what you see in an interesting and unique way. You have to create the image for your reader. You can't just say, "the chair was red." That seems a little flat, and the writer is definitely "telling" the reader and not "showing" them. Don't use more words than you need to when describing. Instead use stronger, more-meaningful words. Try to cut out adjectives and adverbs, and replace them with stronger nouns and verbs.

5. Small Details Make a Big Difference

Pick out the unique things when describing settings and characters. Focus on the small details or details the reader will learn something from. If a place is musty and covered in grime, that is alluding to the reader that the place is old and run-down. If a character's shoes are name-brand sneakers, the reader is going to assume that the character has a decent amount of money. A character's physical description can tell us about the character's personality and can hint at who they are as a person and what their lifestyle is like. Meanwhile, a good description of setting will help the reader picture your world and intrigue them. Use these techniques to your advantage.

Like all aspects of writing, creating an exciting and unique world takes work and practice. Remember to plan out your world. Ask yourself questions about your world to gain inspiration and to get your mind working. Your readers aren't going to know everything about your world, but you should. Setting the scene and writing descriptions are pretty hard, but they can be very enjoyable and let you use your creativity to imagine and describe your setting and characters to your readers. I hope these 5 tips help you. Now go build those worlds!

Thank you so much for reading this post. Wielding Your Writing is actually a whole series on my blog, and more posts are added all the time. You can subscribe to my blog so you don't miss out on any posts!

It's been a pleasure writing for you, and until next time--stay weird and stay writing. - Lexi