️ fantasy worldbuilding 101 - pt. 1: the absolute basics

I hate world building. I despise thinking about it. I don’t even really like reading about it. But with my habit of almost exclusively making fantasy worlds means that I had to finally give in and do it. I’m hoping to find a way it is fun for me, because in the end, that’s who I write for

You gave me a couple more things to think and your voice is so relaxing thank you

interesting 🤔, thanks for the information, I'll write my fantasy novel now.

once again, thank you very much.

I owe you one. I've been thinking of story ideas ever since second grade, and thinking of how my world works is always a roadblock. I'm not really writing a story, but I am making an animated series based off of fantasy. Thanks!

This was really informative! I've also heard of a hack to draw a map by spilling grains of rice onto paper and tracing it which sounds like a fun project to try (esp cuz I haven't made my map yet). I'm currently writing a story that I changed from having a pantheon of 12 gods and goddesses, to 12 heroes or "Guardians" becauase I wanted the dominant religion to be monotheistic. They were chosen ones by God a thousand years before the main story timeline, and I decided to go all-out and make most of the world revolve around the guardians. For example, each of them founded their own nation, and magical powers were given to humanity first to the 12 guardians, who then passed on their powers to the rest of humanity living in the 12 nations which is how magical powers came to be. Thus, magical abilities are called "gifts" that some manifest, and some don't, and they're also considered blessings from the guardians (who later became revered as saints and saintesses in the dominant religion).

Enjoyed listening to this. Thanks for sharing these world building tips!

I think another really important thing to remember along with the fact that the character lives somewhere or travels is that if you’re doing a 1st world setting that oftentimes the divisions between countries and states would likely be very different, and not to limit one particular region to one culture, as in almost all regions of the world there are minorities, and implementing that into your writing can make your world feel a lot more real, even if it’s not on earth.

1. It doesn't have to be realistic, just consistent.
2. Reveal new aspects of your world as your MC discovers them.

After reading alots of comics and books randomly a storyline clicked to my brain and I reallyyyy wanna write it tho I never wrote before so I just need alots and alots of helpful idea like how can I make this my story actually readable to internet 😭

That was pretty well rounded basics of it. I would say perhaps, in today's extremely sensitive environment, if your world pictures our world, consider two things, 1. stay true to yourself, if you instill your own view of the world into your world building, then be honest about it, there will be confrontation against your point of view, so think it out, and own it, if that's what you think then that's what you think and comes with it the troubles of doing so. 2. Do your homework, research, reduce the chance of misstepping on someone's tail, reduce the need for appologies later down the line.
Then on my favorite kind of world building, those you do from scratch, i rather approach it with story as priority, i would call it the ink splash method. Readers will see the world through your story, so make your world in service to your story, creat the world the way so your story would make sense in it, but do not betray your world, if somewhere down the line your story runs into problem with your world building, don't cheat your world, that is actually a godsend unforseen conflict to add to your story, let your characters deal with it, if the suddenly emerging conflict surprised you as the creator, imagine how it would catch your audience off guard, and if you play it right, they would be blown away, believing you had planned this entire thing from the beginning, challenge yourself, have fun, and don't be afraid to discard some of your work, every beautiful garden needs to have some of its misplaced and overgrown branches removed once in a while. God is a writer, have fun playing god, don't be afraid to fail an experiment, you will figure it out sooner or later.😊

I have had my idea for a book in my head for 23 years now and never got it started until I discovered a map making app that is very cheap.

I spent a week creating the world I saw in my head and tweaking it, and that helped me envision my story unfolding.

Now that I’ve started to write I am filling in gaps to my world like city and town names, and name of natural features. I just keep adding as I see the story unfold

I’m working between a soft and hard world building. I give what I need and nothing more YET will have a detailed history in my appendix

My favorite part in jk's map is that she just gave up on the middle east (im from the middle east), we just dont get to go to school

I love putting in a lot of effort into a world nobody else will ever see

I'm a complete beginner and only wanted to create a story based on a wandering young swordsman in a world with monsters. And I felt into the world building side, hehe. I can't seem to figure out how the countries/continents should layout. Wether a single continent with several countries enough to called a world or should I include multiple continents. I prolly need to take my time and research more 😅.
Thanks for the video!!

this is so helpful ! i've had ideas for fantasy books since i was 13 but structuring a functional world was always where i hit a slump. if i ever manage to complete my first draft, i truly owe it entirely to this series <3 thank you so much

I'm writing a book, I have many people who are from irl countries (e.g. India) but i don't want to use the countries, I'm making my own. Any tips?? (sorry if i worded this weird, I'm listening to music and it's rlly late)

Just discovered your channel! super into world building so I really love this ground up approach you've been giving on how to create a world. you clearly have a lot of experience and have studied this, it shows, good job! An interesting note on cultural appropriation for stories -- I understand your point and I mostly agree. You definitely end up looking like a tool if you don't do your research on a culture whose elements you want to borrow in your book. But I also hesitate to bar people from going outside their culture and what they're used to when creating novels, because it feels restrictive and almost regressive in inclusivity and diversity in literature. While of course we want people of all cultures to write and represent themselves in the literary world, I find it unfair to restrict people to writing simply about their own culture and thats it. What if I wanted to include a hispanic love interest in my hypothetical story? Perhaps I wanted to flesh out their family, discuss their specific social class and neighborhood, because I didn't only want to write about Orthodox Jews, which is my culture? What if I worked with hispanic families, beta read with people, studied Spanish, took courses, and made sure that my information was accurate? would I still only be able to write about my one tiny culture, adding no diversity or color in my book through supporting characters? I'm willing to take a chance and make a mistake if that means I get to fill my books with people of all cultures and perspectives. But this is just my opinion :) I love this vid!

While I found this boring in my Global Politics class there are three main elements to any organisation, country, terrorist organisation, corporation etc

What is their Aim
Example: China wishes to have state sovereignty and economic prosperity

What is their role:
Example: China’s role is what it is expected to do and what it needs to do to survive. Such as again protect its sovereignty (different to wanting it) and having a stable economy for its population


What is its power?:
Example: power is China’s ability to act for the achievable of its aims and fulfilment of its roles. Such as China can build a military base for increased state sovereignty or the economic power to construct a trading port in another country for increased economic dominance.

(I chose China because we did a whole unit on it this year)

Anyways I came to the realisation that if you applied this to all of your world building organisation that includes stuff like wizarding schools, the elves in Lord of the rings, the Akatsuki in Naruto, The Military police in Attack on Titan and even the Serpentine in Ninjago lol. You would create a world with more internal conflict and cause and effect to it

jokes on you i AM making a travel guide created through a crap ton of art peices and field note from my character

Wait what is wrong with JK Rowling?

Never seen this map. I’m a casual HP fan. The map is fascinatingly…preliminary or First Draft to be polite

thank you so much for this its so helpful, any tips for writing a world with different lauguages when you only speak one and want your reeders to understand everyone, I don't know where to start. I'm watching your other videos next so sorry if you've already answered

I just created a world based on 14 gods that were created from the collision between warring Primordials.

The Primordials wanted to destroy them but the gods retaliated and used their remains to craft the universe

Why wouldent u wanna say her name?

Trying to write a whole new pantheon for my story and don’t know where to start because I need to create a whole fantasy world 😭😭😭

Anyone who can’t put JP Rollins name in their mouth has to be a twisted degenerate.

invoke her name.......................... just say what youre gonna say...geez

I have my map, I'm just having a hard time of like explaining the world to my players in dnd 😂

do you use any websites to organize your worldbuilding and characters? a website that gives character charts and helps you organize worldbuilding, because doing it on google docs is incredibly hard. Thanks!

LYNN, I LOVE YOUR THOUGHTS ON FANTASY, AND IT HAS BEEN ENORMOUSLY HELPFUL IN CONSTRUCTING THE STAGE FOR MY CURRENT PROJECT. I ALSO FOUND YOUR COMMENTS ON BORROWING FROM HISTORICAL ERAS AND CULTURES, BUT MAKING THOSE BURROWED ATTRIBUTES UNIQUE TO YOUR WORLD SO RIGHT AND REFRESHING. AS A TRAINED HISTORIAN, AND AN AUTHOR, WHO LOVES AND HAS STUDIED ANCIENT EAST ASIA AND MEDIEVAL WESTERN EUROPE., I FIND THAT YOUR THOUGHTS WILL ALLOW ME TO ADD BITS OF THESE INTERESTING AND COLORFUL CULTURES TO MY STORY WITHOUT FEELING THAT I HAVE COMMITTED CULTURAL APPROPRIATION. THANK YOU SO MUCH.

my protagonist is a captain of a airship, and his world is threatened by different races that an evil dark elf sorcerer has been summoning from another dimension as he aims to have people bow before false Gods, demons, he is a servant to Python which in this world is known as the god responsible for teaching the different arts of the occult. My protagonist is aiming to reunite humans, dwarves, and elves, to fight all these forces sent by this evil sorcerer as their world has become threatened by demonic forces. I'm not sure how to shape the physical aspect of my world. I'm not sure whether to make it contemporary or dystopian now either? I've been stuck for months now and haven't been able to write my first chapter yet. But I kind of want my characters to be some kind of demon slayer.

i'm very tired so i read it as "fantas worldbuilding 101" and was very confused for a second

Hi artist/world builder here.
Here is idea.
It's your world make it how you want. What do I mean by that you may ask?
Well I always hated tokenesk type world because it's already been done. By Tolken that's why it's called that.
Who says your would has to take place on this planet?
Who says your would has to take place even on a planet?
Why stop there Who says your world has to be in the same dimension/ plane of existence with the same laws of physics.
I mean it fantasy FFS!
This is why I stopped reading fantasy and syfi
Nothing new it seem the same Eruro centric cookie cutter go to for every artist and writer.
They call it high fantasy but take away the Magic, the elves, dwarves and dragon. Their world looks like earth.
No floating islands in the sky, no strange natural formation that make up the landscape. No Awa and wounder of being transported to something new.
No strange new different races for us to imagine.
Like I said I'm an artist, I love creativity I want someone to write a book and transport me to their world.
Imagine it like this you the artist/writer. You get transported to your world it is your duty to try to describe it. And tell us why we should be amazed. What makes your would different?
To give you an idea I'll tell you about my world just threw genres.
It is
High magic/High Fantasy/Dark Cyberpunk/Biopunk// Moon Punk/ Dreampunk/ Steelpunk/steampunk/ clockwork taken place in an Asian setting. I say Asian setting because the esthetic is Asian but not like anything know on earth. All taken place on an endless plane where many worlds and other Dimension intersect.
With my own take on the land of the Fey. Well a lot of it takes place on the border of the Asian land of fey and the moral world.
The mortal would is more Dark fantasy/horror.
Sounds more interesting then Tokenesk right?
And I Draw it in my Manga style some times I may draw it in my comic book style. My point is it's your world you make the rules.
You are God's and goddess of the world you make you say how the world works just be consistent and make it make sense.
I like helping artist and want to see them grow. You really need to stop looking at the world around you and create the world from your head. Ask yourself if someone gave you the power to create your world and everything in it including but not limited to culture and food.
But you have to stay their for eternity. How would you make it?
Sure you may get inspiration from the real world but don't let it be a crutch. Let your imagination go wild. Give me something I can immersed and lose myself in attest for the length of the book 😊

You said, that its unnecessary to think about parts of your world, who dont matter to the Story, but isnt it exacly what j.k.Rowling did, by Not specifying the Parts of the world who are not as relevant in her Books because theyre far away and detailising the one, the Story takes Place in. (Wont defend her but i wouldnt worry about this map too much).

I support your points on the Harry Potter world map, but that isn't an official map from the author so it's more like fanfiction right.

I created a world called Novea that mimics earth but like
✨Magickal✨
Divine Humans, Normal humans (but they aren’t completely powerless, they just don’t know it)
And giant monsters resembling Moths known as Eqliohts
The story is called ICARUS

I think it’s fine to take inspiration of of a culture that isn’t yours. As long as you don’t mess up. I mean look at avatar : entirely based of Asian culture and made by two non Asian guys . no cultural appropriation, no scandal , no disrespect . Because it was done well. I m not white but I can write about a world inspired by a European country , if I want to

I never realized the difficulty, headache and TIME it takes to actually world build. Even the idea of currency is a bother-if youre insane like me and decided that they want a unique form, stepping outside points, metal coins and such. Ill eventually get my story out there though...i just gotta stop being so overly critical of my own work and just get it down on paper, then edit from there. Haha. Great video though! And also, those dimples are heart melting! 😮

For all your 'concern', something tells me that you rate extremely high on narcissism. I came to hear a discussion about worldbuilding and its just you prattling on and criticizing another author when it's easy and everyone is bandwagoning. Have an original take. Truly unpleasant.

Why the hate towards Jk Rowling? 😮😮😮😮

Building a world from a futuristic utopian dream I had... wish me luck 😅

i came here to learn about worldbuilding, not SJW virtue signaling

Thankyou so much for this! I often get overwhelmed with the amount of information there is to world building, but breaking it down like this is incredibly helpful!

Anyounghaseyo, you sound woke, anyone can write anything who cares, the west has ruined your thinking..

A map of wizarding schools where large bits are blank just means you have spots where you can slap down your own magic school. It's the same with Tolkien, when Umbar or the east or War of the Rings-era Erabor are undescribed that just means you can slap down your own game there.

They can go to the same school because magic could be used for the translations. 😂

why hating on JK Rowling ?
she's an amazing author. the HP franchise made our entire childhood 😔
i still respect and love her as an person.