The Art of World Building

5 World Building Tips (Vol 3, #12): Conclusion

Here are today’s world building tips! The theme is closing thoughts. You can read more in Chapter 11, “Conclusion,” from Cultures and Beyond, (The Art of World Building, #3).

Tip #1: “Stay Organized”

However you do it, keep your world building files organized so that you can easily find information. And don’t repeat info in more than one place because you won’t remember to change it in both. I keep a master spreadsheet where I can see, at a glance, certain basics about every city on a continent such as population, races present, age, colors, and symbols. And in each city file, I don’t mention these things, alluding to the spreadsheet.

Tip #2: “Follow Your Own Rules”

If we state that no one can do something, don’t have someone be able to do it. The exception is when a character is special in achieving this impossible result, but do that on purpose, not because you made up a rule, forgot, and then had someone break it later without you even commenting on it. Audiences notice these things. Keep a list of your rules and do yourself a favor – don’t be ironclad about them. This gives us flexibility to break one when we need to.

Tip #3: “Consider a Partner”

World building can take huge amounts of time. Consider doing a joint venture with friends where you build a setting together, collaborating and dividing up the work. Just be advised that if this friendship ever fails, you may start arguing over who gets to use the setting. A simple written agreement can specify you each have ownership to write stories in it, but you’ll need to work out these details.

Tip #4: “Remember to Have Fun”

Try not to get so bogged down in world building that it’s no fun anymore and you don’t have time to write stories – or promote them. Use the resources I’ve provided to help you decide what to skip and when. World Building University has a free course that’s designed to help you decide what to do. Use promo code “185Tips” once “Accelerated World Building” is available!

Tip #5: “Use World Building Tools”

Whether it’s my series, The Art of World Building¸ my school World Building University, or books, podcasts, and YouTube videos by others, get familiar with many opinions on how things can be done and take all of it with a grain of salt. There are few things we must get “right.” Be flexible and don’t get overwhelmed.

Summary of Chapter 11—Conclusion

In the series conclusion, we look at how to organize our files of world building notes so that the info glut doesn’t become overwhelming; this includes some tools others have created, whether free or not, and the pros and cons of using them. We’ll also look at different approaches to world building and how they can affect our working methodology and results. Final thoughts include the merits of following our own rules per world and whether partnering with another world builder is a good idea or not.

5 World Building Tips (Vol 3, #9): Names

Here are today’s world building tips! The theme is names. You can read more in Chapter 9, “Creating Names,” from Cultures and Beyond, (The Art of World Building, #3).

Tip #1: “Avoid Apostrophes and Hyphens”

The use of both is cliched. If doing this, make sure most names from that culture are the same so that it doesn’t seem like we’re just trying to be exotic, which is how this got a bad reputation. The hyphens are caused by concatenating a mother and father’s surname. An apostrophe replaces missing letters and we can easily live without doing that.

Tip #2: “Keep Names Short”

Long names are a way to distinguish one race from another, but no one likes trying to sound out Limineraslyvarisnia, for example. However, such names can exist, so if we do this, only use that long version once and shorten it for the rest of the book, such to “Limi.”

Tip #3: “Alter Existing Words”

We can take words we see around us and remove or replace letters and syllables to make new words. We can add prefixes or suffixes. We can substitute vowels. These techniques are fun and effective.

Tip #4: “Surnames Sources”

We can use places, occupations, nicknames, and first names for “last” or surnames. This helps us reuse places and names we’ve already created. Places can imply a character’s origins, but some, like “Hill,” are too generic for that. Professions can imply at least their parent’s background, such a blacksmith getting the last name “Smith.”

Tip #5: “Avoid Name Generators”

There are free online programs that can create names for us with a button click. A quick search will turn them up. But they tend to feel impersonal and when we need multiple names, these programs are unlikely to create ones that seem to fit together.

Summary of Chapter 9—Creating Names

Many techniques exist for creating names of people, places, and things, and all of them leverage our creativity to make the results and process more satisfying than using name generators, which are also discussed. Caveats and pitfalls abound, for while a great name elevates our story, bad ones turn off audiences, or keep them from talking about a character with an unpronounceable or unspellable name. We look at the differences between given names, surnames, compound names, and different ways to leverage parts of our invented world for all of them. The tips in this chapter will make this required activity fun and rewarding.

5 World Building Tips (Vol 3, #1): Languages

Here are today’s world building tips! The theme is languages. You can read more in Chapter 8, “Creating Languages,” from Cultures and Beyond, (The Art of World Building, #3).

Tip #1: “Read Books”

There are several books on how to create a language, including The Art of Language Invention (italics) by the guy who created Dothraki for Game of Thrones (italics). Reading this will convince you this is doable or not – and what you need to know if doing yourself or even hiring someone else to do it.

Tip #2: “They Can Be a Distraction”

No one but us understands these words and they can distract a reader. Even those who take the time to sound them out have been pulled out of our story while they do so. We may want to just avoid this altogether.

Tip #3: “We Have Three Options”

We can ignore language creation, we can make up nonsense words as we go along, or we can create a real language to one degree or another. The only people who’ll really know which we did are conlangers, a small group of people whose opinion might not matter to us!

Tip #4: “You May Coach a Narrator”

If you hire someone to create an audiobook for you, you’ll need to coach them on how to say everything unless you do the book yourself. Make sure you can say everything yourself if this might happen.

Tip #5: “Hire a Pro”

The Language Creation Society’s (LCS) site at https://conlang.org/ makes it easy to hire an expert for as little as $100 US or up to $800. The difference is how much they give you. But understanding what we’re getting may require reading those books I mentioned.

Summary of Chapter 8—Creating Languages

Creating a language is one of the most challenging aspects of world building, but it’s also one of the few that we can outsource; how and where to do so is discussed. Even so, some basic terms must be understood so we know what we’re buying and receiving from our expert. If we choose to do it ourselves, we should consider whether it benefits our audience and how, or whether it’s even a burden that we can save both them and ourselves. This chapter will not teach world builders how to invent a language because there are entire books on the subject, and those are referenced here, but it will discuss the pros and cons of constructing a language and what we lose by not having one (or more).