10 Worldbuilding Mistakes You Don’t Know You Make
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ก.ค. 2024
- Ten critical worldbuilding mistakes creators make while crafting their fictional worlds. From the pitfalls of over-expanding your universe to the nuances of economic realities, this video is filled with insights for storytellers, writers, and general worldbuilding enthusiasts.
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#Worldbuilding #WorldbuildingTips #CreativeWriting #FantasyWorlds #WritingAdvice
00:00 Worldbuilding challenges
00:41 Mistake #1
02:17 Mistake #2
03:24 Mistake #3
04:53 Mistake #4
06:33 Mistake #5
07:49 Mistake #6
09:13 Mistake #7
10:37 Mistake #8
12:00 Mistake #9
13:11 Mistake #10
14:17 Closing Thoughts
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One very important but often overlooked mistake is to not set the expectations. If you set expectations right away that it wil be a very fantastical high-fantasy world people will either not read on because they don´t want it or they will buy in to it wholeheartedly and accept the extreme stuff. But fail to establish it right away and it can ruin the story completely when it feels like it comes out of nowhere.
That is absolutely right, yes. I tried to focus a bit more on worldbuilding only in this particular video (which isn't always super easy as the lines between worldbuilding and writing often get blurred) but I can definitely get behind your mistake in general :)
One of the things that is easy to do wrong is starting a story with something that is not representative of the entirety which means you are likely to alienate your readers eventually throughout the story. If things start super light-hearted, almost comedic and a 2-3 chapters later it turns into a brutal gore story and stays there, then you've likely lost the right readers early on and will get less positive feedback from those that tried to give it a chance.
Setting expectations right from the start is crucial for a good experience in storytelling in general - not just in writing but the same could be said for movies, tv-shows even games to some degree.
My story Entropy (fantasy/eldritch horror/psychological horror) has a big world but a smallish scale in the bounds of the main story (the comic), but there are multiple stories that take place on the same planet in different continents and across different time periods. So making a bunch of small stories in the same universe can work to paint a picture of the universe. My Entropy universe does have mythical creatures but I try to keep them somewhat biologically plausible in the real world and uses string theory/brane theory for the dimensions and magic. Magic has a lot of serious consequences when used improperly or excessively, like some real reality warping/body horror/full on horror movie stuff.
That is a great approach, yes. Obviously, a world can become huge in scope and details over time as more stories are told and new insights about the world gathered. Short stories are a great way to expand a world as well because the scope is limited and it allows to really dig deep into smaller aspects of the world :)
Are you on Instagram? Where can I see about this story?
Ayo, I'm having this exact problem
I have a lot of world but not a lot of comic for it
I'm currently struggling with how I'm gonna fit all my world history in my story
and after reading your multicomic approach, I might consider drawing a seperate comic for it
(in my case, the world's scale is more time and history related than actually size I guess)
Glad to see someone else take that approach. Allows for a dozen snapshots to give a good review of the world. Entropy huh?
The reason the story is called entropy is because it's a psychological/eldritch horror that is about someone trying to stop a cosmic entity that is essentially the embodiment of order from turning the universe into nothing (absolute order is nothingness).
The one that stuck out to me was the mixing of tech levels and world types since my world is a deliberate mix of medieval, Bronze Age, and early 20th-century styles and technology. Think of armoured knights in land ships (tanks) or Bronze Age-styled cities with electricity and trams. My idea was that the newer technology is very recent and limited to those wealthy enough to buy or build them. Much of the new machinery appeared in the last 40-50 years and the first examples were built *outside* the region and imported before a local polity became very capable of building advanced versions.
I'm still unsure of how to keep the less advanced polities on a medieval level relevant beyond making modern versions of medieval things like suits of armour and shields tested against firearms and modernised bows and crossbows(cheaper to make). I also decided to have firearms deliberately limited from the public and cars being an expensive, exotic good like how silk was.
I have a world with a common mythology that has different tellings. This is similar to how many see Roman and Greek myths.
There is a single atory of creation with shifted elements in the telling. In one seafaring culture the vast heavens overhead are seen as a sea that the world is but a small shoal of.
In another, things are a little more, "As above, so below." This one involves a mountain and valley military culture and has the three tiers of the heavens, the realm the people dwell and a subteranian realm.
There are six primary cultures in that world with regional flavors and tweaks like isolationist sects and tribes, and one of those cultures being outcasted creatures that have a warped nature and vast differences between those settlements.
Worldbuilding can be as simple or complex as you make it. It's up to the one with the quill in hand to determine how deep the story dives in.
This was a great and helpful video, please cover how character development can be guided by world building !
I'm glad to hear that it was helpful to you, and thank you for the feedback :) I'll put your request on my list and see if that isn't something I can make a video about eventually. Appreciate you bringing that up.
You uploaded again. And it's on my favorite topic. Love me some world-building. This was quite informative. Both novice and experienced writers can take something away from this, and I hope it reaches those who need to see it. You did a great job listing off what to be mindful of during the creative process.
Absolutely, world-building can make or break a story. Too much mindless info can hurt the pacing and intrigue, while too little will leave your audience craving more, but not in a good way. You don't want the setting to feel hollow or underbaked. The world should feel as alive as the characters within it, but you would treat the world as a side character rather than your central characters, if that makes sense. It needs to be ever present but not the main focus.
That said, the work I mentioned on your resurrection vid yesterday actually began as a world-building project. I'm definitely not a good example of how to write a novel. I spent 4 years crafting the cultures, lore, and history before I began the actual narrative. I would not recommend doing that, however, if the world you're creating is going to be the foundation of a sprawling series, or even several disjointed stories within the same universe, you might want to flush out your own personal world-building notes at the start.
Don't spend years doing it like I did, but if you have a more robust base, it does save you time and effort later down the road. If you aren't writing on a grand scale like that, you wouldn't need to fill out as much detail. Like you stated, it all depends on the scope of what you're writing. The bigger the scale, the more world-building you'll need to consider.
Readers will notice if one of your kingdoms has rich lore and atmosphere while the others are culturally bland. Make it even across the board. That's the one thing you didn't mention that I'd add to the conversation of world-building. You don't want your audience to pick out which setting was your favorite because you neglected the rest.
I just noticed how much I've droned on here. Apologies. And again, great vid. Cheers, mate.
No worries in regards to longer comments, I apreciate all the support and interest, and am always happy to jump in when I can to join the conversation. I'm deliberately trying to mostly focus on value adding videos in order to build a community of like-minded people where these types of discussions can thrive and enrich everyone's experience :)
In terms of your journey, I don't think it is necessarily bad to jump into a lot of worldbuilding. The more fleshed out it is, the more you can draw from. Ideally it is done conciously though. Some people love worldbuilding for the sake of worldbuilding, and that is great in of itself. There is endless opportunity for creativity here. IF you want to finish a novel or story or whatever though, then focus and balance are important though, at least if you don't want to spent years and not get anywhere because the worldbuilding process becomes a neverending process.
Trust me, I've been there too ^^
One story I've been working off and on is 'The Thirteen Steps of the Crystal Throne' and it takes place in a post-apocalyptic/fantasy setting.
The world setting initially starts off very similar to our own before everything is turned on its head after the 'World Tree' seed strikes the planet. The seed causes the world to quickly wither as it devoures the primal essences of everything from the elements, to concepts, and the very soul.
The world and its inhabitants then live on in a constant half-dead half-aware state as the World Tree takes its time to mature over the course of a thousand years. Once the World Tree becomes fully mature, a prismatic crystalline lotus flower blossoms upon its uppermost branches, bestowing a new untapped resource to the world.
Mana
The story continues on after this by introducing the Calamities, Gods, the 13 Types of Magic, and the transfiguration of the majority of the remaining members of Humanity into twelve other additional races.
While the introduction is on a global scale, the actual story takes place on a single continent and follows the perspective of a few of the inhabitants as they interact with the world around them.
This sounds quite interesting. I'd advice you to make sure though that the elements of your story that define it after the change are somewhat present or foreshadowed early on.
It is easy to lose / alienate readers when a story starts one way and suddenly turns into something completely different :)
1. how many continents?
2. is there anything you can do to the story to make your characters have to explore them?
in my story, there's a whole world going on and my main characters plot, to him, doesn't matter to the world, but the very guy he wants revenge from is at the center of every world changing event that unfolds in my world
I have 3 continents and they each have distinct reasons my antagonist will traverse them so a reason for my main characters to explore them as they follow the guy
@@saint037
1. There is one super continent and several great islands, some of which that reside in the skies above.
2. Hidden among these landscapes, there are temples dedicated to sealing the Calamities, the first dragons of the world that embody the seven primal magical elements. Each temple is within a domain of an element that the opposing Calamity is vulnerable to.
There are dragon cults hellbent on dispelling the seals that the MC needs to travel to thwart their schemes.
Very good advice, thank you. I'm just restarting writing after an 8 year period and have to revisit lots of ground rules. So these are very helpful.
Very glad to hear that there was something useful for you in the video. Thank you for taking the time to leave the feedback, and more importantly of course, all the best with getting back into writing :)
One of my favorite subversion of the Dragon trope is found in the Breath of Fire IV psx video game, which is the core inspiration for the Ryutaama TTRPG released this year.
In both world, Dragons are forces of nature and guardians of it. They acts in ways that humanity cannot understand, they simply exist. Why the dragon of earth caused an earthquake? Who knows? It's juts flowing with itself. Are they good? Are they bad? That's up for the players interpretation as they go with the story.
That sounds like an interesting approach, yes. Allowing dragons to remain something otherwordly and mysterious gives them a bit of room to breathe rather than pushing them into tropes that might not be ideal for a particular world or story. Personally, I do prefer to integrate dragons more heavily as characters as well when using them, but that's just me of course :)
My story takes place in a world with eight continents and six different races but everything that happens takes place at the smallest continent of the world and my story is character driven so I feel like I don't need to flesh out everything about the other seven continents... What is your advice??
I'm currently in the process of working on the first novel that I actually plan to release to the public myself (still a bit out) and this does include fleshing out a new world as well (which has been in the works for a while already). The way I approach this personally, being very character-driven myself in stories, is to look at the parts of the worldbuilding process that somehow could affect my geographically restricted stories.
What I mean by that is for example:
- Locations, people, creatures, cultures, ... that are important to the world but won't be something the characters in the story actually meet/visit are not something I spend too much time on (unless I conciously decide I want to give in to the temptation of having fun with those parts).
- Higher level concepts such as economic rules, magic system, creation history, overall theme of the world (dark? light-hearted? deadly?) are things I spend a bit more time on and then I dive into the details of the locations and characters that are relevant for the story itself.
Knowing more about your world is almost never a bad thing in my opinion. So fleshing out parts of the world the story doesn't visit, doesn't have to be a waste of time. It will take time away from getting the story written though, so its more a matter of priorities, rather than of right and wrong in my opionion.
if I may... you don't have to fully flesh them out, just give a hint of what it's like in the other continents
have someone from a race native to one of the continents do something important in the story, something related to the continent they come from
e.g. a continent has a villiage of golems and this villiage is in a volcano, so your MC needs something from a volcano and a golem is the one who retrieves it and explains that it's just his natural habitat or maybe this golem makes a business off of volcano elements based tools or weapons and such that have special properties
the continents don't have to be there to be represented🤔
maybe one continent is over run with war and refugees are all over the MCs continent because of it
maybe this war is foreshadowing something coming for the MCs location seeing as there was a war with the same opposition on a different continent 2 years ago
TLDR: the idea of the continents can still be planted even if they aren't fully explored by the story
In my world, Serengilte is a fairly large continent with a dividing sea (like the Mediterranean) between west and east and all the nations (which are trading with each other and/or in conflict) the story concerns (for now) are in the south. A few of the cities are quite cosmopolitan, thus there are characters from different nations in the same place, interacting and involved in the plot. So without having to visit those far-off regions, we learn of their cultures through the characters, which is lovely.
Great video!
Thank you for taking the time to leave that positive feedback, really appreciated :)
I make hints here and there of incidents of the past in my novel and reference the 3rd continent. Basically trying to create history for my world. I only have 2 continents and one major island. Making a map has been hard. One of the characters in my novel is incredible with magic and has invented living or constant spells that effect reality ie memory expansion for recalling spells and running water for bathhouses. Video has given me some ideas. Thanks.
Thank you for leaving those insights. I'm glad to hear that you were able to get some value out of the video :)
Several of these are things are work as much as possible to fix in a long running story ive created and wirld builders disease is no doubt my biggest issue but the past few months ive done well to lay some things out that answer a lot the questions of why or how something here or there happens but a lot of it wont be revealed at first or it may only be hinted at. Most races in my world that ive made lived a different life before man and it changed how things played out when man came into existence. Some of the races are aware of the possibilities of technology and magic at its best and its worst and try to guide humanity in the direction they believe is for the best but just like us they too make mistakes and at times don't see things the way mankind does and this leads to many conflicts and wars over thousands of years but it gives a reason to why it stays in a mostly medieval fantasy till near the last story of the series ive made. Magic also has a hand in slowing down technological advancement but eventually they fuse together causing a major shift in society causing another struggle
Glad to hear that you're finding ways to improve your work and processes, especially when it comes to utilizing more deep worldbuilding as a way to hint at more depth underneath the surface rather than throwing everything at the reader :)
@@TheTaleTinkerer It definitely helped curved the struggle but I feel going as big as I have has lead to the problem you mentioned with economics how people live in the world. I've mostly fleshed out how major groups and individuals that are a part of the bigger picture mostly live out there days but things that happen behind the scenes and people that just live in the world are still a work in progress. Been researching a lot of world history, mythology, and geography recently while trying to make the world mostly realistic to point with magic filling in some holes especially with its deep connection to souls
@@Royalscriber5633Remember that its a question of priorities as well. If you want to write a story, you only need "that much". If of course you want to flesh out worldbuilding for the sake of it, that's ok too :)
@@TheTaleTinkerer Of course. I'm trying to make just enough for a foundation of a sort to work off of an origin of sort. I feel like knowing where and what resources my kingdoms and groups need and have a way of getting will be next step to getting started
Just found your channel. Absolute gold mine!
Thank you for taking the time to make this comment. This kind of feedback is incredibly encouraging and really makes something I'm already loving (and trying to contiously improve further) even more rewarding :)
bruh😢
@@saint037 Not sure I'm able to catch the meaning of the emoji in this context, sorry - care to explain? :)
@@TheTaleTinkerer I'm agreeing with the guy
@@saint037 Thank you - glad to hear that :)
What site did you used for those ai arts
I'm using Midjourney for it as I don't have the skills to whip up this quality myself, especially not in the same time :)
Was hoping for something more in depth or at least original thoughts but this is the most basic stuff you can say and nothing others haven't said better a thousand times before. Maybe something with a little more though next time
Sorry you didn't think this was helpful, but thanks for the feedback in any case of course :)