How specific do you get with your worldbuilding?

[jamontoast98]

For me I'm somewhere in the middle, I like to outline the basics that happen around my world but don't come up with the full details until later. For example my story has a lot of factions, for each one I've outlined a few members, their goals and a few events that happened within the faction. For example, there is a faction called the 'Villains' League' who aim to act as a scapegoat by uniting everybody against them. However, things escalated when one person assaulted somebody else and ended up getting arrested. The Villains' League was split in two, those who sided with the assaulter and those who sided against him.

This works really well for me because I can know how each faction will influence the story going forward without getting too attached to my ideas. I don't know who the assaulter is or who got assaulted, so I can decide this later on when it becomes more relevant (though I think the guy who got assaulted should be a really hateable person who 'had it coming').

I think any amount of worldbuilding is fine as long as it works for you. There are people who like to meticulously detail every single event, and those who like to wing it and pants the whole thing. If it was on a scale from 0% to 100%, I'd say I'm about 30%. Where are you?

[SynergyEclipse]

My strategy for worldbuilding is similar to yours, and I might say 50% on that scale. I start with enough details to build a foundation that’ll guide my writing, but then add more to it as I write.

Example of this in my series are dynamics between the factions within the story, between characters, the magic system, and about the role of time travel. I planned out the magic system the most, and I’ve sometimes thought up the dynamics between characters as I was writing something that involved them.

One of the underlying principles is that time travel can change the past and affect the future, and could potentially threaten the space-time continuum. That led me to think about a bureaucracy that handles time travel to try and keep its power from being misused or falling into the wrong hands, and what the ramifications would be for living in a setting with those rules.

[Legendarylankman13]

I like to do a lot of worldbuilding without any dialogue. I am a visual person and learn visually, so I display things in a visual way. Of course if there needs to be an explanation I will provide it. However I always love when movies and television shows actually show and don’t tell, I try to replicate this in my stories. (Comic artist and writer btw).

[TunaPrincess]

I feel like for my worldbuilding I'm a planner for sure. I don't necessarily plan everything down to the letter because I want room to explore and make changes as I'm writing. That being said though I feel like I have 60-70% of my world locked down just because in a fantasy setting like my comic, I feel like knowing how the world works is important. Especially because events that happened in the past did directly influence the world that the characters live in.

At least for my current series, I also try to show instead of tell? I'm a big fan of how Dark Souls tells the story of the world through the environment and and object descriptions. So I think that definitely inspires my style of world-building as well! I'm way more forgiving with big info dumps in novels, but in comics I prefer if the world is shown through the character's experiences. There's nothing super wrong with info dumps!! It's just a personal preference.

[Kaydreamer]

It kinda depends. There are some aspects of worldbuilding I've gone completely 100% on. The magic system and the lore underpinning it, for instance.

But there are aspects where I know I can figure it out as I go, because it's not quite as important. I'll build just enough to get a sense of the motivations and personality of a society, for instance, but I won't spend months working out the details if I don't need to. (Otherwise, I'd never make anything. Getting too tied up in the worldbuilding can be dangerous.)

I'd say on average, I usually sit somewhere around a 70%.

[monochrome0M394]

sometimes I actually got overwhelmed with trying to piece the world together but in the end, I only rely on bulletpoints. not sure if I do the complex details and I only stick with short bulletpoints.

[Kuma]

I'm a go-for-broke kind of guy when it comes to Worldbuilding. I'll do as much as I can and I will go hard on it. Here you have a recipe using ingredients from the setting of my current novel. If I can go to 110% I'll do it.

Quinnum Cakes

Coarse Quinnum Flour - 1 Lapisii
Acrilla Eggs - 2
Butter - 1 Cup
Rubratus Syrup - 1/2 Lapisii

1. Mix the Coarse Flour with warm butter until forming a sandy texture.
2. Split the Acrilla eggs into whites and yolks
3. Beat the yolks and add them to the flour mixture.
4. Beat the whites while making the Rubratus Syrup boil.
5. Add the boiling syrup while beating the whites.
6. Keep beating until cold.
7. Incorporate the resulting egg white and syrup mixture into the flour mixture.
8. Place on a baking sheet in long lines. Bake a low heat until the exterior looks golden.

[margodraws]

Hard to say. Obviously I need to nail down everything that's directly relevant to the story, and for everything else broad hints are fine. It will mostly take place in one kingdom, in one city. Some locations within the city need designs, maybe floorplans, but mapping out the whole city in detail would be overkill.

I definitely feel like I've done a lot of world building because I've been kicking around this story idea for years. But, I've found between scripting and doing roughs that I've ended up making up a lot of stuff on the fly. Where's the main market? What's that magic shop called? How do the castle servants dress?? Guess we'll find out when we get there!

[jamontoast98]

@Kattlanna your story has a really interesting concept! Having countermeasures is a really important part of worldbuilding imo, I can't wait to see how you handle the time travel thing

@Legendarylankman13 That's cool, must be really useful when it comes to actually introducing a part of the world

@TunaPrincess Yeah info dumps are hard. I think finding out when to use them is hardest because sometimes you need to give that info to the reader but don't want to break the flow of the story.

@Kaydreamer yeah that makes sense, some parts are more important than others.

@monochrome0M394 Lists are good!

@Kuma Woah, I'm kinda hungry for dessert right now... what would a Quinnnum cake taste like?

@margodraws I think we share a lot of the same characteristics when it comes to worldbuilding. I like to use 3D models to make the rooms of my buildings so I can view it from any angle

[iHateFridays]

Worldbuilding? Idk it just sort of comes as I develop the story more and more. I'm not as used to developing worldbuilding since I'm more used to writing fanfic which has the worldbuilding already done for you lol

[Kuma]

Is more or less Meringue-like, bit a slight maple syrup-esque flavor.

[LinQ]

I like to detail all sorts of things about the environment and situation. But I hold back lots of details that relate directly to the plot to keep the suspense. On your 0-100 scale I would say I'm a 60 probably.

[LinQ]

I love that aspect of Dark Souls. When I'm not being murdered repeatedly by a boss and can actually focus on the world around me I tend to get lost just observing the environment or reading item descriptions carefully. But I still end up turning to VaatiVidya for the details

[DNoble]

I am in a very strange limbo where like I am at a 95% in terms of how complete my worldbuilding is. I am CONSTANTLY working and reworking little aspects of the universe and why character X is in faction Y and why Faction Y is opposed to Faction Z and who has history with what and ad;kjfnbskfjnbkfsngbk;fsb

At the same time I am absolute doodoo garbage and writing outlines and scripts and having specific plans written down for all of that stuff. I just leap into page 1 panel 1 and start drawing without a script or any knowledge of what's going to happen on that page.

All my worldbuilding is up in my brain as this crazy swirling maelstrom of 'stuff I know about this world', and I just have to reach into that whirlpool barehanded and pull out the building blocks of my universe one at a time and put them in order.

[monotone_ink]

i MAKE one onion, and then add more layers when il feel like it

[gabriellabalagna]

My story relies heavily on worldbuilding. It is loosely based on 1930s, WWII, and European cultures. I'm pretty familiar with those things already, so I don't have to do too much worldbuilding research.

However, it would be hard to have the story make sense in a different time/era/culture. So I'd say I'm in the medium 50% range when it comes to worldbuilding.

Still, I don't go out of my way to worldbuild, because as fun as it is, the details might never end up in the story. So, I just add in worldbuilding as a scene requires it. For example, I add in...

• accents, slang, phrases
• descriptions of the environment
• details about the government systems
• city names/locations
• era/time period that the clothing/technology is based off
• the type of food they're eating
• etc.

[margodraws]

What do you use for your 3D models? I used to use Sketchup back in the good old days when you could download it. I've since tried to switch to Blender, but it hasn't been easy.

[jamontoast98]

I use Clip Studio Paint, you can import 3D models from the asset store or sometimes I make my own in Blender. In CSP EX you can convert a 3D scene into lines and tones, which can be really useful!

[monochrome0M394]

how much time did you make those models? cus it sounds like i takes a long time to do so-

[SurvivALIST]

How specific do you get with your worldbuilding?

My mind has full of ideas that make me want to forcefully add them to my story. I may be a writer but I'm a visual learner. Yep! The way I worldbuild depends on visuals so I could tie myself down to where my MC currently is and focus on that. I'm also a pantser so I have the tendency to fastforward my story towards sudden but unreasonable actions like I instantly discard/kill a character who has yet to shine.

When I worldbuild, I focus on where my MC is at present.

Mood boards - Scenes in stories have different color associations for me. It tells of transitions. In my case, I made black'n white mood board showing that my MC's previous life is sad and that was her former world. Then I made a vibrant blue mood board showing that she transmigrated to a clear blue lake. If I want to associate the tension of MC, I make a mood board of three colors [red for blood, black for shadows, and violet for poison or toxicity]. With these, I post the mood boards on the wall next my bed so I'm reminded that my MC hasn't reached the conflicting part of her story. This thing helps me as a writer because I am easily distracted by colors so why not just associate specific colors to each scene?

When I worldbuild, I store all ideas away from the current plot of the MC's story.

For categories included in my world like ethnicities and magic systems, I brain dump them into the categories set by the World Anvil Codex but I don't build them immediately. When I need like types of places my MC has to crash in, I go to the buildings section of my folder.

All in all, I do my best to tame my ideas and get clear on what my MC needs to go through or suffer first.