You have a point friend
I'll keep that in mind!
I'll definitely add some little things like that in thank you!
Also I am subscribed to your comic and I've been really enjoying it so far!
Thank you so much! >w< I first took these culture/justification for culture tips to heart to make up for my comic's very niche world so they also have that use - it's hard to explain to someone not into fantasy stories how Dark Lords, so many species, and all the magic usage works, but I can demonstrate through dialogue and customs why one is shunned, why no one is bothered by giant dragons, and display magic being used right away with some quick notes on how it works.
On the topic of videos, Hello Future Me is one of my favorite channels regarding writing advice and he has a series of videos titled "On Worldbuilding," where he goes in depth on what sort of questions should be addressed in your work when it comes to making the world feel real and alive. I believe the first in this series (linked below) is the one on religion - how they develop, how beliefs vary between people, how culture and politics affect and are affected by religion, and so on. He has other videos on how empires, class systems, and races can be explored in your world.
where everyone is talking about world building for fantasy enviroments...
how do you build a modern culture one? I mean, if you'd have a story in 2010's, you should take in account the social problems we face? anyone can help me with this? hehe
Because we don't have the benefit of distance to really analyze the overall climate (not that we don't know a lot about it, but a LOT becomes clearer with time), it's usually better to do something that's still mostly similar to someone's reality, because they'll immediately know when something is wrong.
If it's a modern fantasy, for example, it shouldn't make sense to have concrete buildings because some large creatures could easily topple them, but the viewer will get extremely confused if you make futuristic looking reinforced buildings or single-floor houses. Gotta sacrifice realism when it's for the benefit of suspension of disbelief.
The biggest things to worry about without getting stuck in a research hole is to understand that geography effects a lot of things about your culture and your people, researching history without understanding geography is a problem because they go hand in hand most of the time. Sedentary cultures and nomadic cultures only exist if the land they live on support either Sedentary or Nomadic lives. Same goes for technology.
Depending on what kind of world your making its also good to keep in mind that societies that trade with others have more potential to grow in technology and culture then those that don't as... you know... they're trading and learning about other cultures and cough cough maybe "borrowing" ideas like the Romans. Honestly doing some history classes of time periods that are close to what your looking for can be very inspiring for short term worldbuling.
When implementing things like magic its good to understand how the world could change when people have the ability to create food or water at will or what have you. Like in my story there is a water guy who makes rivers in his kingdom, so transporting goods by river is obv gonna be very prominent and popular.
Theory crafting with your friends is one of the best suggestions i can give you when it comes to that stuff. Like the others said, people will be more interested in the ideas you come up with to make your world unique more then how accurate it is, however their are people like me who appreciate and adore the writers who have the time and energy to actually put time into this part of their stories. x3
There are two approaches to worldbuilding for contemporary settings. One is to simply take it for granted that you know the setting (and your audience knows it) and just move on with the story. The other is to approach it just as you would a historical or fantasy setting and try to achieve a deeper understanding of its workings. Writers like Kurt Vonnegut excel in the latter approach -- they clearly have insights on the modern world and they use those insights to make you look at that world with fresh eyes.
Pretty much agree with @Iris-Grimoire and @Sir_Snickerdoodles On that concept. Modern settings people are way more lenient on world building so long as the economy makes sense (that being if gangsters rule the world that they arn't shooting themselves in the foot finatually all the time.) As long as you got a pretty solid idea on how the local or world economy works everything else can be ignored for most people XD
otherwise the problem with doing a lot of world building for modern settings is the same problem you run into trying to explain how WW2 happened when you ask a history professor the question and they say "well you see... during the battle of troy" Lots of stuff builds up on itself and the past is super important. Pretty sure GoT has a BUNCH of this world conflict going on in their books and how it related to each individual kingdom- and it was still taking place in a setting with swords and castles
Maybe I didn't really get the question, but to make a coherent world, on top of these macro elements, what makes it "real" are all these micro day-to-day details derived from these macro elements, such as basic things like:
- food
- fashion
- architecture
- language
- music
- sports/games
Most of them are greatly dependent and also impacting with on weather, religion, tools, fauna, etc....
Good part is all these are concrete elements that can be described / drawn and that can really back-up your world.
I think it's also important to remember the pacing of a webcomic requires just constant visual action and Stuff Happening--so it's a lot harder to fit in worldbuilding than it is in a book! So, often, I'll do worldbuilding and just.....delete it. I have tried to stick that worldbuilding into comics and every time no one reads it. You only need enough to support your characters and make things believable for your genre. Other than that...it's mostly just for your own entertainment.
Not that it isn't bad to do--the worldbuilding phase is where I get a lot of my inspiration--but you gotta edit quite a lot to fit everything into a comic of reasonable length.
I love fantasy stories!
My world I'm creating is a fantasy world.
This might be a strange request but would you like to be friends and just geek out about fantasy worlds together? lol-
I'm planning on having a comic explaining the species and world before starting the series.
It'll mostly be for myself but fans are welcome to read it to understand my world better. They don't have to read it but it would help them if they have any questions.
I don't mind! Sure thing, though I'm usually busy so I can't always stay for long conversations.
As for use in a comic, having worldbuilding set up is usually for extra episodes and the creator than for the readers. If you put in an interesting note on the script and nowhere else, it's going to be really easy to lose it then contradict it later; with notes on a worldbuilding file you can always look back there. Having extra episodes set aside for lore also means I can be vague or omit plot-relevant information and not just throw all of it in, or have it work as an in-universe tool meaning you still only know as much as the characters/the story's framing.
I agree!
Having a separate comic explaining the world-building will be super helpful even if none of my readers read it. honestly it's all up to them if they want to or not. Though they'll be missing out on some cool facts and such lol-
When it comes to my own work, I do world building based character interactions. Because for me, a world is too big to try and contain into a narrow-focused story. If I'm making a comic based on one person's journey, I don't really have a lot of room to try and dive into religion or economy or world state unless it's relevant to the plot at hand.
Hence, you see the dots connect with the way I have character relationships. Our Universe is cosmic horror romance, and its cousin comic My Demon Valentine is paranormal romance. You learn a few things from the character interactions:
Celestial beings, monsters, demons, and other entities exist.
The existence of such beings is acknowledged, though that doesn't mean they're always coexisting with humans or that they're out and about. Some are, but some aren't.
People in this world embrace Astrolatry a bit more (which is why you see a lot of talk about the universe and stars and planets as beings).
Keeping the world building a little subtle, if not more open to some interpretation, helps give readers more room to make theories and analysis your work. Makes for great dialogue, especially when they're excited about how characters interact or why they behave a certain way in this world setting.