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Worldbuilding

Yagami Kyo

Active Member
Hello, inhabitors of the Fan Fiction section.

Worldbuilding is one of the central parts of a lot of Fan Fics, and I think we can all agree on that.

I consider two classes of Worldbuilding:

1)History, Culture, Society, and such: The most relatable parts of worldbuilding, because they can eb found in our world as well. An interesting and relatable world is a very big plus for the readers. Having a good history not only gives more depth to the narrative, but can also influence characters reactions and lifes.

2)Magic, Science, Metaphysics, Theology and such: The most mystic/technical part of it. Note that I don't include churches in the Theology part, but what the actual gods/creators/devils and similar exist, even if they are not known to the habitants of the world. Sanderson's Three Laws of Magics are a great help in describing these concepts, even if you need to change the meaning of the laws a little.

Now, I would like to discuss the topic: how do you handle worldbuilding in your stories? What is the difference of the prices related to the social conflicts? Is Arceus the true God of your Pokémon universe, or is it just another Pokémon? How do Pokéball work in your universe? Let us discuss this, as I believe it would become a very interesting topic.
 
I consider two classes of Worldbuilding:

1)History, Culture, Society, and such: The most relatable parts of worldbuilding, because they can eb found in our world as well. An interesting and relatable world is a very big plus for the readers. Having a good history not only gives more depth to the narrative, but can also influence characters reactions and lifes.

2)Magic, Science, Metaphysics, Theology and such: The most mystic/technical part of it. Note that I don't include churches in the Theology part, but what the actual gods/creators/devils and similar exist, even if they are not known to the habitants of the world. Sanderson's Three Laws of Magics are a great help in describing these concepts, even if you need to change the meaning of the laws a little.

Do you not consider climatology, geology, and geography and how affected the history, culture, society, etc.?

Also, as an amateur cartographer, I sometimes draw the maps.
 
Yeah, that is part of the most physical part, alongside History, Culture and Society. Climatilogy, in fact, plays an important part in several Pokémon games as we know.
 
I've got to be honest, I'm not entirely sure what you're asking for, particularly with 'What is the difference of the prices related to the social conflicts?'. The prices of what precisely? I'm genuinely at a loss as to what you mean by that. Likewise, I'm not entirely sure whether you're asking for our process with worldbuilding in general, our views on worldbuilding for fiction writing in particular (as opposed to, say, worldbuilding for an RP, which can be quite a different kettle of fish) or worldbuilding with regards to writing pokémon specifically (which the question about Arceus leans towards). With that in mind, I'm going to go with my very general approach to building worlds, whether for a written story, an RP or just for the satisfaction of worldbuilding itself.

The first step for me is Concept; what are the core features of this world that make it different from normal? What are the general themes I want to work with? For storywriting, I just go for the parts that are relevant to the plot like say 'I want to write a story about a world where everyone woke up like the usual PMD protagonist, as an amnesiac human in a pokémon body. Also, I want main universe tech to exist in this world.' whereas with RP, I tend to think things out more in terms of the kind of players I expect to be working with, say 'I want a world where a pack of amoral murderhobos can feasibly go around and get into adventures. Also, pirates, magic and fantasy mecha because who doesn't like those things.'. I also try to go more broad strokes with RP worldbuilding because I need it to accommodate multiple people's imaginations rather than just my own. When I'm just worldbuilding for the sake of it, it's usually based around some kind of particular 'what if' like 'What if there was a fantasy world where all the humanoid races are getting smushed together from centuries of interbreeding?'. In all three cases, the idea is to pick out some core features to focus the rest of the worldbuilding around. This is also where I decide on the big metaphysical questions like the existence of gods/higher entities, magic and so on.

Following that, I tend to focus on the People. What kinds of intelligent life exist in the setting and how do they relate to each other? What are the main lines of division between them (anatomical, cultural, economic, geographical, linguistic, political/religious)? What are the main groups people divide themselves between? What are their core values and what are the main points of tension and conflict between these groups? This really is the meat of worldbuilding for me because there's so much you can do with all the weird ingroups and outgroups people set up for themselves and those make an excellent starting point for creating conflict and stakes. It's also something I like to pay extra attention to when worldbuilding for RP, since you never know what kind of characters people will bring to the table ahead of time, making variety important. Plus, it's just really fun for me in general.

Third for me is Geography. At this stage of the game I usually have a general idea of what I want to fit into the world but usually only a very general notion of how it's all connected, so it's more a coherence check to make sure all the things I wrote up actually fit together. Laying out the world in more physical detail can also help me flesh out ideas from the people stage and come up with new potential ones. For storywriting purposes I usually stick to being very broad strokes here unless it's a story type that puts a lot of emphasis on the environment (like, say, a journey) whereas if I'm writing for RP I usually whip out Photoshop and make myself a rough map to work with, both for as a reference for myself and as a visual aid for the group. Even did one in Ascii art once when I was strapped for time. Even a very simple visual aid can really help with keeping a clear mental image of the situation.

Fourth step for me is to put a Face to things. Story-wise, this involves setting up the various characters I need for plot purposes and figuring out their personalities and roles for the story. For RP, it's coming up with the bigger 'named' NPCs I'll need, usually the kind of leaders and big movers and shakers who the players are liable to run into or need to deal with. This is also where I lay out their rough agendas, likes, dislikes, and relations to each other. Basically, sorting out the specific individuals of the setting rather than general groups of people. If I'm doing a setting with gods or other metaphysical beings like that, this is where I hash out the details about what they are like. This is also where I bang my head against the keyboard in a desperate attempt to come up with enough names to go around.

Last comes my second favorite part of the process, which is adding Texture. This is all sorts of trivial but specific details about the setting that aren't really essential to anything but help add flavor and flair to the proceedings, making the world feel like it's been lived in rather than just created out of thin air. This includes t hings like say strange local foods people like to eat, popular children's songs in the world, strange folk beliefs and superstitions, the names of trivial celebrities or fast food brands, the list of the hottest top ten pop songs in play right now. Just...all kinds of silly fluff to help add color and personality. This is the sort of thing I like to jot down whenever the idea pops into my head and then sprinkle in where appropriate...or just come up with on the spot.

So yeah, that's the not particularly brief version of how I approach things. It's not an entirely fixed process either, since where I start off depends a lot on what I'm interested in doing at the time and what the core concept I'm working with is. Not to mention what just plain happens to catch my imagination at the time.
 
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