Five Things to Think About When Building a Fantasy World

The world your story lives in should be so authentic and layered that a reader will be convinced it’s a real place, and if only they could find it on a map, they could book a holiday there today! (Or avoid it foreverrrrr, depending on the world, of course.)

Here are five things I like to think about when constructing my fantasy and science fiction worlds.

1: Your World May Not Be Large, But It Must Feel Like It

Even if your story is set in a fairy café in a forest, and your characters never leave the café, it’s helpful to think beyond the confines of those four walls. Customers are coming in from somewhere; coffee beans are being sourced from somewhere! Where is that somewhere? Think about where your café sits in the forest. Is it on the edge of the wood, or deep in impenetrable brambles? That might help to give colour to the café (big windows with views over the fields, or candles and axes on the tables to chop the thorny branches from the door) Is the world covered in trees, like Pandora from the Avatar movies, or is the forest just a clump of trees set amongst rolling countryside with farms and villages?

Expand the world further in your mind. Perhaps the country is minimally populated, with a couple of towns on the coast. Or perhaps the forest is in a park, in a bustling metropolis. And if you think bigger, perhaps you might have an impression of other countries over the sea that we don’t need to bother about. (Or perhaps we do, if a mysterious stranger from foreign parts stumbles into your fairy café!)

If you can place your little café in a bigger world—even if we never see that world—it will allow for more story, more depth, and more scope for interesting shenanigans.

2: Your World Is Large, Bring It Back Down

Sometimes it’s helpful to start really big—like, planet-sized big. Let’s assume you’d like to build a terraqueous world like ours, with land and water, that rotates in space like ours does. Here are a few features to consider that may impact climate, settlements, resources, eco-systems and magic-systems.

• Is it a mostly oceanic world with archipelagos, or does it have massive continents? Your sea currents will affect coastal behaviours and eco-systems.

• Mountains, ranges and volcanoes will all influence rainfall, climate, vegetation and animal life. The rainy side can produce waterfalls and lakes, the arid side might produce deserts!

• Rivers, lakes and wetlands are a food source, and can also be used for transportation. Humans (and centaurs) like to settle near water.

• Deserts and forests: Let’s add some light and shade into your world!

• Natural Resources: Have you heard about that magical mineral you can sprinkle on your baby at birth to bestow special powers? Well now, you do. You can find in the Ajeous Mine on the Island of Woe.

Once you have a good idea of how your world looks and operates geographically, you can zoom in on the area where your story is set. Hopefully now you’ll have a better idea of what that looks like, and how the culture of the creatures who live there has developed, and been affected by, their environment.

Bonus: Acclaimed author NK Jemison’s Masterclass on world-building is brilliant, and I highly recommend it. It’s a paid course as part of the Masterclass series, but you can find video snippets and commentary about it all over the internet.

3: Maps

I use a neat website called Inkarnate to create my maps. (You can give it a go with the free version. There’s also an active Inkarnate subreddit which provides lots of help and encouragement.) I’m not an expert cartographer by any means. But if I’m drained from writing, I can fiddle about drawing mountains while watching the telly, and still console myself I’m working on my story.

Having a visual guide to your world is extremely helpful—not just for writing travelling scenes (how far was that kingdom again? If they’re walking east, shouldn’t the river be on their left?), but for planning out the geography features we discussed in point two.

Of course, if you’re writing a world that is completely dissimilar to ours, you can throw that geology textbook out the window. If you want to write about gas-monsters oozing from a muddy swamp in the middle of a desert, then go for it. But as a reader, I’d be curious as to how a swamp exists there, and I would be very grateful if you explained it was because of the Great Gas-Monster War from three centuries ago.

Bonus: You can add your map into your book as a special feature! Who doesn’t love a map? There are also professional map-makers who can take your scribbles and turn them into a gorgeous piece of art. (Remember to ask about licensing rights!)

4: Political Systems

Most of my recreational reading is about political and economic systems—not just because I’m a boring nerd, but so I can twist them and adapt them for my world-building needs.

Your character might live in a feudal system, where the king owns everything, and in return for power, gives chunks of land to lords who govern and rule over the common people. Or it might be an oligarchical style of government, where the richest few rules. Or a theocracy, where the religious leaders are in control. Many dystopian stories are set in worlds where one person or group has all the power, and the heroine just has to fight back!

For added drama, set your story in a world where the government is in a state of flux: for example, a democratic system is moving to an authoritarian system, or a monarchy is being overthrown by the commoners. There are many real-world examples where you can get inspiration. Your character’s life may have absolutely nothing to do with these world events, but their behaviours will certainly be impacted by them.

5: Religion

There is an almost universal hunger to believe, or have faith in, something bigger than oneself, whether it’s God, or universal energy, or spiritual guides, or whatever. So why should that be any different for your characters? (It’s worth noting not all people believe in the same thing or believe at all, and having a world where everyone adheres to the same religion can ring untrue.)

Your world could have a plethora of gods like the Vikings and the Greeks, or just one, like monotheistic faiths Islam and Judaism. Or an Animistic faith, where every living thing in nature possesses a spiritual essence or life force.

Bringing a religious element into your world can add an extra layer of authenticity, and might give rise to contention between different faiths for extra story details, e.g. Many of George RR Martin’s Game of Thrones characters believed in the old gods or the new—that is, the Weirwood Trees and the Lord of Light—which often led to intriguing philosophical and physical disagreements.

I Made My World—Now What?

Once you’ve settled on the physical world and cultural environment you want your story to exist in, it can be tempting to show the reader absolutely everything all at once. “I put a lot of work into it! Look at how clever I am! LOVE ME!” But your reader is there for your characters and their lives, not for the Demonic Mountain Range of Argansaw and its innovative shipping routes.

Dribble bits of your world in, drop by golden drop. Let the reader discover your world gently, through action, dialogue and narration, not by pages of exposition. Keep it simple, clear, and consistent. We want to persuade our readers to relax and enjoy the place we built just for them. Your world may change as your story progresses and that's okay, too.

Building A Fantasy World

Building a fantasy world that is authentic and convincing can seem daunting! But it’s a lot of fun. And if it doesn’t work, just get out your army of bulldozers, knock it down and start again. (Or hit delete, same-same.)

I’ve only touched on a few points here, but I might continue this in another article because there’s just SO MUCH to talk about!

This is the closest we get to being Creators of the Universe—and getting the details right in the planning stages will make a world of difference to your story.

How is your fantasy world coming along?

Love, Tab xx

My Inkarnate map from 'The Chronicles of Esha'