How to Build a Fictional World: Start Small

The prospect of building a world can sometimes seem like an insurmountable problem. If you look at worldbuilding in its entirety, that feeling might only grow stronger.

Worldbuilding is more than designing buildings, food, and clothing. It is about developing how characters interact with one another, the world, and how they can be challenged within the narrative.

Worldbuilding does not have to be daunting. If you break it down into smaller pieces, you may find that it isn't so scary after all.

A lone hulauz guildsman, dressed in a white Guild uniform looks out across the city of Qualx. The great city can be seen in the background: drizzly, foggy, and with great metal structures looming in the skyline.

Small Beginnings

As humans, we don't experience all aspects of the world we live in all at once. We only encounter a small sliver of the greater experience as we make it through our day to day lives.

The first place to start when building a fictional world of your own is to approach it from this tiny sliver. By only focusing on the world through the perspective of a character, you can develop your world in a manageable and practical way.

This is just a focus on the immediate environment where your story happens. This is not the whole world, the entire history, or the full system. This is the place where your character starts.

A lone hulauz character stands alone looking out over the vast city of Qualx. Great structures can be seen through the fog and rain of the city.

This might be:

A single city block
A spaceship
A prison
A village
A hiking expedition on a mountain
A Guild facility

Very few stories need more than this to start.

Why Start Small?

A hulauz figure in a white Guild uniform looks out over the city of Qualx through a great window in a futuristic looking office.

A common mistake for writers, especially beginners, is that they try to build everything about their world all at once. Governments, history, economics, and magic systems all create pressure, but when you develop these elements before a character's immediate surroundings the only thing you are creating is pressure on yourself. The goal is to create a story that is deeper than those pressures.

This can only be done if it is manageable for the creator. The best way to do this is to break things down into smaller parts.

Pressure within a story is created within a small setting. This allows for immediate tension, clear boundaries, and a space for meaningful choices. A story doesn't happen in a world, it happens in a specific place under pressure.

Five Core Questions for a Usable Setting

A hulauz figure in a white Guild uniform sits at a desk in front of a large window. The city of Qualx can be seen through the window. On the table in front of the firgure rest books, screens, and a mug. A holographic-style readout has each of the five questions on it.

If you are able to answer the following questions, you are much closer to building a setting that you can use in your world immediately.

1. Exact Location

If your character can walk across this setting in a day or less, you have gotten the correct scale.

This is smaller than a "fantasy kingdom." This is perhaps, a crowded marketplace, a prison transport vehicle, or a remote mountain pass.

2. The Location's Purpose

What is the setting's purpose?

Every setting has a function. A hospital's function is to heal. A prison's function is to contain. A village's function is to survive.

Determining your setting's purpose will help you to create structure in your world, figure out character's roles, and even help to determine things like clothing and food.

3. What Isn't Working?

This is where you find the source of conflict in your word and the pressure that makes characters jump into action.

What is breaking, failing, or under strain? This might be a dangerous creature, corrupt authority, or lost communication.

This is how pressure is created. A good source of intriguing conflict is how you pull the reader into the story and keep their attention.

4. Who Has Control?

Every world has a power dynamic. Power dynamics are how conflict is made.

Who makes the decisions?
Who enforces the rules?
Who is trapped?
Who is trying to change things?

5. What is the Cost?

A strong setting always demands something. This is what creates the stakes in a story.

Examples of cost might be:

Safety requires obedience
Truth includes risk
Survival demands sacrifice

Let's build an example setting from the world of Qualx.

A damaged Guild vessel drifts listlessly through the waters of a vat. strucures and walls can be seen in the distance behind the vessel.

Exact Location:

A damaged Guild vessel drifting between two locations.

Purpose:

To safely move personnel and resources.

The Broken Element:

Navigation is offline. There is a leak and water is interfering with the systems.

Power Structure:

Captain: Demands order
Engineer: Knows something is wrong
Soldiers: Grow uneasy

Cost:

Fixing the problem may put everyone at risk.

PhranqenLu, represented with a stylized Frankenstein and Frankendaughter sit before pages, screens, and books about Qualx. The city of Qualx can be seen through a small window to the left of the image.

Three Common Mistakes

1. Too Much, Too Early

You don't need to develop every political system, a full map, or a thousand years of history.

Start with what the character touches.

An image showing the contrast between lore versus setting. The left hand side of the image, representing lore, shows books, species profiles, and maps on the walls. The right hand side of the image, representing setting, shows a man standing inside of a balcony, with great structures in the distance.

Focus on the Present

Lore and setting are not the same thing. Lore is the background to the story. Setting is the active environment.

The story takes place in the active setting, not in eras long gone.

Weak Pressure

If nothing is wrong in the story, then nothing happens in the story.

A peaceful setting without tension becomes static (and maybe a little bit boring).

A Simple Starting Exercise

The image shows a part of Qualx. The city can be seen in the background, shrouded in fog. A hulauz is in the forefront of the image, on a walkway. In the background of the image a krimtchar can be seen working next to a sparking panel.

My story takes place in:

This place's function is:

Right now, the thing that is wrong is:

The people in control are:

The cost of staying here is:

If you can fill in those five lines, you are well on your way to getting started. You only need to build a place where something is about to go wrong. That is where stories truly begin. You don't need to build a world to unleash your inner author!

If you are still having trouble figuring out a manageable setting, check out the Small Setting Builder to help you build your immediate world!