Build Your Story World to Plan Your Novel for NaNoWriMo
Welcome to an 8-post series on preparing or planning your novel for Nanowrimo (or anytime.)
This series is part of our PLAN YOUR NOVEL: 30-Day home study course and annual October workshop, now in it’s fifth year. Details at the bottom of the post.
Today is the fourth in an 8-post series on preparing your novel for Nanowrimo. Or anytime.
In today’s post, we focus on world building for your novel.
Even if you’re writing a novel set in today’s world, you still need to understand key elements of your story world.
Keep in mind: Take note of your genre. This will give you a general ideal of the kind of world your readers expect, so you can give that to them, and also surprise them.
Time to budget: I recommend you take 60–90 minutes to do this exercise for each of your main characters.
If you missed it, the first step in your novel preparation is your elevator pitch and the second step is crafting your story synopsis. The third post on preparing your characters is here.
World Building Brainstorming Topics & Questions
Answer these questions from the perspective of each of your point of view characters. Your POV character won’t know everything, so don’t worry about trying to match up to an author like, Tolkein.
- Language — Does your world have different languages? How did they evolve?
- Origin Tales — How did the world came to be?
- Folklore — What is your favorite childhood folktale or fairytale?
- Family tree — What do you know about your family tree?
- Jobs/professions — What kind do people have? Do men and women divide work, share it? What kind of training do your characters receive, if any? How are they trained and by whom?
- Gender roles — What are people’s attitudes about gender roles?
- Clothing/Costumes — How do people dress? What do your characters wear and why? Where does fabric come from? Who makes it?
- Weather — Does your place have four seasons?
- Flora & Fauna — What are some of the important or relevant animals and plants where you are
- Food — How it’s planted/harvested/hunted/gathered? What do people eat and when? How it’s cooked? Who cooks? What’s poisonous?
- Geography — What are the main geographical regions of your land?
- Annual Rituals — What is important to your world and why? How do you celebrate weddings, funerals, birthdays, puberty, other?
- Technology — What kind of technology exists? How is it powered? Who creates it? What training do they need?
- Animals — Are there any special or magical animals in your world
- Religion/Spirituality — What are their beliefs and how will they create conflict and why.?
- Magic — What are the rules and boundaries around magic?
- Politics/Power — Who is in power and why? How is power transferred to the next generation? What people do or don’t do to get close to powerful people?
Here’s an image to share or pin and use for your world building brainstorming!
Further Reading
- THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO WRITING FANTASY by Darin Park and Tom Dullemond, Dragon Moon Press, c. 2003
- The WRITER’S COMPLETE FANTASY REFERENCE: An Indispensable Compendium of Myth and Magic from the editors of Writer’s Digest Books, c.1998
- HOW TO WRITE SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY by Orson Scott Card, Writer’s Digest Books, c.1990
YOUR TURN:
Draft your story’s world with as much or as little detail as you’d like. You can always come back and fill in the blanks when you edit your book.
Share fun details or your Ahas in the comments below.
You can also post it on my Facebook page to enter into fun weekly giveaways.
Want help planning your novel?
Then consider joining us in our upcoming Plan Your Novel 30-Day Writing Challenge. We start October 1st.
If you found value in this post, please comment, clap, or share. You’ll be helping me, but more importantly, you’ll be helping your fellow writers. Thanks!
