How To Worldbuild When You Hate Worldbuilding
Sometimes I get complimented on my worldbuilding, which I find very, very strange. Because I really hate the process of it. I can appreciate good worldbuilding, and really adore it when I see it done well. But for myself? It’s like pulling teeth. Some people excel at it by making binders and spreadsheets of worldbuilding goodies like governmental factions, magic systems, local economics, royal lineage, and things like that.
For me? It all comes out like a big blur. In fact, the fine folks at the Hugo-nominated Worldbuilding for Masochists had me on to discuss being a “reluctant worldbuilder.” And the nice thing was that I’ve discovered that I’m not alone in feeling this way. But worldbuilding is required, regardless of what genre you write — seriously, even contemporary and historical fiction! In fact, historical fiction requires the same amount of worldbuilding as high fantasy; the only difference is that you have Wikipedia to draw from instead of pulling it out of your head, but the details still have to translate to the page.
So if you hate worldbuilding, how the heck do you actually do it? Here’s my process for it:
Step 1: Do Only What You Need
So, you hate worldbuilding. Problem is, you’re gonna need to establish some things to get started. Otherwise, you won’t have…
