WORLDBUILDING MISTAKES you don’t KNOW you’re making

As fun as worldbuilding can be in the moment,  you are literally playing god when you do and   seeing as you actually aren’t—unless I’m missing  something—there are a lot of pitfalls you can fall   into. And it starts with the mindset a lot of  worldbuilders don’t put themselves into. I need  

You to pay complete attention and at least try to  internalise the words that are about to come out   of my mouth. Every aspect of our reality as you  see it is subject to change in a fantasy world  

That you created. Sounds obvious right, but it’s  not just things like the climate, down to fashion,   religion, common sayings, days of the week. We  can take it many steps further, days don’t have   to be a concept in your world. Gender roles  can be non existent. Crustaceans could be the  

Dominant species. The world could actually be  flat. Its a great series check it out. There is   no standard for fantasy and sci-fi. Not tolkein.  Not dnd. Not the Expanse. Or whatever else you’re   picturing in your mind. Allow me to introduce  the magical cube of problems, we just tackled one  

Side. And this next side is where you curb what  I just said … hard. Yes we have a sandbox where   we can literally do anything, but that definitely  doesn’t mean you HAVE to do everything. There are   usually two reactions to the “every aspect of  our reality is subject to change” bit. One is  

That scene from inside out where all the little  sprites inside your brain are running around and   everything’s on fire. And the other is, “Oh I can  build everything” and then TRYING to build every,   single, aspect of your world. The latter is what  we in the biz like to call worldbuilders disease  

And it is as common as it is deadly, trust me.  I see this a lot in worldbuilders, I actually   struggled with it a bit myself. Where they’ll  completely ignore the fact that there is an entire   story that works in tandem with their world.  Whether you’re crafting a D&D campaign or writing  

The next Star Wars. If you’re worldbuilding  to worldbuild, knock yourself out, but if your   story is heavy on the political intrigue, then an  emphasis on boarders and rulers is a natural step   towards that. Might wanna focus more on magic if  your protagonist has to learn it at some point.  

Your “Silmarillion” doesn’t need to be nearly as  extensive if you don’t plan to publicise it like   Tolkien did. And as is the nature of a problem  cube, once we solve one side, another rears it’s   ugly head. You might have already noticed the  issue. So right now this is your story, and  

This is the world built around it. All this blank  space are things you could have built, but didn’t.   And that is simultaneously the best scenario and  the worst thing you can do. You didn’t waste time  

On things that won’t show up but then there is a  flimsy line between what’s built and what isn’t.   If the reader stands here and looks at your world  at large, which they will because they’re smart,   it starts to fall apart very quickly.  This is where Ernest Hemmingway comes in,  

His iceberg theory loosely states—Now listen here  silly, you as the writer are supposed to know all   THIS. You’re gonna get in your silly little writer  submarine and you’re gonna see the entire flipping   iceberg. Now your readers are dumb as fiddlesticks  and they only see the top of the iceberg because  

Their silly little brains can only stay on the  surface. But because your brain is shockingly   not as smooth, YOU know the entire iceberg, and  you can frame it in such a way that their thick   heads think they can see the entire thing. It’s  hilarious! Thanks Ernie. Thank you. What a lovely  

Man. He’s also right by the way. But the thing  is we already established that it’s not ideal to   build every detail in your world. We can’t know  the entire iceberg. So what’s the answer? Fake   it. We remove the stark line and get a gradient  instead. The amount of world building you do fades  

With the vision of the reader. The mountain gets  foggier the further we go. They’ll get to a point   were they can’t even see the mountain anymore, but  they’ll know it’s still there. But it isn’t there,   all there is is blank space. All the work you  didn’t suffer doing. Diagrams and metaphors are  

Fantastic, but how do you actually apply this?  Well lets go back to our story that’s heavy with   political intrigue. Or in other words game of  thrones. The boarders, map and people in power   need to be clearly defined because those are the  main pieces interacting in the story. We need to  

Understand pretty much everything about them  for those interactions to make sense. Alright,   what’s the next natural progression. So how  did those powerful people get in power? Ah   history, that’s another part of our world we  need to flesh out detailed. It’s also going to  

Dictate how those political parties interact. Oh  culture is also going to be a big part of that as   well. Ironborn and the people of the north are not  going to interact the same. Throw cultures on the  

List! And the ball keeps rolling, but notice how  things get less and less important the farther we   move away from political intrigue. We never  mentioned religion or the lower class. Even   though those elements do come into play they’re  not nearly as significant. You hear the old gods,  

The lord of light, the drowned god, you  see the religious cult in kings landing,   and judging from how extensively the rest of  Westeros has been built, you assume there’s just   as much depth in the religion as well. You see the  mountain inside the fog. And there IS more depth,  

But Martin doesn’t have to build the religions  of all thirty something deities in his world.   He probably did for fun though, his lore book is  actually what House of the Dragon is based off   of. Also Martin has an incredibly huge world,  so most things are going to be somewhat built  

But something like The Gentlemen Bastards for  instance is an excellent example of the other   end of the spectrum. If you’re a super  fan though you probably know all those   thirty something deities, but you don’t  need that to understand the story of game  

Of thrones. And would you look at that,  we’re half way there. More than half way.   What? You see this side of the problem cube was  forgetting to make everything cohesive. All these   aspects of your world are not independent of  each other, they need to interact to create a  

Believable world. It so funny when I see stories  like oh this is medieval England but everyone has   magic. If everyone had magic it would not look  like medieval England. People would use it in   their every day lives for transport, for work,  there would probably be a class system around it,  

It would dictate culture. You can’t just dump  something in your world and say it doesn’t   affect anything else. Think about it like orbiting  planets, the bigger the change is from real life,   the more gravity it will have on every thing else.  We already mentioned magic, so lets go there. Its  

Another significant aspect of game of thrones’  worldbuilding. How does it relate to the political   intrigue? Well, dragons are part of the magic,  and they are essentially nukes. If you have one,   you are all powerful, which is why Targaryens  were able to stay in power for so long. You see  

How it also gravitates towards the history?  This power makes the Targaryens akin to gods   among the commonfolk, thus dictating an aspect  of culture. This can play very well with the   next part of the cube once we solve it, which is  ignoring the rule of cool or focusing too much on  

Realism. I imagine most world builders don’t  have a problem with this one but they avoid   one crucial aspect of it. This is a bit similar to  the first side of the cube, but where that one was   more focused on showing you how far you can take  worldbuilding, this one is different because you  

Probably already have one or two really sick ideas  you want to execute. This is speculative fiction,   execute your crazy insane ideas, your readers and  audience WANT to be transported to another world.   Here’s a secret, that’s probably why they like the  genre so much. They WILL suspend their disbelief  

And give you leeway to do it. Now why I said this  can play really well with cohesiveness is that, do   the cool thing you want, but don’t ignore how it  interacts with the rest of the world you’ve built.  

For example in a fantasy world I’m currently  working on for my novel, I just wanted to make the   coolest, most outlandish creatures that I could  come up with. But then I hadn’t surrounded this   concept with a world where the creatures would  naturally evolve to be these things. And that  

Could create a disconnect in the readers mind. So  I was like how do I solve this. Why don’t I just   make natural evolution not a factor? Unnatural  evolution. Magic leaks in from another dimension   and warps the world in whatever way it sees fit.  Nobody is arguing the science of evolution with me  

If I give them that as my reason. But now there is  this problem of magic leaking in from elsewhere.   Wait that’s not a problem, hell yeah, what else  does magic change, the landscape, the people?   What if I’m writing sci-fi I can’t just magic  things into my world. An alien race brings in a  

Crazy virus that only morphs animals, I still get  my cool outlandish creatures. When you constrain   yourself to not just what you want, but how it  will affect other things, you start to come up   with really interesting ways for them to interact.  You create chemical reactions that take you places  

You never expected to go and your world is usually  better for it. Now some of you might have already   noticed that you can’t solve just 5 sides of a  problem cube, you’ve already used the pieces on  

The other sides and the only pieces that are left,  solve the last side. And that’s what happens,   when you fix all these problems. It becomes nearly  impossible for you to create a stagnant world,   which is another thing I see in countless worlds.  The 90s were not the same as the 2000s and both  

Of them were completely removed from the 60s.  Things will look different a decade from now,   and that’s all within one lifetime, the world is  constantly evolving. Yeah dragons are nukes and   the Targaryens have been in power for centuries,  but then the Baratheons took over and then the  

Lannisters. It doesn’t always have to be wars and  coup d’etats. Technology can change your world.   Cultural evolution. The environment. And it’s okay  if your story doesn’t focus on this, but having it   happen in the background can make your world feel  so much more realistic. But there is one final  

Part of the cube, and that is the cube as a whole.  I am milking this metaphor for everything it’s got   huh? What this is right here, is trust. And I have  to be real if you’re watching this, chances are  

You don’t have it. Sanderson can create a world  where his readers have to climb a 100-meter brick   wall on their finger nails to understand the world  … and they will. At least I know I will because I  

Also know there’s going to be an amazing story on  the other side of that wall. Yeah, every thing I   talked about is going to help you create a better  world, and Sanderson does all that too but he can  

Ignore things like creating touchstones to our  reality or not worldbuilding as deep. He has a lot   of leeway because of who he is. He can scramble  the cube a little bit and still present it to his  

Readers as a complete world and story. And they  will accept it. Same goes for King and Martin,   and any other famous author. They have already  established that trust, that rapport with their   readers for years and years. So just keep in mind  that emulating everything they do might not always  

Be the best thing for you. That being said, there  is something they do that everyone should emulate   and you can find that out in this video right  here. Side note, I know this isn’t actually how  

You solve a cube, pro cubers do not come at me.  I legit learnt commutations just for this. K bye.