I Can Design A World?

Posted by Alex T. on Dec 23, 2010 in Editor's Column | 2 comments

You might find this weird, but designing an imaginary world was one of my hidden passions – I discovered along side with my clay crafting.  It’s somewhat related to writing and storyboarding. Once the world is designed, I can basically write, craft, draw, sketch part of it as I wish – easily.

Tolkein did it and so many other great writers and storytellers. Making up your own world and people to inhabit it isn’t just for little kids trying to entertain themselves on a rainy day.

Why I enjoyed doing this so much you say? Creating your own world gives your inner self a chance to come out and play and is a great alternative way to de-stress.

Like all world designers and writers do, we must first…

• Theme of the World Itself
  • This is the most important aspect that needed to be defined first – as every inhabitants and objects related to it.  Is it an alien planet from galaxy far far away? Fantasy and magical? A sub-world within an existing one ? An earth-like planet from another dimension? Just do some research and fact finding… try to remember back on your favourite movies, TV shows and books to find the general flavour of your world. Sometimes, if you are lucky, you might find someone creative to “ping-pong” your ideas with.
• Try to Create a Map and Think of City, Town and Names of Places
  • Once you have done that, you can basically pick a selection of town and cities or places – if you are plotting a story based on this world.  (see above example , the World of Narnia)
  • Also think about important people, creature, object names. Give them a distinct uniqueness – profile them separately if they are important to the story.
  • Try not to create a world where everybody and everything is perfect and that they all looked the same. Everyone must have unique personality – it will make your world way much more interesting.
• Populate the World
  • This is where your world starts to be more complex. Think about ecosystem and relationship between factions, races and creatures. This may involve in politics, economy, or something as simple as a habitat ecosystem.
  • Think about : How does their magic system works? How does the creature survive on daily basis? Does this world have a religion? What sort of technology they use? What sort of costumes does your character wear?
• Write the Lore of the World / History
  • Just like every fantasy story must have their “Prophecy” or sayings from the ancient scrolls.
  • Document all the mysteries of the world. Ancient civilization or heroes that lived in your world.
• Profile All Your Main Characters/ Villians
  • Heroes and villains will always shake things up and keep things interesting.
  • Always make sure, each character you create has a unique background related to the world and a unique personality.
• Document Your World
  • Software I enjoyed using when designing of world is no other than Celtx. With this you can document you world bit by bit at a time and pretty much soon, you will create your own universe!

You can also write or design a sub-world within an existing one. There are some of us whom loved to do that – especially role players and role playing writers. Doing so, reduces the amount of theming and populating of the world effort but, you have to do a lot of lore research in order to blend in correctly. In fact, quite recently I’ve design and make some comics based on sub-world design concept which I will post much later on – but, thats another story already .