 In this second half of my worldbuilding post, I’ll hit upon the creative aspects. For the first one on bookkeeping, click here. As mentioned in part 1, it’s good to have a macro view of what your universe looks like: the geography, the governments, the religions/beliefs, social structures and technology levels. The problem often associated with developing this broad view is that it’s very easy to use it as a justification to never start writing the story. People will forgive a lot of fuzzy worldbuilding if you have a compelling story and vivid characters, but people will abandon a beautiful world if there’s no reason to stay. This is not an excuse to slouch on worldbuilding, but it should give you a sense of your priorities. So here’s a bit of pre-advice advice: once you have the broad strokes, make a rule to spend the same amount of time story building as worldbuilding. If you write for three hours on the intricate religions rituals of the Shak’laree, spend three hours outlining the story. If you’re not sure where the story should begin or what the central conflict is, take a section of your worldbuilding and write from the perspective of ANYONE associated with it. For example, if you’ve developed a race of ancient warriors and you’re working out the complex lineage of their tribes, write about one of those warriors who doesn’t belong to any tribe. Boom, conflict. Once you know what’s important to your society, you have a blueprint of how to create conflict: subvert what people hold dear, and sparks will fly.
On to my top 4 pieces of creative worldbuilding cake. Diversity The one race, one personality (or one world, one biome/climate) feature is a sci-fi/fantasy trope. It’s basically a shortcut because, no doubt, writing diversity is a massive undertaking. You have to come up with a cascade of details and shadings that make your cultures and people feel four dimensional, with the 4th dimension of time being that things change, and that development is often staggered and/or unequally distributed. For this, you have to put in the work. But here’s a little trick that can save you time: write the macro stuff, then write the small, personal moments, and the middle ground will often grow organically from this. Another source of material is real life, throughout the ages. If you (respectfully) draw inspiration from real cultures and wrap them in your own creativity, this can be pretty effective. You can even use it to make social commentary. Daily Lives & Entertainment What do your characters do for fun? What do they eat for breakfast? Do they even eat breakfast? How about work hours; is it a 7.341-to-42 hour/18-day-a-week world? How about romantic relationships, sex, and marriage? Are children forced to eat their greens or work in the crystal mines? Even the smallest quirk can be telling if it connects to a larger theme. You don’t have to answer all of these questions (remember the window), but don’t avoid them as your characters move through their lives. Even if your characters aren't participating in the daily hum-drum, other people in the universe are, so let us see it. This doesn’t mean you want to spend ten pages on how people wash their feet (I guess?), but a paragraph here and there will give a sense of life beyond the story. And this brings up a related key point: show us how the world works through character actions and dialog as much as possible, rather than through giant blocks of exposition. Ripple Effects Never forget that events have consequences beyond the immediate. When havoc is wrought and dogs of war set loose, they bite everyone, and those people complain to their friends. The assassination of a duke, an attack on mass transit, the marriage of celebrity cats, they all create ripple effects, even if it’s just to change the topic of dinner conversation. In addition to creating a more living, natural world, showing your characters reacting to the same event with different attitudes is a good way to develop them as individuals. Tech & Magic  If your characters have game changing technology and/or magic there are (at least) 3 things to keep in mind: What are the rules? Without establishing the rules of what is or is not possible, you can quickly drain the tension from scenes. I think shields/armor in sci-fi often exemplify a cheap trick mechanic, because they allow characters to sustain the exact right amount of damage to create *dramatic plot moment*. This isn't always bad, but if you can show the limits/costs/side-effects of tech, it'll keep the reader grounded in a greater sense of reality. For magic, give us a sense of how hard and what's required for a mage to cast a fireball of doom versus a tickle spell. Is it incantation based, are there ingredients, do spells require time to cast? What is the price of failure or a miscast? Find clever ways to show these things without lecturing, like having characters fail and learn why, or exceed limits early on and pay the price. Why doesn’t everyone have it? This point is easier to explain: money, rarity, opportunity to acquire it. Whatever the reason, if Steely McHero is wielding a gravity gun that levels mountains, why don’t the bad guys also have one? Or any idiot with enough cash? Because there are plenty of those. What are the other implications? This one is trickier, as a domino effect of influences can travel very far and not be obvious at first glance. If 10 second time travel is a thing in your world, how does that affect stock trading? If you have pervasive teleporter devices and cars in the same world, why? You don’t need to go too crazy with minutia, but you don’t want to hang obvious, world-breaking mechanics out like dirty laundry for readers to get wrapped up in. Final Thoughts (for now): In the end, your world is there to support your story, not the other way around. Put love and care into worldbuilding, but also make sure it’s not all clingy and jealous of your characters, smothering them with incessant demands for attention. If your world is the most interesting thing in your book, then it’ll sit in your driveway like a totally sweet sports car with no engine in it. I think two metaphors is enough here, go forth and write!  Nathaniel Henderson is an author currently working on a post-post apocalyptic sci-fi book series. For updates and exclusive content, sign up for his newsletter.
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