Step 1: Pick a Twist
So you want to write a new story and need to invent an exciting world in which it takes place. This chapter is about the very first step: pick the thing that is unique about the world.
Most fictional worlds are very similar to our own. If you made your world too different, humans would stop being able to connect to it, and it would take too much time (and too many “infodumps”) to explain all of that.
As such, I do not think it is practical to start from scratch. Instead, start with “the real world” (or a specific part or time period), and think about the twist you’re going to implement.
And yes, twist is singular here. As the previous chapters explained, it’s better to do one thing really well, than trying to do many things at the same time. If somebody asks you “so what’s your world like?”, you should be able to say “like the real world, except for this one major interesting difference!”
If possible, any other changes you make in your world should be a consequence of that twist, or at least related to it.
The Stormlight Archive (by Brandon Sanderson) basically said “what if I have a world with really weird and specific weather?” This one twist is explored and sustained throughout multiple really long books.
The Grisha Trilogy basically says “what if a country had two armies: a regular one and one made from magical people?” That’s the thing that drew me to the books. My biggest disappointment ended up being that this premise wasn’t really explored. Instead, as time goes on, it almost forgets it’s not set in the real world and turns into a pretty basic good-versus-evil story.
His Dark Materials basically says “what if everybody had a companion with them at all times, which represented their soul?” (Then, throughout the stories, more and more rules and ideas spring from this simple fact. Such as that they can’t get too far away from you, that they have the opposite gender, that hurting them also hurts you, etcetera.)
The Dark Forest (the second book in the Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy) starts with a simple twist: “what if another alien race simply did not have the capacity for lying and deceit?” It’s a very simple change from our real world, but one with huge consequences that are interesting enough to sustain a longer story.
Physical & Cultural
In general, we divide worlds into two categories: Physical and Cultural.
Physical obviously refers to things that are physical, such as geography or cities.
But it also refers to the laws of the physical world (which humans did not create or control). This includes magic. In fact, what we call “magic” is often simply a world with different laws for biology/chemistry/physics.
Cultural refers to everything else. The things created and maintained by the people living in this physical environment, living under these strange laws of nature. Think of language, religion, myths, social convention, social classes, governing systems, etcetera.
As you see, the list of cultural aspects is much longer than that of physical aspects. Additionally, it’s more concrete, whereas imagining a world in which our rules for chemistry or biology are different is abstract and hard to do.
That’s because any change in the physical world has huge, lasting consequences. If there’s a mountain in your path, you’re not going to wish it away. If gravity simply does not exist, this changes everything about lifestyle and civilization.
As such, the general rule is …
Pick one Physical twist. Then use several Cultural twists to support and enrich it.
Let’s invent a world together. For the Physical twist, I’m going to choose that the planet is incredibly small and entirely made of water.
For the Cultural twist, I might think of consequences. For example, their main religion worships a God of the Ocean. The best career or highest status is given to those who create and steer ships. Cities do not really exist: they are just communities of boats in close proximity.
Many precautions are in place against high tides or storms, but their world is still very unpredictable (your town could be washed away any second), causing a constant sense of dread. The only governing system that succeeded is the one that used this dread to gain power.
As you see from the example, you only need one physical twist and your whole world already feels different. Adding more and more twists, moving away from the real world more and more, just makes a story unnecessarily complicated and messy.
If you forgo a Physical twist, and only use Cultural ones, you can get away with a lot of twists. But you have to figure out a reason why the culture is so weird. If there’s nothing physically different from our world (no magic, no weird geography, etcetera) … then why did civilization evolve completely differently? Searching for that answer, you’ll often arrive at a necessary Physical twist anyway.
More specific categories
The two categories above are, of course, very broad. To help you find ideas, I’ll present some lists with more specific categorization.
Physical
- Map / Geography
- Magic
- Races
- Visuals (simply what things look like)
- Construction (resources; what things are made of)
- Flora
- Fauna
- Terrain
- Weather
- Climate
- Tectonic Activity
- Cosmology
- Terrain
Cultural
- Religion
- Government
- Economics
- Languages
- Jobs
- Education
- Healthcare
- Taboos / Mores
- Gender Roles
- Social Hierarchy
- Factions / Classes / Communities
- Borders
- Fashion
- Food
- History
- Military
- Social Customs
- Greetings / Swear Words
My custom list
Some time ago, in preparation of a different story (which won’t be published for a while), I made a shorter list that covers basically all categories.
This list is useful in two ways.
First, you can pick one category and focus your worldbuilding on that one entirely
Second, you can sprinkle in tiny bits of the other categories to get the feeling of a full and rich world.
For example, say you pick “Academia” as the main thing. Your story is going to be about a really weird science or education system in your world. You devote 90% of the book to that, but the other 10% shows glimpses of unique military, services, finances, etcetera that are related to the weird Academia. Doing that creates a world that feels fleshed-out, instead of feeling like you completely ignored many aspects of the world.
This is my list.
- Academia (Science; Research; Libraries)
- Military (Police; Army; Jails)
- Nature (Plants; Animals; Reserves)
- Services (Emergency Services; Entertainment)
- Resources (Food; Water; Mining)
- Finances (Bank; Shops; Trade)
- Culture (Communication; Travel; Religion)
- Government (Law; Leadership; Legal)
A huge resource
There’s a society for fantasy and worldbuilding. Their website has a huge resource for all questions and considerations regarding worldbuilding: Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions.
It’s too much and too overwhelming to use all of it. But I link it anyway so you can read specific entries and perhaps get inspired (or solve issues with your current worldbuilding)
Really make it count
Your final question is probably: but how do I know if my twist is interesting enough? There is no definite answer. You’ll have to build an intuition for what might sustain a whole story and lead to interesting consequences.
That said, it’s clear that it is important to have an “unique and extreme twist”.
If you change only a little, you didn’t “design” the world well enough to get a unique story.
If you create a world that’s been done before, then what’s the point?
You want a twist that’s extreme enough to really make a difference.
Don’t say “in my world, everybody wears the same clothes”. Yes, it’s a twist, it’s a change … but it’s quite subtle and small. In our world, people basically wear the same small collection of clothes as well. There are no major implications to this.
But if you say “in my world, NOBODY wears clothes!” Now you’re talking.
To find this unique twist, base your worlds on your personal interests, hobbies or life experiences.
I’ve given the example of Wildebyte several times. I invented this world based on video games, because I like games and I’m a game developer. This makes me passionate and knowledgeable, and allows me to craft truly unique worlds in which the stories take place.
Similarly, I have a passion for nature and biology. That’s why I made the “weird” decision to fill my Saga of Life with speaking animals and to only introduce humans in the final time period. To me, it only seemed sensible. Humans only appeared very recently! This story is about life, not humans, so let’s have animals be the main character in most stories.
Other writers, without my personal preferences and life experiences, would have crafted an entirely different world. They wouldn’t even have considered the possibility of introducing humans only near the end. They’d have picked a different twist, based on their own preferences.
That’s the biggest lesson.
To invent unique worlds, focus on what makes your world unique.
How to apply to non-fantasy?
The same idea is still true for stories that do not invent an entirely new world.
How? Well, you must realize that inventing a new world with different rules, doesn’t necessarily mean an actual fictional planet. A “new world with special rules” simply means a setting—a confined situation—within which certain rules hold true. While you’re in that location, while you’re part of that setting, some rules are simply different.
For example, take a big party or a nightclub. While there, the rules are a little different, aren’t they? People behave differently. Customs are a little different. Your goals, social interactions, beverage of choice, it’s all different. But only while you’re inside that location, inside that “bubble”.
That’s how you apply this to non-fantasy stories. Use a setting (that can actually exist, in the real world) designed such that different rules are true.
A pretty simple example is that of cults or perhaps student associations. There are many books in which a hero must “infiltrate” such a group, which ends up being a dangerous and mysterious world in which the rules are just a little different. (Or they accidentally get tangled up with one of those.)
These are still realistic stories, not fantasy at all. There’s no magic, no made-up world. But there is a “new world”—when you’re with the cult, perhaps at a special location—that puts a few twists on what you’d expect in the real world.
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