World Building

Hey folks (or dust balls, if no one's reading)! My name's Matt, and I've been creating my fantasy world for over three (yes, that's 3) years now, off and on. It's for the purpose of writing a series of novels set in it, but this blog concerns that process I've gone through and am still going through - CREATION! Although I may deal primarily with creating for the purposes of writing, if all you're interested in is drawing a map or creating a fantasy language, you'll find this blog will still help you in your world building enterprises.

At times the absolute funnest thing to do, and at others the most frustrating and worrisome, to have a believable and interesting world, world building must be done. In the end, whether it takes you a single week, or a decade to finish, it's an amazing, and, I suppose, exclusive feeling to look at everything you've created and think of all the little people or beasties that are going about their lives down there on the face of that map or worshiping one or more of your gods in that pantheon.

I am a detail oriented guy. I can spend a couple of hours just coming up with the PERFECT name for a little, insignificant village that will never be mentioned in my stories, and I'm a true believer in that as long as YOU are happy with your creation, 100%, than it is right. I can't describe the feeling for you when you know that what you created IS right, but I can tell you that you will know. That name just feels right. That river coming down out of that mountain just feels right. That history behind that race just feels right. Even if you choose to use the biggest cliche in the genre (although I won't encourage that!), if you feel that that is what goes best with your fantasy creation, than that is what you should use. I suppose this is just a reflection of how I approach my writing - you write for yourself, no one else. Everyone wants people to read their work, for obvious reasons, but if you are just writing (or creating) to please others, you will end up pleasing no one, least of all yourself. If you don't believe in what you are writing (or creating!), neither will those you expect to love it.

Anyways! I will be talking about that particular topic at a later date, as I could go on all day about it, and I think it would serve best as its own entry here. So, this is my blog. If you want to write or create something fantastical, follow along, and express your own ideas, too, as I am always learning. These methods and ideas I will express won't work for everyone, and they aren't necessarily the best ways to go about something. Creativity is funny that way. You can try to make it into a process, but it likes to often times rebel and do things its own way. So, if you disagree with something, don't be afraid to let me know. It will likely help us all create and write better in the end.