Should you start world building before you begin writing, or should you do it as you go along.

First time posting, so i'm sorry if i put this in the wrong place.

But i'm working on a story that has a lot of characters and a pretty expansive world. I've done quite a bit of lore building, but not nearly as much actual writing.

Should i just go along with what i have in regards to the world and its background and begin writing, or should i continue to explain the worlds background and its current state in order to help any potential readers understand whats going on better?

I would say that you at least need some broad outlines present when starting. Depending on exactly how far into detail you plan to do you might need to have most of it done before you actually start plotting. But if you're not going too deeply into it you've got more wiggle room to colour in the lines as you go.

Not going to say I know the best way, but I've often found that I'll write a bit of a story, then realise something doesn't work, and that by the time it does work, I have to rewrite that whole section because the world is no long as I imagined it.

I have exactly the same problem. I've often heard that the world you build should, most of all, serve the story you're writing. If you're like me and you've got the world and the characters, but no proper story, you have a bit of a problem.

What I'm doing right now is trying to find a balance between the two, meaning I do both actual writing and world building at roughly the same time. World building is often linked to an iceberg, in that the reader will likely only see the tiny tip poking out from the water, but you still need the huge lower section or the tip won't make sense.

So try some actual writing for now, you might get a better idea of how much lore you actually need and won't have to scold yourself for writing all this lore you didn't end up using at all.

edited 18th Apr '17 5:46:51 AM by ilili

Depends on who you are. Me?

I build up everything before writing.

either or is fine.

i prefer worldbuilding first, because i enjoy it, and if im writing a story i want to make use of the setting, but if you're going for a more character oriented story and the setting isnt a huge focus you can just write first and make up any setting details as you go along.

as long as you have some basic rules down to maintain consistency you shouldnt run into too much trouble just doing it as you go along.

also, im a very broad-strokes worldbuilder, so i wont even touch some more specific details to either a culture or an area of the world until im trying to write something that deals with it, so even if you world build before you begin anything, you can still continue doing it as you go along.

Personally, I'd do it before writing. It gives you a better sense of what you're doing and whatnot.

I used to worldbuild SO MUCH that I'd never get to actually writing, but trying to write without ANY outline of the world means I get stuck trying to figure out limits and setting details. :P

So now I compromise and set out the basic details, and I at least TRY to write more of the actual story before I start heavy-duty world-building.

IMO, you need to start with at least a general idea of what your world is like. Most importantly:

• Means of transportation (AKA couldn't we just hop on a train?)
• Means of communication (do we have to visit a guy, or can we give him a call to ask a question?)
• General tech and magic level (guns or swords? magitek?)
• General climate (what clothes would people be wearing?)
• Broad social structure (does nobility exist? slavery? different species?)
• Broad political situation (are we in a kingdom, a dystiopia, a republic?)
• Basics of religion (what and how many gods are we worshipping?)
• Anything plot-important (number of magic artifacts or something like this)

If those are set down in stone, you'll probably avoid any major pitfalls^note Anecdote: I once read a (terrible, terrible) novel where the detective protagonist spends a chapter riding to a distant mansion to get an answer to an important question and then, at the mansion, phones his boss and tells him what he's learned. That's the kind of pitfall I'm talking about. and can focus on writing, though I personally prefer to worldbuild much more than that before sitting down to the plot.

Boy, have I got a story for you.

When I first decided I was interested in writing, I was paranoid about the problems that I thought would inevitably come with putting my story to pen before I had it's world sufficiently built. I thought I would end up inevitably tripping over a hundred things, big and small, that I had never bothered to consider, and the whole thing would grind to a screeching halt and I would have to contrive some idiotic, tension-killing bullshit to get it going again.

So, I resolved that I would only start actually writing the story after I had the worldbuilding in a very complete final state. Fast-forward to today, when I have still made zero progress actually writing the damn thing. Worldbuilding consumed all of my work, and while I do enjoy it immensely, it feels as if at times it isn't helping me get any closer to actually writing the damn thing.