I haven't been much of a writer for years, but I find myself getting back into it as I'm coming up with a homebrew D&D campaign. One thing I've always really liked for as long as I've been a writer is world building. It's so satisfying when all of the pieces seem to fit together perfectly! But I've noticed that I usually manage to make this happen by coincidence or total accident.

So my questions for the writing community are these: how do you approach world building? Do you find yourself doing a lot of planning ahead of time, or do you just let things fall into place naturally as you write? How much detail do you usually go into for your stories?

I love world building as well, but I've got a similar issue with consistency: no real go-to process or tactic to rely on. Usually an idea will occur to me and I start to build everything from there; it can lead to a lot of roadblocks, though!

I love to plan, and details are everything to me, but sometimes I get too into the little tiny pieces and have to just let myself go for a bit. String some things together, see if they actually work, and what else crops up. Honestly, though, I spend a lot of time planning and thinking of cool details that might not always make it into the final story/world/etc. But I looove seeing evidence of care and thought in other people's worlds and stories, its always awesome when the details bring a world to life.

Homebrew D&D can be super fun! Good luck putting your world together (:

Yeah, I think our processes (or lack of one?) are really similar! It's fascinating how some worlds seem to just pull themselves together. And yes, I absolutely agree about that last point. Seeing a fictional world that someone else made with so much forethought and detail is so inspiring!

And thank you!! We'll be playing a one-off tomorrow, and everybody's really excited about it! I think it's gonna be really fun :)

When I was younger, I used to do a ton of world building. I would mostly make it up as I went on writing, but those were the days before I became obsessed with revision. I think I would start by focusing on fantasy races/magical creatures then go from there.

In more recent years, I've been working on a post apocalyptic world with my fiancee. We shoot ideas back and forth and try to roleplay/scenario different ideas to see if they'll work out later for our over arching story. I think it helps having someone to bounce ideas off of and making sure to record those little snippets of details that you think would be perfect for a later time.

Speaking of D&D, my first time ever DMing, I used my post apocalyptic setting and adapted the monsters from the monster manual to fit the story. The party went into a McDonlad's and got attacked by an ochre jelly which I said was sentient fry grease, haha.

-Dash

That's so great that you have your fiancee to work ideas with! I have a couple friends who do the same for me and it's so helpful.

Also that sentient fry grease made me spit out my drink! That campaign sounds like it was hilarious. I just had a really successful first session as a DM the other day, and we had plenty of shenanigans too. Our session centered around a fantasy circus and a table of 10,000 wild surges that someone made up and posted online, which was about as chaotic and hilarious as it sounds! I can't wait to play again.

My husband is a fantasy writer and he recently posted something similar to this topic on his writing blog.

For me, I think the characters are the easiest way to start when I'm writing something (especially Subeta-related around one of my pets). I think of what that character is like and what world would be best for them. I think about what friends and family they would have and ho0w they would interact with one another.

For me it's a weird mixture of cribbing ideas from basically everywhere, bouncing ideas off just about everyone who sits still long enough to listen, and worldbuilding memes/lists. My favourite people to talk to are those who ask questions like "How does [x] play into this", or "How does the culture deal with [x]". I usually have a rough idea of either the world or an initial culture, and try to discern how they work together, and with other cultures in the setting. And sometimes there's single characters or events who/which don't seem to fit in but they're adamant about it, especially if I try to change it, and a few years down the line some other character tells me a piece of information and suddenly everything clicks into place. (It took me years to figure out how magic in my major setting worked, and why a specific item would fry just about everyone save three exceptions, but I digress.)

Sometimes it's just, letting characters who show up on my mental front porch in, pouring them tea, and letting them talk.

Most of my stuff comes to me in day dreams, or dreams. I usually spend the first 15 minutes writing. I find if I don't write down ideas as soon as I think of them, I lose them. I am a constant bubble of post it notes... or a ton of google docs for one book. I just mash them together somehow. I usually have to connect my dreams somehow, and that is where my creativity comes in.

When it comes to detail, I go into as much detail as I can muster from the picture in my head. That way my readers get the same picture.

That's really interesting! I remember back when I first got really seriously into writing. I was constantly writing notes about whatever story I was writing at the time, sometimes on the back of a napkin or in the margins of my school notes! But not much of it ever came to me from dreams, so it's pretty cool to hear how that works for you! c: