World Building – Revisited: Part 2

Continued from Part 1

As you begin the long process of building a world, you need, first, to ask yourself some questions.
Part 2: What in the World Are You Thinking Of?

Why am I doing this?
Building a world can take longer than you might want to spend. In fact, it can take years. Chaiantra, one of my worlds is over forty years old, and is still growing, evolving. Ask yourself if you need a whole world to play with, or do you only need some interesting locales for a story?
Is it necessary to build a whole world?
As suggested above, it you may not need a whole world for your story–or even for your novel. While a world based upon Mother Earth will take much less development than one put together out of the stuff of the cosmos, making one from scratch can be extraordinarily challenging and exciting. World building can (and likely will) expand to take up all the time and resources you’ve got. Be sure, padawan learner, be sure.
Will this be a one-shot affair?
Consider how much use your new world will get. If you are planning a six-volume 4000 year history, making a full and compelling world may be essential. If you’re doing a short-story about a little alien boy who sees an unexpected light in the sky, you may be biting off more than you can chew.
If you want your world to be believable, you will have to do extensive research.
You want aliens who float in the air without wings or balloons tied to them? That’s going to take some work.

OK, so you’ve heard a few of the (many) reasons to not do this. Here are a few reasons for building your own world:

There is absolutely nothing like world-building
Without getting all “God-complexy” about it, building a world from the “ground” up gives you the kind of creative control over the world you want to write about that you can’t have if your characters live on ol’ Terra Firma.
The sense of accomplishment is unbelievable.
When you look at your maps, models, sketches and data-sheets, and know you’ve done the best you can, you’ll feel like you can do anything. “Write a novel in 30 days? No problem. I just built my own world!“
What you have done once, you can do again
Look at the writers you love, those who have built not just one world, but many. Jack L. Chalker comes to mind. World building, in whole or in part, is a skill once acquired, that will serve you throughout your writing career.
As you grow your new world, you too will grow
More than a sense of accomplishment, once you have gone through the process of building a world, along with its people, cosmology, history and culture, you will understand more about your own world and where you, and others fit in.

It’s hard not to keep going at this point, but we have a lot of ground (heh) to cover over the week, too much, in fact. This week may feel like a dizzying ride, and the ride won’t be for everyone, but if you are interested in making a world that spins and lives, here we go…

Continued in Part 3