Oz, Wonderland, Narnia, the 100 Acre Wood, Middle Earth, Terabithia, Neverland, the United Federation of Planets, Hogwarts, Jurassic Park, Bedford Falls, Gotham City, and a galaxy far, far away.

These are storyworlds that someone invented, someone who was once like you, learning to tell stories, learning to write. And these authors invented fictional places that have become real in our minds and hearts.

You have the ability to create such a world for readers. Isn’t that incredible?

I had the opportunity to teach and speak about storyworld building several times this summer. And I had so much fun doing it, I thought I’d do a series on the topic here. I’m mostly going to talk about mythical storyworlds, but you could apply these same principles in creating a fictional town on earth, like Bedford Falls or Gotham City. I’m going to be talking about this for the next three weeks, so hold on to your fezzes!

GENRE
The first thing you need to do in storyworld building is decide what kind of story you’re going to tell. An epic or high fantasy requires a different level of storyworld building compared to a swords and sorcery or heroic fantasy story. A middle grade science fiction story requires much less storyworld building compared to an adult science fiction one.

So what do you have? Long swords or blasters? Horses or land speeders? Both? And for what age?

Minas Tirith from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings

If you’re not sure what you’re writing, read. Find the books that are similar to yours and note the genre they sold in. If you’re not sure which genre you want your story to be, go with your strengths. I am no scientist. The amount of research I need to do to write a believable science fiction novel is tough for me. It doesn’t come easily. And that makes it harder for me to tell a good story. So I’d rather write fantasy. But I confess that it took me writing ten books to figure that out. Sometimes you have to try different genres to know what you like best. And that’s okay.

PLANET
Once you know your genre, think about the planet (or planets) in your story. Consider astronomy and things like tides, orbits, habitable zones, suns, moons. In the movie Pitch Black, every twenty-two years, the planet experiences a month-long eclipse when all three suns go dark and the little beasties come out. Consider for your world, how long is a season? It’s unlikely that the planet rotates and orbits the same as earth. How long are your days? Years?

TERRAIN
Consider the geography of your planet. I’ve talked before about how I like to start new storyworlds by drawing a map. Whether or not you do draw a map, think about mountains, canyons, plains, and coastlines. When you think about water, remember that rivers flow downhill into bigger bodies of water (bigger rivers or lakes) and eventually into the ocean. How might these things influence your plot? In the Lord of the Rings, the fellowship parted ways when they reached the waterfall on the river Anduin. The water forced them to take another path, and it just so happened that they didn’t go together. Study a map of Middle Earth. It has lots of interesting terrain like the Dead Marshes, the Gap of Rohan, Fanghorn Forest, and the mountains of Moria.

Did you know about different types of biomes such as aquatic, desert, forest, grasslands, and tundra? I stumbled onto biome types while reading encyclopedia entries when I was building my Blood of Kings storyworld. You can research what types of plants and animals grow in what types of climates. That can be helpful when brainstorming terrain. Check out this website for more information on biomes.

ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS
And while we’re talking biomes, what are the temperatures like in your world? What’s the weather like? Think about your astronomical factors and how they might affect the climate and weather. In George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice, the planet experiences seven years of summer and then winter comes, hence the commonly used phrase in the books, “Winter is coming.”

What about animal life? Do you have any mythical creatures? Dragons? Unicorns? Something totally unique that you made up? I recently read the book Dune, and I was fascinated by the giant sandworms. Dune wasn’t the only story to use giant worms, though the ones in the movie Tremors weren’t quite as big. And you couldn’t ride them. Let’s face it. Riding a sandworm is pretty awesome stuff.

A “Graboid” from Tremors

What about natural resources? In Dune, the planet Arrakis didn’t have much water, but it had a lot of “spice,” which was an addictive substance that gives the consumer telepathic abilities. In The Empire Strikes Back, the planet Bespin is rich in tibanna gas, which is refined and used to make blasters and coolant for starships. These things affect the story in different ways. In Dune, the desert Fremen learn to recycle their body’s water and the overuse of spice turns their eyes blue. In The Empire Strikes Back, Cloud City is rich because of the tibanna gas, which drew the interest of the empire to try and extort money, which was why Lando made the deal to give them Han Solo. The trick isn’t merely coming up with all these cool things, but in deciding how they interact and come into conflict with other aspects of your storyworld. That’s what makes it interesting.

Consider disease. Could something in your environment cause illnesses? A plant, animal, or something in the air? In Artemis Fowl: the Atlantis Complex, the Atlantis Complex is a psychological disease common in fairies who suffer from guilt. In the real world, Myxomatosis is a disease that affects rabbits and causes blindness and was used in the novel Watership Down. The superflu kills off most of earth’s population in Stephen King’s The Stand. And in my book Captives, the people in the Safe Lands all have the Thin Plague.

CITIES & TOWNS
Think about the layout of your settlements. Originally, cities were formed as meeting places for trading goods with other people. Sometimes cities would form because of a specific location that received a lot of traffic like a bay. They might also form near natural resources like a coal mine. What kinds of cities does your world have and why? Consider some interesting cities like the planet Coruscant in Star Wars, where the entire planet is one big city; the Emerald City of Oz, which is green; Hamunaptra, the city of the dead, from the movie The Mummy, a fictional city in which Imhotep’s priests were mummified alive; and Brandon Sanderson’s Elantris, a city that was once magnificent and now in ruins since the Elantrians lost their powers.

Coruscant from Star Wars

LANDMARKS & BUILDINGS
Think about iconic architecture like in earth’s own Seven Wonders of the Ancient Word or something as interesting as Stonehenge. What kinds of interesting things can you give your world whether that be great architecture of something else with significant meaning. In my Blood of Kings books, the Memorial Tree is talked about a great deal. It is the tree underneath which the king and queen were murdered, the place where the curse of darkness began.

Think of the lamppost in the Narnia books, the Doctor’s Tardis, the castle Hogwarts in Harry Potter, the yellow brick road from Oz, the Daily Planet building from Superman with the giant globe on top, and the USS Enterprise—a building of sorts that travels through space. Or what about the Gates of Argonath or Pillars of Kings from the Lord of the Rings, which are the two gigantic statues of Isildur and Anárion that stand on either side of the river Anduin. Pretty sweet, huh?

The Gates of Argonath from Lord of the Rings

So take some time to consider your storyworld thus far. Have you covered all these areas? Have you done lots of one but neglected another? Tell us what you’re missing. And if you want, tell us one cool thing you have.