I’ve been slowly working on making YouTube videos of my old storyworld building posts. This week’s video post is on building a history for your world. You can read the original blog post here.
Are you stuck building your world’s history? Do you have any history worldbuilding advice to share? Post your questions or tips in the comments.
Jill Williamson is a chocolate loving, daydreaming, creator of kingdoms, and the author of several young adult fantasy novels including the Blood of Kings trilogy. She loves teaching about writing. She blogs at goteenwriters.com and also posts writing videos on her YouTube channel and on Instagram. Jill is a Whovian, a Photoshop addict, and a recovering fashion design assistant. She grew up in Alaska without running water or electricity and now lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two kids. Find Jill online at jillwilliamson.com or on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.
This post was really good! Question: With History,how much should you know? A basic timeliness or super comprehensive?
Thanks ?
It depends on the story you’re telling. You only need to know what is necessary for your plot. For most people that means a basic timeline. And then you can pick a couple things to get a little more detailed on–and that gives the reader the impression that you went detailed on everything, when really you didn’t. But if you were writing a story that, perhaps, had the characters researching or investigating the history of the world for some reason, you might get more comprehensive.
Thanks! I can’t wait to get started with my world.
Helpful tips—thank you! I’m trying my hand at a fantasy next project, so I plan to be coming back to these posts often. :0)
Just out of curiosity, what’s your favorite part of creating a storyworld? Maps, politics, history, species, etc? Think mine will be different cultures.
I do really love drawing the maps. I will always love that part. But I also quite enjoy creating the cultures and nationalities of different countries, regions, and people groups and working out their way of life, occupations, religions, and magic–and then how all of those work well or conflict with each other. And I really love how worldbuilding evolves over time. For example, last year I wrote 90K of a certain book. I realized the story had some major problems, so I put it down and started a different story in that same storyworld but a different country. Because I’d already done a lot of world building on that first country, I was able to add people from that place–and their magic type–in this new country. And as I did that and refined it, I came to discover more things about that first country that I didn’t know before–particularly I defined how magic works generally for all people in every country. So once I finish this second book, I’ll go back to that first book and know so much more about where my characters live. And that knowledge will add a great deal of depth to the story and cohesiveness in the series in general. I love how that happens. But it takes a lot of time creating, then writing, then creating some more, then writing some more. And once it starts coming together and flowing, it’s just brilliant.
I love it when pieces of a story start clicking together! Makes all the time and effort involved worth it. You have me pumped now to start worldbuilding. :0)
World-building has always fascinated me. But, I have trouble commiting to getting it down. I jus wish it would appear like my characters. But, I’ll definitely b using these tips. I have a story world I’m currently working on, and the history is a major part of it all.
Videos! I love this. Super helpful!