About the beginnings and first steps in worldbuilding.
Introduction
Hi! My name is Slawander, and this is a blog about worldbuilding. I enjoy fantasy games, films, and stories, but I’m also fascinated by the inner workings of such fictional worlds. On this blog, I’ll be focusing on creating one of my own.
Why I’m Creating This Blog
Why did I decide to start a blog? There are many reasons, but the most important one was fear.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved telling stories. At first, they were just jokes and humorous tales, but one day I started writing a short story — and that’s when I wanted to create something that would touch both hearts and minds.
Unfortunately, I’ve also always been rather reserved. I didn’t like talking about myself, and the idea of sharing something as personal as my creative work with anyone was absolutely paralyzing.
I’m still terrified of it, but I want to grow as a person. I don’t yet feel ready to write my first book, but I am ready to create the world for it. This blog allows me to overcome my fear of sharing my work, and who knows? Maybe I’ll meet interesting and wise people along the way — people who will share their knowledge and insights to make the world I’m creating even better. Maybe this project will take me to unexpected places.
Creating a blog sounds like an adventure, and documenting my progress will help me stay motivated.
What the Blog Will Be About
What will I write about? About how I create my fictional world — from the first atom to the fall of an empire.
I intend to draw from a various fields of science: from physics, chemistry, and geography, through sociology, law, and political science, all the way to philosophy and theology — in order to create a believable and realistic fictional world.
I’m not an expert in worldbuilding; I’ve only been doing it for a short time. Therefore, this won’t be a blog about “the one and only correct way to create worlds.” Instead, it will present my personal perspective and experiences: my successes, flashes of insight, silly mistakes, strange discoveries, and the lessons learned along the way — as well as the results of each stage of the project.
This will be the story of the creation of a world.
Why It’s Worth Reading
So why should you read this? Because I won’t be offering ready-made solutions — I’ll be showing the process.
From experience, I know that when someone skilled does something, it often looks simple — at least until someone who doesn’t know how tries to do the same. Worldbuilding can be a long and exhausting process, and it’s not for everyone. It certainly wasn’t for me at first. It used to be a necessary evil when I was a game master running tabletop RPGs, and as for the worlds I created back then… let’s just say they’re better left unmentioned.
But I’m not saying this to discourage anyone from creating their own worlds — quite the opposite. I want to encourage others to be creative in a realistic way. I want to use my own example to demonstrate what a worldbuilder might face, to show the challenges I’ve encountered, what I’ve learned from them, and how I’ve overcome them.
I want to show the entire process from the inside out — rather than throwing out vague advice like “think of this, calculate that, and write it down.” I also want to present it in an accessible way, so that even complex concepts can be expressed in understandable terms. A fictional world is still a world, and the one we live in has countless fields of study dedicated to understanding it.
In short, I have a lot to learn — and I intend to study these subjects well enough to apply what I learn to my own world and to explain it to others. I’m focused on practical application. Yes, I like to philosophize and digress, but ultimately, I prioritize functionality.
So, if you want to understand how to build worlds, care about realism, and want to see what the creative process really looks like — you’ve come to the right place.
Let’s get started.
Where to Start?
Ah, the classic, infamous first step: where do you begin?
It seems to me there’s no single right place to start. One person might begin with a magic system, another with a map, another with cosmology, and yet another with a character they want to place in their world. Personally, though, I think to answer that question, you first need to ask another: why are you doing it?
Creators of fictional worlds have all sorts of reasons. Maybe you’re a game developer building a setting for your game. Maybe you’re a game master crafting a world to explore with your friends. Maybe you’re a writer developing a world for your novel. Or maybe something about worldbuilding simply fascinates you.
People rarely devote time and energy to things that don’t interest them. If you want to create a world, there must be something that draws you to it — so ask yourself: what is it?
One day, I had an idea. Some time ago, I created a young male character named Urfandriel, or Urf to his friends. These were the very beginnings of my writing, and he was a deeply flawed character — perhaps most obviously because he wasn’t really written at all. He was more a reflection of the “cooler, adventure-seeking” version of myself I dreamed of.
Despite all that, I really liked him — and I wasn’t the only one. A few people closely followed his adventures, curious to see what would happen next.
I liked this character so much that I wanted to give him a whole world — a place where he could live and experience all kinds of stories. A world where I could truly tell his tale.
That’s my why. I want to tell the story of a certain character — but first, I have to build him a home.
Having that goal helps me understand what I need in my world: a piece of land to call home, a territory for a nation or community, perhaps a backdrop for a war or a legend, or even just a place for friendships and rivalries to unfold. It also helps me see what I don’t need.
For example, if most of the story takes place on land or near the ocean’s surface, I probably don’t need to design 20,000 species of deep-sea creatures — at least not anytime soon.
I need a world in which I can tell stories.
So, what kind of world do you want?
Summary
This is where my worldbuilding journey begins — a journey where I want to face challenges and create something good, something meaningful.
I hope this project will be an opportunity for me to grow as a creator and as a person, and that this blog will serve as a chronicle not only of my project, but also of the path I’ve walked.
If you’re in a similar place, try asking yourself why you want to create a world. Once you know that, deciding what to create becomes much easier.
For starters, I’m a novice in worldbuilding, not a professional. This is just my personal view.
It’s great start. I hate reading wall of texts but I can’t call it that. I actually read it with real satisfaction. It’s interesting, engaging and works well as an introduction. I can’t wait to see more.
There’s also one issue I’d like to know your view on – how do you understand “in a realistic way” and “realism”? I’m asking because when I used to GM various discord roleplays, mostly fantasy ones, there was always this argument: “it’s fantasy! It doesn’t need to be realistic!”
However, from my point of view, it’s not really about realism – as in creating something that aligns with our own reality – but about creating something logical, where things follow a cause-and-effect pattern.
What’s your view on it?
And again, I’ll be eagerly awaiting for more of your work!
Hi! Thank you for your comment — I’m really glad you enjoyed the article!
How do I understand realism in my worldbuilding? That’s a very good question. The first thing that comes to mind is that *it has to be believable*. When I say something is realistic, I mean that it feels believable and probable — like it could really happen or exist.
Of course, unbelievable and improbable things happen in the real world too, but I think that in fiction such things can sometimes break immersion.
Now that I think about it, I may have used the wrong word. I want my world to be as realistic as possible, but first and foremost, I want it to be believable. These two terms aren’t mutually exclusive, but I wouldn’t say they always mean exactly the same thing.
So I think the argument from the Discord roleplay might be true: maybe fantasy doesn’t have to be realistic, but it definitely has to be believable. And that’s what I want to achieve — believability through realism, or, as you put it, “something logical, where things follow a cause-and-effect pattern.”
Thank you again for taking the time to share your thoughts. I’ll do my best to share more of my work again soon!