How to build a fantasy world?

This was a Quora questions I answered and I did some new Google searches so I felt I could/should post it here, too.

I want to start building my own fantasy world. What medium should I use to create it?

Brian Dean, I want to be a writer - but I spend too much time writing about writing here!

Answered just now

What sort of building are you doing? As at least one other answerer did, I immediately thought of, a joke about megatons of rock and water and so on. Let’s put that aside. Do you already have one ‘complete’ in mind and now are wondering how to write about it, what stories fit in it, how to film a movie set there, what the local music would sound like? Or do you have a few ideas and want to get a better picture of this world before doing those things?

Let’s start at end of my last paragraph: You have some ideas but need to flesh them out. I cheat. The following are links to my blog where I offer links to various generators. I will share a few such direct links as well so you don’t have to visit my blog.

‘Generators’ in this case are tools that generate character names, maps, story titles, you name it. I like to use the name generators for secondary characters so I don’t have to waste time outside of the story inventing names for characters that might have three lines if they are lucky.

My blog with ‘generator’: creativiti project

One link there is to a ‘medieval city map generator: Medieval Fantasy City Generator

Another fantasy map generator: Generating fantasy maps

Names for ‘dark rituals’: Seventh Sanctum: the page of generators - random tools for art, gaming, writing, and imagination.

This link on my blog is to some pictures of drifting snow that looks to me like low relief maps: Today's creativiti on the ice

Okay. So now we have a solid set of ideas for this fantasy world. Writing about it in a story is not easy, but is traditional. It might be cool to have ten characters plus a few gossips or news sites report on it in Facebook, Twitter, even Quora and blogs. Kudos to you if you have establish a timeline and post on those sites for a few months and then collect the timestamped results, forming a coherent story only when they are put together. This would be like a conspiracy story but (semi) real or at least intended. If you were lucky, the comments others gave would add colour to your story. If you were interested in this angle but didn’t want to really post on Facebook, more generators are available. I searched for these in the process of answering your question so I cannot vouch for them. Also, they will probably end up on my blog as a new post - Win/win!

Facebook Status Generator

Facebook and Twitter Online Generators

Ad Mockup Generator | AdParlor

This one is for actual Facebook posts, I think: Create a Facebook Post — Free Online Facebook Post Maker — Crello

I wouldn’t be surprised if All effects - PhotoFunia had some useful templates.

Another creative solution would be to make a party with the goal of inventing a full history for your world. This is world building, not publishing: We Imagine a People – Alexander Jaffe – Medium It’s pretty cool so I will provide a lot of quotes. I fear I, and my friends, would not have the interest or endurance to do this whole project:

I’ve thrown a bunch of outlandish birthday parties, but I can’t even imagine having another after this one. Call it a Culture Jam. Dozens of people creating a fictional culture, from the dawn of man to the modern day, told through art crafted with increasingly complex art supplies. It’s kind of a party, and kind of a large-scale collaborative art project. Like life!

From his party invitation:

I have no idea what I’m doing, and I’m dragging you all along with me. We’ll be converting our house into a lo-fi laboratory of art, culture, and alternate history. The party will last all day, and guests will come and go as they please, though my favorite guests will hang around a lot.

The activities will be twofold: 1) party. 2) invent an alternate culture over the course of the day, by creating art from within that culture, building upon the days’ creations so far, using a parade of increasingly more advanced artistic tools….

arriving in the morning, you’ll help form a neolithic culture just beginning to express itself. You’ll craft creation myths to explain the world around you, using basic tools — charcoal cave paintings, crude carvings, storytelling, etc. As the day progresses, the house will accrue artifacts and change shape, as civilization develops in distinct eras. You’ll receive new tools to reinvigorate your work and help you tell the story of the society through the art of its people.

TWIC: lots of generators, a science of imagination, Gates on NPR

I attended an online prep workshop for this year's Nanowrimo. We discussed a lot of generators for names and such. Here are some:

A human name generator. Superhero character generator. Lists of names with meanings. D & D characters. Character appearance generator. Character backstory.
A google app: Character story planner.
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Sci Am looks Toward an Imagination Science.
At the link are a video and PDF of the results of a Neuroscience Imagination Retreat.

The past decade has seen an explosion of research into the psychology and neuroscience of imagination, with rapidly evolving literatures on topics ranging from mind-wandering, daydreaming, mental simulation, theory of mind, and creative problem solving. Despite considerable progress, however, several fundamental questions remain: What is imagination, and how do we measure it? Is imagination a fixed ability, or can it be enhanced through targeted intervention?

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Another site for name generators: the Nanowrimo Appellation Station.
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Sci Am also discusses how they make infographics, this one on pregnancy in progress.
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Bill Gates on NPR discussing creativity and intelligence.

TWIC:drawing, generators, formatting, words

Just when I'd promised to keep away from TWICs and Quora, I've found something cool for TWIC and wrote a Quora answer I am proud of.  Hmm.  Well, I didn't spend much time surfing on Quora so that's something.

The cool thing is auto draw. That's the description of a new Google tool, My drawing and the suggestion.

Here is the direct link to the tool.
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I've written about various online idea generators, ones that offer a list of names or possible book titles, or fantasy maps. You can probably find them here. Here are two more: Fantasy name generators and Seventh Sanctum. From the latter, a list of names for 'dark rituals'!

Accursed Communion of the Ever-living Avatar of Winds
Conjuration of Ensnaring Spectres
Demonic Ceremony of Misery
Dreadful Demigods' Ritual of Wickedness
Ever-changing Invocation of Foul Demigods
Fiendish Ghosts' Working of Chambers
Foul Demigod's Ritual of Omens
Incantation of Flesh
Incantation of the One-Hundred Gods of Death
Invocation of the Decree of Unholiness
Legendary Sacrifice of Crystaline KnivesLurking Beasts' Evocation of Agony

And Anime Powers generator:

Cable Blaster
Crushing Enlightenment
Exploding Harpoon
Fist Inhumation
Future Knuckle
Gleaming Blast
Green Club
Heaven Persuer
Hot Kill
Keen Program
Paramour Battler
Ripping Ward

My son always wanted me to play Pokemon with him - not the card or video games, but us acting out our own fights and such.  We had to plan our special attacks and abilities. I tormented him so much by choosing "Good dancing" or 'sense of rhythm' as my ability. Eventually he stopped asking me to play. Hmm. Now I feel bad.

There are a lot more generators there and some writing ones. From Plot Twists:

A string of numbers turns out to refer to a medical formula.
Because of a solar flare, the lead suddenly reveals a hateful side - which makes things much easier
Due to torture a character has to be hospitalized.
It's revealed that everything that is happening is all a dream. That's when everything becomes stranger

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Publisher in the proper format for Amazon and Kindle is now easier. Amazon offers new software for formatting:

If you've prepared a book in Microsoft Word, Kindle Create (Beta) helps you convert it so it's ready to publish to Kindle devices and apps. Kindle Create (Beta) makes it easier to go through the file conversion process, preventing the kinds of errors that can slow down publishing.
Kindle Create (Beta) helps you

• Preview and edit your book as it will appear in Kindle format--before you publish
• Create and edit your table of contents while styling your book. Add professionally-designed themes to make your eBook better-looking and easier to read

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The lessons Wendig has learned in writing 20 books in 5 years. There are 25; here are 3.

3. THE MUSE DOESN’T HUNT YOU, YOU HUNT THE MUSE
Waiting for inspiration is a fool’s game. You hunt it. You summon it. Writing is an act of laying traps for the Muse. Writing does not follow inspiration. It goes the other direction. You become inspired through the act of writing, of telling stories. Just sitting down and doing the work lays bait. It’s an alluring trail Reese’s Pieces meant to draw the extraterrestrial Muse into your house. 

4. IDEAS ARE EASY
For a long time I thought ideas were everything. I thought them precious pearls, when the reality is, they’re just driveway gravel. I got a hundred ideas whipping around my head every day, and the majority of them are sounds and noises — grunts in the dark, a gibber, a wail. I used to write them all down. I’d hoard them like a crow hiding colorful strips of ribbon in its nest. Now, I let them go. I shove them back out the door with not a moment’s interest. Then I wait. If those little bastards come back, if they sneak in through the vents like John McClane, if they creep in through the boltholes like a mouse — well, okay then. That’s an idea that wants to haunt me. That’s an idea whose grunts and gibbers might turn into a song. They’re all still driveway gravel, but maybe once in a while one of those pieces of flinty limestone has some quartz buried in there — something crystalline, with depth, with shine, something worth looking at. At the end of the day, though, no idea is worth anything but the work you give it. You still gotta polish that stone. You still gotta write it all down and make it shine. 

5. FIND YOUR DAMN PROCESS — THEN CHALLENGE IT
I often tell a story about how it took me five years to write — or rather, figure out how to write — Blackbirds, and that journey involves me learning I needed to outline my books before I write them. Some folks take that lesson as me telling them: “You have to outline.” But that’s not it. I have to outline. I don’t know what the fuck you need to do; you have to figure that out. You have a process. So go find it. Maybe that means writing 2k every day, reliably. Maybe it means writing 15,000 words every other weekend. Maybe it means you write in coffee shops, or in the crawlspace under your house. Maybe it means you eat a handful of bees before you begin. I dunno. That’s on you to figure it out, and while it’s important to figure out what you write and why you write, it’s also incredibly necessary to figure out how you write. You may think how you write is the way others have told you it must be, but that doesn’t make it true. Also important: when your process isn’t working, you need to evolve it. Your process isn’t one thing forever just as you aren’t one person forever. Challenge it. Change it. See the river and go with it.

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Sergei Prokudin Gorskii was a remarkable photographer a hundred years ago. That link goes to an image search in his name. Here he is on Wikipedia and at the Library of Congress. From the Google Search:

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The drawfee channel on Youtube.

Welcome to Drawfee, where we turn dumb ideas into even dumber drawings!

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Words with prefixes but not without.  You can be 'disgruntled' but never 'gruntled'.

It had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very chalant, despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate. I was furling my wieldy umbrella for the coat check when I saw her standing alone in a corner. She was a descript person, a woman in a state of total array. Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled, and she moved in a gainly way. I wanted desperately to meet her, but I knew I'd have to make bones about it, since I was travelling cognito.

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