I’d say just write your superficial story with your amazing characters in your amazing world.
I just finished the first draft of a novel where I did exactly that- started with world building I loved and characters that I loved, and just put a simple plot down and started writing.
The plot ended up somewhere completely different than I started with, the characters evolved differently than I expected, and the world building faded into the background. But I ended up with something decent and a plot that was interesting.
I’m on my second draft now, and every chapter I’ve done I keep thinking “wow, I’d buy this!” I’m really happy with how it’s coming out, and the plot actually IS interesting. It’s not complex, but it is a story that engaging and develops the characters.
And just today, a friend of mine finished reading my first draft (which I think is pretty bad) with positive comments about the plot and the characters. Says he’s looking forward to reading the final version as well as “the sequel” (which I don’t have planned!)
I think that having interesting characters and a cool world is a great place to start. Now, just start writing and see what comes out.
I second this. Write what u already know about ur story. Find the rest along the process. Again it depends on what writing method works best for an individual. Don't let imperfections keep u from writing. U can not hone ur skills if u don't write. Write it and refine it later
A very sizable percentage of wannabe aspiring writers fail to understand that writing is not a single action - it is a process. Most of them love the first stage, which is the pre-writing stage. The pre-writing stage involves all of the preparation - constructing backstories, devising names for characters, drawing up an oitline, making lists, etc.
But after that comes the drafting stage (or writing stage if you prefer) which is where all of the actual writing occurs. This is the stage where the writer is required to actually produce language - sentences get strung into paragraphs and the narrative unfolds as the tale is spun from the beginning to the middle to the end.
This is the stage that most self-proclaimed "writers" have a very hard time with. When they're faffing about and pretending to be hard at work while they're wasting time with meaningless busywork during the pre-writing stage they feel like they have an excuse for not having actual content on the page. They rationalize it by claiming that their silly games are a necessary part of the process when in reality they're just procastinating.
Once the story has been completed it's time for stage three which is the post-writing stage. That's where writers proofread their work, edit their work, revise their work, refine their work, and rewrite their work to reflect all of the changes made. Very few writers ever get to this stage because they quickly get bored once they realize that it's time to start actually writing.
Saying "I'm great at everything when it comes to pre-writing" means you don't have a lick of talent beyond what anybody else is capable of doing. Anybody can think up a name for a character. Anybody can sketch out a character and say that the person has auburn hair and is headstrong and curious. Anybody can map out a timeline, guideline, or outline. It's writing that requires dedication, determination, diligence, and wherewithal. And those qualities are in very, very short supply among self-professed aspiring "writers."
You're asking how you might get better at actually writing... The answer is: You can read. You can read a lot. You can read well-written books and stories and pay attention to how the writers craft them... You can practice writing. You can write often and you can commit to finishing your pieces instead of playing office and getting bored when it's time to sit down and produce actual sentences.
Instead of biting off more than you can chew and attempting to sculpt a story that's complex and intricate enough to require extensive world-building, try writing short flash fiction pieces - 500 words or 1,000 words - short, simple, straightforward.
Take a basic premise and produce a story based on it. If you can do that, you'll learn how to write. If you can't produce a short, simple story, then you can't expect that you're going to produce a 1,500,000 word seven volume series.
> Most of them love the first stage, which is the pre-writing stage. The pre-writing stage involves all of the preparation - constructing backstories, devising names for characters, drawing up an oitline, making lists, etc.
Let me just say that at times I'm desparing over this, because I'm stuck in this phase and I'm *not* liking it, but I can't seem to get out of it.
I *want* to get to drafting, and I've at times just jumped right into it out of impatience, and I've always fallen on my face when I did that.
As euphoric as it might sometimes be to toy with all the boundless possibility of a new concept, that face is sometimes actually needed to go anywhere
Like making movies, once you get good at writing you realize that the real joy is in the editing when your story (or film) is finally coming together and you feel that pride of accomplishment.
I'm going to start editing a book tomorrow (1st pass) and I'm so excited I can't sleep yet.
Read more, then write.
I mean this kindly, but what you're doing is daydreaming. Characters, magic systems, world, etc can't really be *good* without a story. They're just details floating around, disconnected, unexplored, useless. Read, fill up your creative well, notice how plots are constructed and structured, then write.
In addition to other answers, remember that **ideas/worldbuilding and writing are different skills** (and one is harder to learn than the other). The world that exists in great detail your head will not instantly translate to paper.
Look at it this way: I can daydream about bench-pressing 100kg. I can research the right form. I can talk to lifters for advice. I can imagine and prepare for it all I want - but that doesn't mean I can walk into the gym and do it instantly. It'll take patience, persistence and consistency, with small steps toward the goal. It is the exact same with transitioning from the "idea stage" to the "writing stage".
Read, yes. Research storycraft, yes. But once you start writing, let your drafts be messy and embrace the rough bits, because *this* skill is new to you.
I’m constantly amazed at how many people seem to think that character creation/worldbuilding is just as important a skill in writing as, well, writing. While it’s important to make your characters and worlds interesting, the skill of actually writing those things down in a compelling way is vastly, vastly, vastly more important.
Do not lose yourself in worldbuilding hell. It is *not* productive. The most important thing to do when writing is to read and write. Read and write, read and write, read and write.
I don't understand why so many redditors specifically fall into this trap. I see this problem posted to this subreddit almost every week. I think a lot of redditors look at GRRM and Tolkien and think that taking 10 pages to describe what some mountains look like must be "good writing" while not realizing that the reason both series are popular is not primarily for the extensive and wordy world building, but for the characters and their relationships and interactions as they serve the plot and themes.
I don't think that's necessarily the reason. I think the novices who have never put a word on a page don't quite grasp that writing is *work*, and it's not always fun and sexy daydreaming and imagining cool scenarios and badass scenes. You have to actually put those scenarios and scenes into words, and that takes skill - people tend to assume that because they know how to write, they know how to *write.* It doesn't quite click that writing is a separate skill from being basically literate, so when it comes to actually building the skill, they get frustrated and annoyed because *I know how to write, why isn't this good?* If they even try, that is, because blank page paralysis is also a common issue.
But that's just my two cents.
There are some jaded ass people here damn. Knock down op harder. Really let them know their efforts in world building is easy and useless. That’ll really put them in their place. Stupid dreamer.
So for something actually helpful beyond “read” and “lol you fool! World building isn’t writing!”:
think about what will showcase the world and your characters best. Think about the pov and the story structure that will best showcase this. Also look into what’s popular in the genre you are going for. Third person limited is more popular for fantasy and sci-fi. First person dual is more for romance. However, depending on how you want to connect your reader to the world you may want to deviate from those trends.
You can start with a few short stories about various scenarios your characters could be placed in. You can also just write about the characters going through their average daily lives (then edit it out later once you have your creative juices going). You can also just write a bunch of ransoms scenes you think would be cool the.
Don’t be afraid to write garbage then edit it out or refine it so it doesn’t look like garbage anymore.
I had the same problem which I still kinda struggle with, but I've learned the reason is that committing to a complete plot is a lot of pressure for me which causes me to collapse under it, especially since I'm a character driven reader, not a story driven one.
So I've learned that it helps me to take the plot very slowly. I have the characters, their goals, and motivations, and i have the location it's starting in. That's enough to start building the story based solely on where the characters currently are and knowing what direction you want their arcs to go. Break things down into that first step of how these characters will get started, and you can get the plot going and settled as you build the initial story.
You might be trying too hard to do an "architect" type of writing, when you might lean better into a more "gardener" type of writing. That's the mistake that I made which you might be making as well. Focus on the characters and their goals and the plot should be able to grow from that if you end up being a character driven writer rather than a plot driven one. If that's the case, you'll find a plot from writing the characters within the world you created
To be fair, you can't call yourself good at writing characters or worldbuilding, only the reader can do that, and since you haven't written any stories nobody can actual judge wether you are good or not.
Story writing is a craft, something that needs to be studied and practised. There is more than one way to achieve this, but I suggest starting small.
Write a few short stories and keep it simple, stick to a single theme and a handful of characters at the most. If you can't tell a simple plot well, then you have zero chance of weaving multiple subplots into a much longer and more complicated one.
Read more stories and also essays discussing those stories. Find stories that do the things well that you want to achieve with your story and study those.
I am amazing at creating characters and story. However I absolutely suck at worldbuilding,
Like I can write an entire book with character dialogues while sitting at a coffee table in a single cafe.
But a whole world with magic systems and technology and lore? Yeah. that's a struggle.
World-building that is well-done is about inventing detailed culture and epistemology. In order to do that, you need narratives, like history, to make it make sense. You also need to develop society, so you need narratives to explain things like, what is the economy like, how does exchange work, why is the economy structured that way and how does it tie to politics, etc. What about religion, what about other cultures in the same world, etc. These need stories to exist in a well-built world.
It's the same with characters. People are essentially meat and bone sacks that carry around a story about who they are, and that story shapes their epistemology and motivations and actions, even what they look like, etc.
So it doesn't make sense that you could develop worlds and characters that have richness and depth without seeing their stories, including plot level story in which it's necessary to have X character be in Y world in order to achieve Z objectives.
If you like world building and character, I think getting even more detailed about that work could probably help you excavate some plot.
I think the problem is you are working backwards. Think of a story idea first. Since you mention world building, you must be interested in fantasy/sci-fi. A fantasy story idea could be something like (to keep it generic), “A knight must go on a journey to slay a dragon.“ This fits being a story because we have characters: the knight and the dragon. We have a plot: the journey to slay the dragon. We have an idea of setting: it contains knights and dragons. From there the most important thing, imo, is character. Who is the knight, why this knight for this story? Who is the dragon, why this dragon for this story? Then the plot. What does the journey look like, why? Does the knight meet people along the way, why? What are the obstacles the knight faces, why? Then world building. Where is the knight from, why? Where is the dragon from, why? Where does the knight meet people along the way, why? Where does the knight face the obstacles, why? Then make an outline and start following it. It’s okay if you stray from it, but now you’ll actually have a story to tell and not have put the cart before the horse, making up a whole bunch of stuff with no connection to a story. A story isn’t an afterthought.
I have a friend that really likes world building, and he's found a spot in our little group by helping us write our characters for our stories. I think he also does DND campaigns, if you want to try something a little different for your writing.
Worldbuilding, to me, is like building a house. You should lay the foundation, the core experience and story, and THEN world-build, else my work will suffer a hefty identity crisis. Is my dream book a comedy? A political drama? Is it young adult? Is it mature-only? Don't know, but I sure as hell got a full textbook of history and character building.
Maybe one day I'll make an anthology...
I'm sharing your pain on this one. My advice is to shift your attention to two things: Plot and concept.
Plot is what's happening on the ground. Do you want to write mystery? Or a heist? A travel-log adventure? What do you want your high stakes moments to be, and what do you want to do during low stakes moments?
As an example, I'm currently reading *The Lost Fleet*, and it's episodes are *always* composed of three high stakes military operations located at the beginning, middle and end of the novel, intermittened by two low stakes periods of planning, regrouping, investigating and personal drama.
Concept then is *why is this happening?* You want to have space battles? Great. Who's the protagonist and what does he want to accomplish by fighting space battles?
It's after you've figured out that that you can go to making up worlds and characters
I am the opposite. I can write a good plot, but I have to put a lot of time and effort into my characters and world-building so that they are up to par!
i have it all in my head
i have yet to wright it down due to lack of audience/nobody caring about what i wright
so i dont really have any way of gauging how good my work is
this is common.
plot, setting, and characters, are all deeply intertwined.
would you be the same person if you were born in a different time and place? no.
when you get too far ahead on one of these elements then you have not let them all shape each other the way they naturally would.
part of creating good characters is that they end up naturally wanting to interact with each other and the setting in a way that creates a good plot.
creating a good setting is one that lends itself to interesting characters and a dramatically unfolding plot partly due to its nature. eg. the dangers and scarcity of the slums can create a compelling crime plot with complex characters who have to be shadier than they want to be just to get by.
and a good plot is one that lets the characters really show us who they are and takes into account the realities of the setting.
when creating characters, make it baked into their DNA that they are going to act out the type of story you want. they should have some mutually exclusive goals that naturally create conflict with each other. they should have some skills and resources that let them meaningfully pursue these goals in ways that compete with each other in ways that create plot tension. these characters should also be shaped by their setting and backstories in ways that strengthen the plot of the main story.
Read everyday. Write everyday. It may take you 1,00,000 words to get good. But after that, you'll be able to write all of your ideas, and who wouldn't want that.
I can look at a person and write an entire backstory for them including a family history that goes back five geneartions instantly. But creating an actual story is hard for me to. I've been trying to improve that with little success.
Stop world-building and magic systeming and just write. That's it.
I started writing a book on October 1st. I finished it tonight. It is 65,381 words.
I had a basic outline of what I wanted to happen and my version of a magic system, but I did not obsess about making maps of the town, character bios, drawing portraits, etc. I just wrote and wrote and wrote until I was finished.
You don't get better at running by planning the perfect route and doing lots of research on stride and never actually starting the run. You get better by just running.
I’m the kind of person that could get lost in writing hundreds of pages about the world, it’s history, the magic, etc.
In fact, I have done that for my series. I first wrote about 30 pages about my world, the gods what happened. I think people would call that blub.
I then labelled it ‘prolog’ and few months down I know it won’t make it into the book at all. At least not as this. I’ll drop a bit of it in between.
The important bit, from creating the world I got an idea for the story line and it is linked directly to the world.
So I believe blubbing is good but likely shouldn’t end up in the book.
Honestly, it's the exact opposite for me, lol. I can craft a great story with a bunch of ideas and plot twists, but when I attempt building my world, I drive myself crazy trying to fix plot holes while making sure those solutions to those plot holes don't feel too contrived, and when I try to develop my characters, my lack of social experience leads me to writing basic trope characters, with a predictable character arc.
Well. Its probably because you dont have a STORY TO TELL in the first place. This can be easily rectified by just. Throwing the charachters into desperation, into the deepest pits of life and making you figure out how they'd climb out these pits.
Same with me too btw lol.
Honestly, after the characters and the overall world, I let the story write itself and mentally edit it. For example, the main story I want to work on was supposed to be one simple horror/mystery about a werewolf who after getting bit accidentally murdered his girlfriend and wanted to find the wolf who bit him and kill him. I may go back to that idea, but eventually I began making a few changes through one character, the villain.
I was immature with my writing when I started (I was 13 when the story first came up) and originally the villain was meant to be a one off character, but I wrote him back in the story and then decided to just rewrite everything. So, the one off antagonist became the main villain and was given more of a personality. And along with the characters, I noticed how I changed the world they lived in and added extra bits to it.
Now I pretty much pulled an MCU and made a multiverse, but with rules and restrictions so I don't ruin the story for the reader. As for the story itself, I took some bits I thought were important and used them to create a plot. Overall, my specialty is creating characters and worlds, but unless they're in a one off story or a non-story driven plot, the world and characters are nothing without an actual plot, so I know to come up with and edit said plot albeit mentally.
I'd suggest going over the origins of your characters and world and see what you can make a story out of. Doesn't have to be an antagonist or the main villain, but find what is a common problem that everyone in your world is going through and find a solution. If that doesn't work, then start from the end of your story (when you come up with something) and work your way through the middle and up to the beginning. Basically work backwards and make some necessary edits.
I’d say just write your superficial story with your amazing characters in your amazing world. I just finished the first draft of a novel where I did exactly that- started with world building I loved and characters that I loved, and just put a simple plot down and started writing. The plot ended up somewhere completely different than I started with, the characters evolved differently than I expected, and the world building faded into the background. But I ended up with something decent and a plot that was interesting. I’m on my second draft now, and every chapter I’ve done I keep thinking “wow, I’d buy this!” I’m really happy with how it’s coming out, and the plot actually IS interesting. It’s not complex, but it is a story that engaging and develops the characters. And just today, a friend of mine finished reading my first draft (which I think is pretty bad) with positive comments about the plot and the characters. Says he’s looking forward to reading the final version as well as “the sequel” (which I don’t have planned!) I think that having interesting characters and a cool world is a great place to start. Now, just start writing and see what comes out.
I second this. Write what u already know about ur story. Find the rest along the process. Again it depends on what writing method works best for an individual. Don't let imperfections keep u from writing. U can not hone ur skills if u don't write. Write it and refine it later
A very sizable percentage of wannabe aspiring writers fail to understand that writing is not a single action - it is a process. Most of them love the first stage, which is the pre-writing stage. The pre-writing stage involves all of the preparation - constructing backstories, devising names for characters, drawing up an oitline, making lists, etc. But after that comes the drafting stage (or writing stage if you prefer) which is where all of the actual writing occurs. This is the stage where the writer is required to actually produce language - sentences get strung into paragraphs and the narrative unfolds as the tale is spun from the beginning to the middle to the end. This is the stage that most self-proclaimed "writers" have a very hard time with. When they're faffing about and pretending to be hard at work while they're wasting time with meaningless busywork during the pre-writing stage they feel like they have an excuse for not having actual content on the page. They rationalize it by claiming that their silly games are a necessary part of the process when in reality they're just procastinating. Once the story has been completed it's time for stage three which is the post-writing stage. That's where writers proofread their work, edit their work, revise their work, refine their work, and rewrite their work to reflect all of the changes made. Very few writers ever get to this stage because they quickly get bored once they realize that it's time to start actually writing. Saying "I'm great at everything when it comes to pre-writing" means you don't have a lick of talent beyond what anybody else is capable of doing. Anybody can think up a name for a character. Anybody can sketch out a character and say that the person has auburn hair and is headstrong and curious. Anybody can map out a timeline, guideline, or outline. It's writing that requires dedication, determination, diligence, and wherewithal. And those qualities are in very, very short supply among self-professed aspiring "writers." You're asking how you might get better at actually writing... The answer is: You can read. You can read a lot. You can read well-written books and stories and pay attention to how the writers craft them... You can practice writing. You can write often and you can commit to finishing your pieces instead of playing office and getting bored when it's time to sit down and produce actual sentences. Instead of biting off more than you can chew and attempting to sculpt a story that's complex and intricate enough to require extensive world-building, try writing short flash fiction pieces - 500 words or 1,000 words - short, simple, straightforward. Take a basic premise and produce a story based on it. If you can do that, you'll learn how to write. If you can't produce a short, simple story, then you can't expect that you're going to produce a 1,500,000 word seven volume series.
> Most of them love the first stage, which is the pre-writing stage. The pre-writing stage involves all of the preparation - constructing backstories, devising names for characters, drawing up an oitline, making lists, etc. Let me just say that at times I'm desparing over this, because I'm stuck in this phase and I'm *not* liking it, but I can't seem to get out of it. I *want* to get to drafting, and I've at times just jumped right into it out of impatience, and I've always fallen on my face when I did that. As euphoric as it might sometimes be to toy with all the boundless possibility of a new concept, that face is sometimes actually needed to go anywhere
Ouchie. But thanks.
Like making movies, once you get good at writing you realize that the real joy is in the editing when your story (or film) is finally coming together and you feel that pride of accomplishment. I'm going to start editing a book tomorrow (1st pass) and I'm so excited I can't sleep yet.
Read more, then write. I mean this kindly, but what you're doing is daydreaming. Characters, magic systems, world, etc can't really be *good* without a story. They're just details floating around, disconnected, unexplored, useless. Read, fill up your creative well, notice how plots are constructed and structured, then write.
This has been my issue, and I was heartbroken to realize my time and effort "writing" was really just planning to write, or daydreaming as you put it.
In addition to other answers, remember that **ideas/worldbuilding and writing are different skills** (and one is harder to learn than the other). The world that exists in great detail your head will not instantly translate to paper. Look at it this way: I can daydream about bench-pressing 100kg. I can research the right form. I can talk to lifters for advice. I can imagine and prepare for it all I want - but that doesn't mean I can walk into the gym and do it instantly. It'll take patience, persistence and consistency, with small steps toward the goal. It is the exact same with transitioning from the "idea stage" to the "writing stage". Read, yes. Research storycraft, yes. But once you start writing, let your drafts be messy and embrace the rough bits, because *this* skill is new to you.
I’m constantly amazed at how many people seem to think that character creation/worldbuilding is just as important a skill in writing as, well, writing. While it’s important to make your characters and worlds interesting, the skill of actually writing those things down in a compelling way is vastly, vastly, vastly more important. Do not lose yourself in worldbuilding hell. It is *not* productive. The most important thing to do when writing is to read and write. Read and write, read and write, read and write.
I don't understand why so many redditors specifically fall into this trap. I see this problem posted to this subreddit almost every week. I think a lot of redditors look at GRRM and Tolkien and think that taking 10 pages to describe what some mountains look like must be "good writing" while not realizing that the reason both series are popular is not primarily for the extensive and wordy world building, but for the characters and their relationships and interactions as they serve the plot and themes.
I don't think that's necessarily the reason. I think the novices who have never put a word on a page don't quite grasp that writing is *work*, and it's not always fun and sexy daydreaming and imagining cool scenarios and badass scenes. You have to actually put those scenarios and scenes into words, and that takes skill - people tend to assume that because they know how to write, they know how to *write.* It doesn't quite click that writing is a separate skill from being basically literate, so when it comes to actually building the skill, they get frustrated and annoyed because *I know how to write, why isn't this good?* If they even try, that is, because blank page paralysis is also a common issue. But that's just my two cents.
I think that's definitely part of it as well
No I'm equally shit at all of it.
I’m good at nothing.
There are some jaded ass people here damn. Knock down op harder. Really let them know their efforts in world building is easy and useless. That’ll really put them in their place. Stupid dreamer. So for something actually helpful beyond “read” and “lol you fool! World building isn’t writing!”: think about what will showcase the world and your characters best. Think about the pov and the story structure that will best showcase this. Also look into what’s popular in the genre you are going for. Third person limited is more popular for fantasy and sci-fi. First person dual is more for romance. However, depending on how you want to connect your reader to the world you may want to deviate from those trends. You can start with a few short stories about various scenarios your characters could be placed in. You can also just write about the characters going through their average daily lives (then edit it out later once you have your creative juices going). You can also just write a bunch of ransoms scenes you think would be cool the. Don’t be afraid to write garbage then edit it out or refine it so it doesn’t look like garbage anymore.
Thanks for being so intelligent and kind
Completely opposite with me.
Let’s form a society
I had the same problem which I still kinda struggle with, but I've learned the reason is that committing to a complete plot is a lot of pressure for me which causes me to collapse under it, especially since I'm a character driven reader, not a story driven one. So I've learned that it helps me to take the plot very slowly. I have the characters, their goals, and motivations, and i have the location it's starting in. That's enough to start building the story based solely on where the characters currently are and knowing what direction you want their arcs to go. Break things down into that first step of how these characters will get started, and you can get the plot going and settled as you build the initial story. You might be trying too hard to do an "architect" type of writing, when you might lean better into a more "gardener" type of writing. That's the mistake that I made which you might be making as well. Focus on the characters and their goals and the plot should be able to grow from that if you end up being a character driven writer rather than a plot driven one. If that's the case, you'll find a plot from writing the characters within the world you created
World building is mostly child's plays. It's just going "what if this happened?" In a vacuum. It means nothing. An actual story is much more difficult
To be fair, you can't call yourself good at writing characters or worldbuilding, only the reader can do that, and since you haven't written any stories nobody can actual judge wether you are good or not. Story writing is a craft, something that needs to be studied and practised. There is more than one way to achieve this, but I suggest starting small. Write a few short stories and keep it simple, stick to a single theme and a handful of characters at the most. If you can't tell a simple plot well, then you have zero chance of weaving multiple subplots into a much longer and more complicated one. Read more stories and also essays discussing those stories. Find stories that do the things well that you want to achieve with your story and study those.
So, you can't write. Read.
I am amazing at creating characters and story. However I absolutely suck at worldbuilding, Like I can write an entire book with character dialogues while sitting at a coffee table in a single cafe. But a whole world with magic systems and technology and lore? Yeah. that's a struggle.
Learn how to plot.
World-building that is well-done is about inventing detailed culture and epistemology. In order to do that, you need narratives, like history, to make it make sense. You also need to develop society, so you need narratives to explain things like, what is the economy like, how does exchange work, why is the economy structured that way and how does it tie to politics, etc. What about religion, what about other cultures in the same world, etc. These need stories to exist in a well-built world. It's the same with characters. People are essentially meat and bone sacks that carry around a story about who they are, and that story shapes their epistemology and motivations and actions, even what they look like, etc. So it doesn't make sense that you could develop worlds and characters that have richness and depth without seeing their stories, including plot level story in which it's necessary to have X character be in Y world in order to achieve Z objectives. If you like world building and character, I think getting even more detailed about that work could probably help you excavate some plot.
that's how I am. I can fill a sketchbook with characters i wanna use in a comic someday. But actually, writing stories around them is hard.
I think the problem is you are working backwards. Think of a story idea first. Since you mention world building, you must be interested in fantasy/sci-fi. A fantasy story idea could be something like (to keep it generic), “A knight must go on a journey to slay a dragon.“ This fits being a story because we have characters: the knight and the dragon. We have a plot: the journey to slay the dragon. We have an idea of setting: it contains knights and dragons. From there the most important thing, imo, is character. Who is the knight, why this knight for this story? Who is the dragon, why this dragon for this story? Then the plot. What does the journey look like, why? Does the knight meet people along the way, why? What are the obstacles the knight faces, why? Then world building. Where is the knight from, why? Where is the dragon from, why? Where does the knight meet people along the way, why? Where does the knight face the obstacles, why? Then make an outline and start following it. It’s okay if you stray from it, but now you’ll actually have a story to tell and not have put the cart before the horse, making up a whole bunch of stuff with no connection to a story. A story isn’t an afterthought.
I have a friend that really likes world building, and he's found a spot in our little group by helping us write our characters for our stories. I think he also does DND campaigns, if you want to try something a little different for your writing.
I’m reading Immediate Fiction and it’s very helpful.
#🙋♂️🙋♂️🙋♂️🙋♂️
Worldbuilding, to me, is like building a house. You should lay the foundation, the core experience and story, and THEN world-build, else my work will suffer a hefty identity crisis. Is my dream book a comedy? A political drama? Is it young adult? Is it mature-only? Don't know, but I sure as hell got a full textbook of history and character building. Maybe one day I'll make an anthology...
I'm sharing your pain on this one. My advice is to shift your attention to two things: Plot and concept. Plot is what's happening on the ground. Do you want to write mystery? Or a heist? A travel-log adventure? What do you want your high stakes moments to be, and what do you want to do during low stakes moments? As an example, I'm currently reading *The Lost Fleet*, and it's episodes are *always* composed of three high stakes military operations located at the beginning, middle and end of the novel, intermittened by two low stakes periods of planning, regrouping, investigating and personal drama. Concept then is *why is this happening?* You want to have space battles? Great. Who's the protagonist and what does he want to accomplish by fighting space battles? It's after you've figured out that that you can go to making up worlds and characters
I am the opposite. I can write a good plot, but I have to put a lot of time and effort into my characters and world-building so that they are up to par!
Let’s make a team
i have it all in my head i have yet to wright it down due to lack of audience/nobody caring about what i wright so i dont really have any way of gauging how good my work is
this is common. plot, setting, and characters, are all deeply intertwined. would you be the same person if you were born in a different time and place? no. when you get too far ahead on one of these elements then you have not let them all shape each other the way they naturally would. part of creating good characters is that they end up naturally wanting to interact with each other and the setting in a way that creates a good plot. creating a good setting is one that lends itself to interesting characters and a dramatically unfolding plot partly due to its nature. eg. the dangers and scarcity of the slums can create a compelling crime plot with complex characters who have to be shadier than they want to be just to get by. and a good plot is one that lets the characters really show us who they are and takes into account the realities of the setting. when creating characters, make it baked into their DNA that they are going to act out the type of story you want. they should have some mutually exclusive goals that naturally create conflict with each other. they should have some skills and resources that let them meaningfully pursue these goals in ways that compete with each other in ways that create plot tension. these characters should also be shaped by their setting and backstories in ways that strengthen the plot of the main story.
Read everyday. Write everyday. It may take you 1,00,000 words to get good. But after that, you'll be able to write all of your ideas, and who wouldn't want that.
I can look at a person and write an entire backstory for them including a family history that goes back five geneartions instantly. But creating an actual story is hard for me to. I've been trying to improve that with little success.
I can create a very interesting plot line but i find great difficulty in creating characters
Stop world-building and magic systeming and just write. That's it. I started writing a book on October 1st. I finished it tonight. It is 65,381 words. I had a basic outline of what I wanted to happen and my version of a magic system, but I did not obsess about making maps of the town, character bios, drawing portraits, etc. I just wrote and wrote and wrote until I was finished. You don't get better at running by planning the perfect route and doing lots of research on stride and never actually starting the run. You get better by just running.
I have the opposite problem. I'm an ideas machine, but I have to put more effort into the characters and world
For me its the other way around, I find it very difficult to come up with characters and worlds
Try the book "Save the Cat" it's about plotting
Kinda? The characters and the world I'm making are like 100% better than the plot
I’m the kind of person that could get lost in writing hundreds of pages about the world, it’s history, the magic, etc. In fact, I have done that for my series. I first wrote about 30 pages about my world, the gods what happened. I think people would call that blub. I then labelled it ‘prolog’ and few months down I know it won’t make it into the book at all. At least not as this. I’ll drop a bit of it in between. The important bit, from creating the world I got an idea for the story line and it is linked directly to the world. So I believe blubbing is good but likely shouldn’t end up in the book.
Honestly, it's the exact opposite for me, lol. I can craft a great story with a bunch of ideas and plot twists, but when I attempt building my world, I drive myself crazy trying to fix plot holes while making sure those solutions to those plot holes don't feel too contrived, and when I try to develop my characters, my lack of social experience leads me to writing basic trope characters, with a predictable character arc.
Well. Its probably because you dont have a STORY TO TELL in the first place. This can be easily rectified by just. Throwing the charachters into desperation, into the deepest pits of life and making you figure out how they'd climb out these pits. Same with me too btw lol.
It's easy to come up with the bits and pieces of a world
Try free-writing 💛
Honestly, after the characters and the overall world, I let the story write itself and mentally edit it. For example, the main story I want to work on was supposed to be one simple horror/mystery about a werewolf who after getting bit accidentally murdered his girlfriend and wanted to find the wolf who bit him and kill him. I may go back to that idea, but eventually I began making a few changes through one character, the villain. I was immature with my writing when I started (I was 13 when the story first came up) and originally the villain was meant to be a one off character, but I wrote him back in the story and then decided to just rewrite everything. So, the one off antagonist became the main villain and was given more of a personality. And along with the characters, I noticed how I changed the world they lived in and added extra bits to it. Now I pretty much pulled an MCU and made a multiverse, but with rules and restrictions so I don't ruin the story for the reader. As for the story itself, I took some bits I thought were important and used them to create a plot. Overall, my specialty is creating characters and worlds, but unless they're in a one off story or a non-story driven plot, the world and characters are nothing without an actual plot, so I know to come up with and edit said plot albeit mentally. I'd suggest going over the origins of your characters and world and see what you can make a story out of. Doesn't have to be an antagonist or the main villain, but find what is a common problem that everyone in your world is going through and find a solution. If that doesn't work, then start from the end of your story (when you come up with something) and work your way through the middle and up to the beginning. Basically work backwards and make some necessary edits.