No matter your genre, worldbuilding is an important step in creating a lush story.
https://faq.brandonsanderson.com/article-categories/worldbuilding/
Tea and Tales
S1:E15 NaNoWriMo World Building for Writing
I was very spoiled when I was in America, because I was able to see artists, but I would never in my life be able to see in South Africa. I mean, I saw Bob's try and send. I went to see Beth Medler, I went to see Cher, I went to see Neil Diamond. So I saw like a lot of artists, which was just, oh, amazing. That is one thing people take for granted, because here, who comes here? People I've never known in my whole life. I'm like, who are you first of all? But now I'm very excited, because Michael McIntyre is coming. I'm not a big stand-up comedian person, but I just love Michael McIntyre. What I miss about living in Spain is I only get the big people here in the United States, where when I was in Spain, I turned on the radio and listened to artists I'd never heard of before that are great artists, but people in the States don't know them, of course, have them most say in Spanish, and I didn't know them very well, but I can still tell them that you have a great voice, and this is really nice that my husband would confirm. Yeah, they're literally so fine, because he knows Spanish. But I also found artists like Fausia, she's an amazing artist, she's fantastic. And so I miss that about being in a different country, because you don't get the culture from outside of the country into the United States as much as we should. Very true. I'm sticking with my normal just apple juice today, trying to keep this throat nice and soothed, this wintery cold throat. I get into the spring with my roboasty. It's just a classic, okay? It is classic. Alrighty, let's do this. Hello everyone, and welcome to Tea and Tails. I'm Madeline Einau, and I'm Sarah Sampson. We want to thank everybody for visiting our websites, for commenting on our posts, and for watching our videos. We especially want to thank Gella Leah, Brinker, and Scott Richmond. We thank you so much for interacting with us. Today's episode is our third in the nano-rimo preparation series. Today we're talking about world building. World building is one of the scary words, I think, for people. And for people who aren't fantasy and sci-fi writers, it's like, what kind of world building do I have to do? What do you mean world building? Very true. When we were discussing the same episode, I was like, well, I'm just going to sit here and look at you the whole time, because I've nothing to say about that situation. But world building is different for different genres, and it's not just creating something or creating something new, like we do in fantasy, but creating the framework for your story. It makes a lot more sense why everybody needs to world build. What I thought as I was thinking about this word, world building, there's a lot of W's in that one, is that in some shape or form, I am world building, because the majority of times, the places that my characters are in, are places I've never been, and woom, was that rhyming? Oh my goodness. And so the amount of, actually, like, either research that I do about a place that actually exists, or what I feel a majority of small town romance readers do is they just create their own town, which they might take from an actual place, but they turn it into a fictional world, which I also feel is a part of world building. Absolutely, because you have to have that framework, what's kind of city are they in or town are they in, what kind of world is it? Are they in South Africa, or are they in the Philippines, or are they in the United States or the UK? All those world building elements make a huge difference in how the story is going to affect your character, from the politics of the area, to the atmosphere, to the culture. You have to world build all those things in so that your world feels real, and it feels true, especially if your story takes place on earth, because people will know if your world building is wrong, if your research is wrong, they're going to tell you, they're not afraid to tell you, they're not afraid to tell you that you got the road names mixed up. No, when you're like, whoops, it's fiction. Exactly, when we're talking about this world building, it's not necessarily creating new, but it is making sure that you have the facts, and that could mean you're researching rather than creating something new, but they are both coming to that same and that same goal of having the atmosphere that your characters are acting in. Yes, what you say, yes, because here's the thing though, I don't think people understand the amount of research a writer does versus the amount of words that are in their novel, and I'm going to use the example of, I think there was like a meme or something like that, where they have a picture of an iceberg, and then you have the water with a little iceberg at the top, and then you have this whole gigantic iceberg at the bottom of the ocean, and what you see on top is literally your novel, that's what people read. They don't see the mountain of ice that is beneath the ocean, that you have to research to be able to write that little button at the top. Exactly, they don't see that you had to research if I'm going from Central Park to the ground zero site in New York City, between towers memorial. Do I want to take a cab, do I want to walk, do I want to take a catamaran, do I want to, do I have my own car, and what is it like to drive in New York City with your own car? Those kinds of decisions are things you have to, number one, know what the options are, and number two, know which one your character is most likely to pick. Absolutely, or if you're in a place and your character is from, let's say, Maryland, but they live in Pennsylvania right now, there are two different worlds, and so you have to understand where they come from and the world they come from to be able to understand how they will fit into the new world that they are placed in, or that they are going to. Certainly, like we were just talking a couple weeks ago about how in South Africa, our yellow taxis, that is not what you have in South Africa. Yes, we have many of us. And my friend in the Philippines, when I was later reading his first pages, and he had his characters taking a public transport, and he described this old, deep like vehicle, and where it came from, I'm like, I wouldn't know that's how they do buses in the Philippines. Those are things that local writers and people who do their research properly can world-build into their stories. But you know what also the fun part is about world-building is that you do reach out to people who are familiar with the places and the culture and the way of doing things, and you get to know and learn, you get to know new people. And that I think is the great thing about being a writer, is that you broaden your mind to people, to places, to scenarios, to cultures, which I feel is always a beautiful thing, because you can never learn too much or understand too much. Exactly. But also understanding how much world-building your story needs is important, because you can get lost in that research hole and have to see all the time, you get a little bit too deep down the rabbit hole. Do you know how many times, because I'm a very specific writer, I'm a very detailed writer in the sense that I literally, I have a novel that plays often in DC right now, Washington, DC, and I would literally mark out how many minutes it takes for my main character to walk from the gym to her apartment, how many minutes it takes for her to drive from her gym to the apartment, what street she goes on, when she goes from the gym to the apartment. And then I ride it into my novel, I'm like, she walks 25 minutes up 15th Avenue, and then crosses right onto 17th Avenue, and then people are like, "I don't even know that, can you not just say she walks out?" And I'm like, "But I did all this research!" I'm like, "This is just rude." Like, now I have to suffer on my own. Yeah, at the same time, that kind of research can be useful if you have to have something happen between point A and point B, so you know how much time they have for a conversation or something like that. But yeah, it can also become too strenuous, it's like, "Okay, this point though, you can just..." I love Brandon Sanderson's World Building Guides, and if you go to his website, you can find a lot of his world building, and he gets into things like creating magic systems and stuff like that, because he's geared a lot towards fantasy. But a lot of the principles still relate to every other genre, because he talks about researching the things that your book needs. So if you're a romance book where they're bakers, like Mel has written, you're going to know a lot more about baking and baking shows, and how those things happen, and how those things work, then you're going to know about politics. You don't need to research politics. But if you're writing a story that has a lot of politics and it's based on Capitol Hill and D.C. or something like that, then you need to know a lot about politics and nothing about baking. So you have to be able to know which areas your book needs the world building in. And he talks about picking the ones that are going to affect your story, the ones that are different, especially if you're creating your own city, focus in on those key elements that are going to affect your plot, going to affect your characters and world build those things out. But there's a lot of different things out there you can use and patterns you can use to world build. Google search will often bring up a lot of different templates and things that you can fill out. Find one that works for you or find the world building that works for you. Since I'm a fantasy writer, I try to imagine the planet that my characters are interacting with. It's about the world builder program that I use, the Asgar World Builder program. So that I have an idea of how my characters are interacting with the world around them that is so different from our planet. I always start there. And this gives me the ability to then create their cultures and create their political systems out from the environment that they're in. That sounds like a lot of work, and I'm so glad I'm not a fantasy writer. So that I can base my stuff on things that I actually see, which is how I do my world building. So I love to travel. I love seeing different places, I love embracing new cultures, I love learning about new places. And so I mean, I've been to America, I've been to the Netherlands, I've been to Spain, I've been to Sweden, I've been to Italy, I am from South Africa. And so I've been able to get a feel of each culture, a feel of how each of those countries live and what they do and how they do differently from how I was raised and how I do things differently. And I know it's not always possible for people to travel, but I always have my number one thing is to travel. Because me as a specific person, me, what a night now, who I am, I am a visual person. And so for me, when I already know what my world looks like, I write much easier. And a majority of times stories evolved because I was in certain places. And so for example, I had a story I wrote about the Netherlands, which is the story that came because I went to the Netherlands. And it was easy for me to write it because I was in all the places that I described. But I know a lot of writers, and especially romance writers, don't get the opportunity to travel to America and to see all the small towns or all the places which is why Google Maps is your friend, 100%. So a lot of times I'm currently writing a novel which is based in Maryland, NDC, which is where I did live. So I do know the layout of what Washington DC looks like. I do know the layout of what Maryland looks like. But I don't know all the places. And I think that is where Google Maps comes in, because also you kind of do forget sometimes where you go to places. You kind of forget the streets that you walked on. And you remember the feeling, you remember the people, you remember the smiles. You don't necessarily remember Pennsylvania Avenue. And so that's where Google Maps come in handy because then you're like, okay, I have this character. She is in Maryland. But I want her to travel to Colorado. I've never been to Colorado. So duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, Colorado, whoa, isn't that pretty? That's lovely. Or you can meet people from America and you're like, you're from Colorado. Right? What's up there? You've driven across the country a few times in different ways. What is the best way? I've seen you do that a lot with people in our writing group where you're like, hey, show. I'm writing in your country. What is? And especially with words, so for example, I call the thing that you throw your trash in a dustbin, but numerically you call it a trash can. I call the thing that you put on your chips, which you call french fries. I call it tomato sauce and you call it ketchup. And so it's those little details, but you know, it's also helpful. But the bigger things, because I did my baking chip, I placed in England. I've never been to England, but I know people who are from England. It's funny because it was like the smallest detail because someone was reading my novel and they're like, you do realize that they put in a law that you're not allowed to have plastic cups anymore. And I'm like, did not know that. So apparently from now on, my characters are drinking out of their hands. I don't know. So is this one of the things that you won't know because you're on in the culture, you're on in the country that you don't always necessarily know the shifts and laws that do change. It's always nice to have someone you can bounce off of who are from the country or are from that small town. So basically, yes, the big story short is travel. I love traveling. And that is how I see different places, how I envision my stories in different places. But also connect with people who do live in other places that you're able to ask them if this is correct or this is incorrect and in Google Maps, because I think once you see a street, once you see a building, it helps you to envision where your story takes place. Absolutely. And I think that goes to my second piece of advice from Brandon Sanderson in World Building. He talks about when you do your research, get yourself 75% there, then find yourself a reader who can make it 100% accurate. And I love that because you cannot, no matter how much you research, be 100% accurate or 100% understand what you are reading, especially for me if I'm trying to do something medical because I just injured people in my story, in my story, not in life. But, you know, people in my story, they get in battles and they get injured. And then I need to be able to take care of that injury or carry it through the novel in a consistent way. And there's only so much I can research that to understand that. But then when somebody who is a medical professional, I say, "Hey, can you read this specifically for this?" They'll come back and tell me, "Yes, but!" tweak this, tweak that. And then it makes the story better going on. Love my beta readers. Yeah. But I love that pressure being taken off of me, that I only have to get it far enough that it's accurate enough that the beta reader knows what I'm trying to do. So they can get me the rest of the way to be proper and it needs to be. Yes. Absolutely. And please, if someone ever, in their lifetime, writes about South Africa, "Please get your facts straight. We don't live in hot, okay? We don't have big lives. Lost our magic. I'm pretty sure I live in a house, lost our magic." So... Yes. And also do you remember, we are not, we have lived in different languages. We have so many cultures in our country. So you can't define South Africa as a culture, a language, a thing. Because what it means, pick something, but just pick one specific thing and then go with it. Don't assume South Africa is all those things because it's not. My experience as a South African is way different from the person who lives too streets down for me because they might be from Pakistanian background. Whereas I am not certain Dutch, French. Who knows? I don't know. I'm just born here. Buddy. Yes. Absolutely. Those are details you can't know until you reach out to those people and make sure that it's being represented in your novels properly. But we want to keep things short and simple here on Tintel's podcast, get your fingers back on the keyboard and your pens back on your paper. And if you have any fun ways to do your world building, or you just want to share with us how you do your world building, or how you find inspiration to write certain stories in certain places. If you want to know how the weather is like a neutral, reach out to Sarah. If you want to know if I have a big lion, reach out to me. And then you can continue writing your story, but especially go to that purple icon and give us five stars because that takes us up, up, up, up to the top. And we would love to hear from you whether it is on Instagram and Facebook where you can go find us at Tintel's podcast or on TikTok or Twitter/X at podcasttetails. We would love to hear from you. Thank you so much and happy writing. Bye. [MUSIC]