Worldbuilding

Not quite sure if this is the right place to put this...

I have a problem. I couldn't write anything more than drabble to save my life, but I love worldbuilding. I'll probably put up a world I'm currently working on tomorrow, when my senses aren't impaired by melatonin, but does anybody else have this problem?

For the curious: my world's basically Pokemon meets Final Fantasy, with a defined pantheon, ridiculously in-depth magic system, and 2 conlangs (Pokemonese, with only one syllable but a wide variety of tones, and a generic mystical language called Loopmapih (LΦPMAPH in its own script and pronounced loopmapih, with a short i and hard h)).

Oh yes, I have a problem like you. And your world kinda sounds like the world I invented. Complicated magical system, with some Pokemon and FF giving it inspiration, and some languages. But yeah, I can make the most crazy complicated things, but then when it actually comes to writing it... it's like... nothing.

I'm not sure how to quite fix that, but I guess I've gotten better at actually getting stories DONE now that I work alongside somebody else on my world. Working with others seems to give me more motivation to do things, although I'm sure it could also work the opposite for some people.

Can't say I have the same problem, because I create my worlds and my stories simultaneously. I have, to date, built about thirty worlds of varying detail, including one that linked together all the others but it got too complicated, so I broke it apart.

If the general structure of the entire world becomes relevant to the story, then just have one character explain it to another character for a few chapters. Or, if not but you still want to write it, then write it in its own individual article. Then, place that at the back of the book after the story.

Or something.

Superbird said:

If the general structure of the entire world becomes relevant to the story, then just have one character explain it to another character for a few chapters. Or, if not but you still want to write it, then write it in its own individual article. Then, place that at the back of the book after the story.

Or something.

Click to expand...

Infodumps are bad.

Drabbles are hard. Just write series of flash fic set in the same universe.

Superbird said:

If the general structure of the entire world becomes relevant to the story, then just have one character explain it to another character for a few chapters. Or, if not but you still want to write it, then write it in its own individual article. Then, place that at the back of the book after the story.

Or something.

Click to expand...

Not to sound rude, but did you even read my post? What I'm trying to say is that I can't write stories, only build worlds. I'm thinking of just publishing a "worldbook" of sorts for other authors to use at their leisure. Would you say that this is a good idea?

Ah. I didn't really understand that, and I apologize for my rudeness. As for the idea, I'm not sure I would use it, just because I've already got a world and I'm not writing anything after the sequel, but I don't know how other people would feel. I'd say, give it a shot.

Publishing a world book? Well, unique idea, but I don't how popular it would be. As far as I know most writers like to create their own world (well, if they're writing that sort of thing) and wouldn't be interested. Most people who are into creative stuff are filled to the brim with ideas! Wonderful shiny ideas!

I mean, there's nothing to stop you from making worlds, but doesn't everyone want to?
(Correct me if I'm wrong, worldbuilding-haters!)
As Arylett said, you might want to collaborate with someone else, which would be beneficial to them if they are (for example) going to do all of the writing or another time-consuming task and might not have time to figure out every last world detail.

I actually loathe worldbuilding and have the utmost respect for people who take the time to do it. I don't think I'd much like the idea of taking someone else's world (even with consent), though - even when I write fantasy-esque stories, I would much rather drag myself through basic worldbuilding exercises than take someone else's ideas. Although I'm into urban fantasy so this takes slightly less time than it would from scratch, since I'm usually inspired by my home city or Glasgow/Edinburgh.

If you have fun worldbuilding, then you can do it all the time if you like! I like writing pointless silly things about nothing, so why not build a whole universe for fun? :D It sounds cool to me.

Ditto OP. Only I can write, kind of. Except about worlds.

If I build a world, which I have kind of stopped doing now, I can't write about it. It just seems empty and messy. On the other hand, writing first and letting the world flesh out from there seems to work much better. I think because it starts with a story, whereas a world building project without a story becomes hard to insert a story into for some reason.