Steph's Worldbuilding Guide

Welcome to my world building guide.  Here's what I'll provide and how you can use it: 

The first seven sections will provide various questions you can ask to get you started on the path to creating your world.  The links below those go to worldbuilding resources that I’ve used and highly recommend.  

Disclaimer; My approach is the very antithesis of hard SF, and I'll say right now if you are creating a world for an SF novel, accurate research becomes far more important.  The harder SF your novel is, the more important those details get, and I will provide resources to help you in that direction.

I, however, take the science fantasy angle, which means anything goes.  If you want to create a world that's a giant disk, carried on the backs of four elephants standing on the shell of a giant turtle .  .  . well, Terry Pratchet is going to have an issue with you. 

However, if you want to create a world where, say, the sun revolves around a planet with five moons, but you don't want to do the in depth research required to determined how that will work, here's my solution.  Figure out why it works for your world.  Perhaps those moons aren't really moons, but gods and goddesses embodying moons, and therefore they don't crash into each other or disrupt the planet's orbit because of divine magic.  Perhaps the sun is a man-made creation, some advancement in science used by future humans to bring sun light to a world they intend to colonize.  Figure out what you want, and decide why it works.  

The Sections

Off Planet:  Build your created worlds galaxy, solar system and planet. 

On Planet:  Create the nonliving building blocks of you planet, bodies of water, land, mountains, volcanoes, and climates.

Flora and Fauna:  Create the non-sapient and sapient lifeforms on your planet, plants, animals, fungi and even microbes.  

Geography:  Flesh out the boundaries created by the sapient species in your world, and delve into their history and politics. 

Sapient Culture Day to Day:  Flesh out the basics of culture and day to day life for the sapient lifeforms on your world.  This section and those that follow are also extremely useful for those who are working on fantasy or science fiction stories set on Earth, or a basically Earth-like world.  

Sapient Culture Religion and Politics:  Flesh out the religions and politics of your sapient lifeforms. 

Oddball Physics:  Flesh out the magic, future tech, and supernatural or sub-natural creatures of your created world.

Resources: 

Books

Any time I recommend something that costs money, it’s because I use it and swear by it. 

World Building by Stephen L. Gillet.  This book is a fantastic hard SF resource.  Gillet provides many of the equations necessary to creating a real planet, as well as in depth discussion of several that already exists and examples from published science fiction.   

Aliens and Alien Societies by Stanley Schimdt and Ben Bova  This book is very useful in determining why things are the way they are, so if you choose to break the rules, you can do so knowledgeably.  It also provides great ideas for some really neat forms of life.

   

Ancient Mysteries by Peter James and Nick Thorpe  This one really gets into the stories people tell and offers arguments in an effort to explain some of the great "true tales of the ancients" that baffle us today.  

Ancient Inventions by Peter James and Nick Thorpe  Yeah, same guys.  This one takes an interesting look at the history of everyday inventions, and shows ancient peoples answers to daily problems every human society has faced.  

 Holly Lisle's Create a Culture Clinic  Holly’s clinics are fantastic, and Create a Culture is everything I gave you in this series on steroids.  She provides more in depth questions and exercises, and great tips for what works and what doesn’t. 

The Complete Guide to Writing Fantasy by Darin Park and Tom Dullemond  The entire book is a great resource for fantasy worldbuilders, and there’s an entire chapter on how to create a magical system that generates conflict. 

How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy by Orson Scott Card  Another wonderful resource on writing speculative fiction and writing in general.  The second chapter is a great guideline for worldbuilding and making sure your cases of oddball physics actually matter in the story you tell.     

Websites

Build Your Own Universe.  This is a neat little activity I found, and it can give you an idea of what planets can and generally can't do depending on the parameters you give them.  It's fun to play around with.      

Wind And Global Wind Systems:  This is a great article on wind systems that provides a simple breakdown on the basics.

Myths and Realities of the Coriolis effect:  The website this article is on is actually a great resource for all sorts of articles on earth science, including some of the other things discussed in the worldbuilding your planet article.  Enjoy

Earth's Biomes:  Pretty straightforward, and includes both a map and descriptions of various biomes. 

Dynamic Earth, Slip, Slide and Collide:  A great website that shows what happens when tectonic plates interact. 

Biomes - Habitats  This site is meant for kids, so it's a great place to get good information in a simple, clear cut way.  It gives great detail on the sort of animals common to each biome, so great food for thought.  Sadly not much in the way of plant information. 

Cross Cultural Comparisons   This may seem like an odd one, but go with me here.  Read through the lists and you may discover some amazing things you never realized made you different from other countries.  Go through the different sections and answer the questions as a citizen of your fictional country, and you’ll provide yourself with a wealth of understanding about your fictional characters.

Please let me know if any of these links go dead, so I can clear them out and hopefully find replacements.