World building advice?

@epicaddie2 Ooooh I was talking about this a while back… let me go copy and paste my emails… XD

It’s a fairly simple thing, but once you delve into it there’s a lot to work with.
Basically, I came up with four pillars I think every culture is built on.

1. History
2. Religion
3. Geography
4. Economy

In that order. History and Religion belong in the ‘Philosophical’ category and Geography and Economy belong in the ‘Physical’ category, but they all affect each other.
History is the foundation of Religion, and Geography the foundation of Economy (in that it dictates what resources you have available and how you use them), but Economy is probably where it all becomes most apparent, because how you use your resources and conduct trade with others shows very clearly the state of all the rest. It’s kind of like how people’s relationships with other people bring out more surely than anything else what kind of person they are.

To give you some idea of how to use this, I like to think about it like the four components of the… human… intellect? which are, from a scientific standpoint,

1. Genetic
2. Environmental
3. Spiritual
4. (and this one is mine, because I don’t think Genetic quite covers it) Psychological.

These four things are pretty much what shapes a human’s EiL. [Addie, an EiL is an Experiment in Living— a character’s worldview; the ‘theory’ they have as to how life should best be lived.]

It’s the same with a culture. Cultures have EiLs just like humans. A culture is just a bigger character. They all have their beliefs and values and contradictions just like humans do. It’s simply a larger stage.
One nation is one character.
Three or four nations is a cast.
But keep in mind that History is at the base of it all, which means that there is always going to be more than is readily apparent. You may have ghost cultures, living an exiled existence within other cultures, and cultures within those cultures. Each has a story behind it. Each is a scar of some kind. Each is perfect and complete within itself.
Once again, it’s like a person. They have an overarching belief and worldview that defines their EiL. But that’s not to say they don’t have the ghosts of other EiLs inside them; maybe ones in their past, or ones they’ve just begun to see and move towards, that will feature prominently in their future.
A culture, just like a character, should be duplicitous and contradictory. All rules that apply to good characterization apply to building a dynamic and believable culture.

Of course, within each of the four pillars there is an infinite amount of building and wondering and thinking and questioning to do, but that’s an entirely different facet to the discussion. 😛

Does that make some sort of sense?

I’ll also add that the quirks and facts of your worldbuilding don’t mean a thing to anyone unless they’re part of the story, and essential to it. A lot of worldbuilding is just for you, the author. It will help you better understand what you’re working with, and is invaluable just for that. The reader doesn’t need to know every single cool thing about your world. To them, it’s only cool if it affects how they story they love is going to play out for the characters they’re rooting for.

• This reply was modified 7 years ago by Kate Flournoy.

*grins* *offers her advice even though she wasn’t tagged* @kate-flournoy and I have actually discussed this a lot recently, because my new WIP has a huge world–actually, two worlds, each with very different takes on the four pillars she mentioned.

1. History
2. Religion
3. Geography
4. Economy

Hope that helps. If you have any questions about it, lemme know. Or Kate. The Kate always knows things. 😉

My thoughts exactly @kate-flournoy. That, to me, makes it one of the most interesting aspects of world-building.

What can I say? I learned from the best. 😉 @kate-flournoy

@epicaddie2 Yep. I would also direct you here: https://kingdompen.org/category/articles/worldbuilding/