Worldbuilding Wizardry: by Pat Hauldren

Worldbuilding Wizardry
By Pat Hauldren
www.pathauldren.net
[email protected]
(This booklet assumes worldbuilders are of the Paranormal-to-Speculative Fiction genres. If you are not,
please do not be offended. This booklet began as an online class for Paranormal and Speculative Fiction
authors and has grown and now hopes to help all genre writers understand the basics of worldbuilding.)
Copyright 2015 Pat Hauldren

LESSON 1: WHAT IS WORLDBUILDING? Worldbuilding WizardryWorldbuilding Wizardry/ 1
LESSON 1: WHAT IS WORLDBUILDING? ........................................................................................................ 3

What is worldbuilding? ............................................................................................................................. 3
Genre?....................................................................................................................................................... 3
Discussion 1 – Class genre chart ............................................................................................................... 4
Venn Diagram........................................................................................................................................ 5
More on genre fiction ............................................................................................................................... 6
DISCUSSION 2 – Define Worldbuilding ..................................................................................................... 7
EXTRA CREDIT -- LESSON 1 ............................................................................................................................ 8
TOPIC: BOOKSTORE GENRE CATEGORIES ................................................................................................. 8
A. TOPIC: CURRENT BESTSELLING GENRES ........................................................................................... 9
LESSON 2: GENRE CONVENTIONS ............................................................................................................... 10
Big or little? ............................................................................................................................................. 10
What is “little worldbuilding?” ........................................................................................................... 10
What is “big worldbuilding?” .............................................................................................................. 10
Genre elements....................................................................................................................................... 11
1. Science Fiction & Fantasy............................................................................................................ 11
2. Fantasy ........................................................................................................................................ 13
3. Romance ..................................................................................................................................... 14
4. Paranormal Romance.................................................................................................................. 17
Young Adult ............................................................................................................................................. 18
Young Adult fantasy ............................................................................................................................ 18
DISCUSSION Lesson 2 .............................................................................................................................. 20
LESSON 3: SETTING ..................................................................................................................................... 21
What is setting? ...................................................................................................................................... 22
Why is setting important?....................................................................................................................... 22
How do we create setting? ..................................................................................................................... 23
Is your setting on Earth or off Earth? ..................................................................................................... 24
On Earth .............................................................................................................................................. 24
Off Earth .............................................................................................................................................. 25
Planet size ........................................................................................................................................... 25
Contemporary or not contemporary? ................................................................................................ 27
Top down or bottom up? ........................................................................................................................ 28
Top down ............................................................................................................................................ 28
WORLDBUILDING WIZARDRY© with Pat Hauldren

Bottom Up........................................................................................................................................... 32
Remember .............................................................................................................................................. 33
READING 3: Geographical Mythology ......................................................................................................... 36
DISCUSSION Reading 3 ............................................................................................................................ 36
DISCUSSION Lesson 3 .............................................................................................................................. 37
READING 4 OTHER WORLDBUILDING TECHNOLOGICAL ELEMENTS TO CONSIDER ................................... 39
LESSON 4 MAKING IT WORK ....................................................................................................................... 42
PRE-PLANNING WORLDBUILDING .......................................................................................................... 42
Maps and World Pre-Plan Sheet A.......................................................................................................... 44
Maps and World Pre-Plan B .................................................................................................................... 45
RESOURCES ................................................................................................................................................. 46
Links on the web ..................................................................................................................................... 46
Books ....................................................................................................................................................... 46
ABOUT THE AUTHOR................................................................................................................................... 47

What is worldbuilding?
The question almost answers itself, doesn’t it? Worldbuilding is building worlds. Sounds so simple. And
in a way it is, simple, but easy? Well, that’s
where this class comes in.
What do you think worldbuilding is?
That answer will probably depend on what
you are currently working on and what genre
you are writing in.
If you are writing a Western, for instance,
our world probably consists of the “wild
west” or at least, it is west of the Mississippi.
But a western-styled mixed genre story
doesn’t have to stop there. There are
Westerns in space, Westerns in other
countries, Westerns can be anywhere
because -- what makes a story a Western or
Western-styled story?
Aye, there’s the rub.
What makes a story a Western? Or a
Romance, Science Fiction, Fantasy,
Paranormal, Mystery, Detective/Crime, Christian Fiction, Horror, and so on?
That list is a list of genres and to worldbuild, we need to understand our genre.
So now is the time to ask,
Genre?
In what genre do you write?
(Notice, I purposely worded the question so there was no dangling participle. I get kudos for this because,
as a native Texan, we glorify not only in long, multi-syllable words, but dangling anything with a drawl
just tickles our pickle. )
There are a few things that even I can deduce just because you are taking this class or reading this book.
For instance, I can deduce that 1. You are a writer. Tadaaa! LOL and 2. You are writing in a genre that
requires some kind of worldbuilding. Tadaa daaa! And 3. You’re not an expert at worldbuilding. Tadaa
daa daa! (Unless, of course, you are either 1. A workshop addict like me or 2. You sadistically show off
your talents in which case, I will get the $$ for teaching this class while I sit back and let you ramble .)
By the way, I’m no expert either. However, I’ve done a lot of worldbuilding over the years (we won’t say
how many, except that I played D&D in the days when the Dungeon Manual was a stapled brochure with
a gray cover. Yes, that far back in the day LOL) and so I want to share what I’ve learned, what others
have learned, and what you have learned (so I can learn it) and voila! We have a class on worldbuilding.

So let’s find out a bit where we all stand in our current manuscript and what our individual and
collective needs will be.
Discussion 1 – Class genre chart

1. Main genre--To begin, select ONE story or WIP to work on, state or use its genre. If you are
currently working on a story, then we’ll use that one, if you want to work on a different one,
that’s cool, or if you don’t have a story currently going, make something up in the genre you
usually write in, and we’ll work on that. Believe me, 99% of these tools will work no matter what
genre you are in, to more or less degree depending. It doesn’t matter how far along in the story
you are.
2. Bleedover genres—list the bleedover genres in your

story. A bleedover genre is when you have other
genre elements in your story.
a. For instance, let’s pretend I’m writing a
“space opera” then I’m writing soft Science
Fiction. And, I can give it Western genre
characteristics by adding a “sheriff” and a
“ranch” and a daughter or son who gets
kidnapped, then we’ll have a “posse” and
maybe even a potential “lynching” and fight
over how the kidnappers will be judged, and
all that stuff.
b. Main difference is the setting and
technology. However, to have a real Science
Fiction or SF story, we can’t just do cookie-cutter stories. One story that’s a Space Opera
can’t just pop over to a Western or a Romance or whatever.
If a story can be ported over to another genre WITHOUT CHANGING

THE STORY, then it was never a story in that original genre anyway.
And that gets us into….
3. Story elements—how does your story depend upon your main genre? The genre of your story
must be an integral element.
a. Look at the element hydrogen: its designation is H20, right? H20 is a liquid. If we take
away one of those elements of hydrogen, is that element still hydrogen? Is it still a
liquid?
b. And so it must be with your story. If one of the major genre elements is removed from
your story, then the story will fall apart if you try to move it to another genre. If it
doesn’t, then the story needs to be re-examined.
c. That doesn’t hold true for the bleedover genres, because we are not depending on them
as major elements. For instance, if we have a glass of H20 and we drop in a tea bag, is it
still H20 or is it something else? Although it changed color and taste and some other
things, did it change the state of the element? Water is a liquid and liquid is one of the

four fundamental states of matter (liquid, gas, plasma, solid). We could think genres as
states of story, because each genre’s elements are essential elements.
Venn Diagram
Remember playing with Venn Diagrams in school? Some of you might remember, the rest of us either
never heard of them or like me, was allergic to math. 
A Venn diagram is a great method to help us with learning math, but also, to learn just about anything.
It’s a tool we can use to help us with our story, especially in learning genre elements.
What is a Venn diagram?

A Venn diagram is a simply a visual method to layout our problem or topic.
Wikipedia says:
“A Venn diagram or set diagram is a diagram

that shows all possible logical relations between
a finite collection of sets (aggregation of things). “
So it’s a method to show us visually how we can organize our “stuff.”
In the images above, we have some stuff labeled “A” and some stuff labeled “B” and then when we stick
some of both of those stuffs together, we get some new stuff and here they have used the
mathematical nomenclature: A ┌┐B which reads as “A intersects B.”
OK, that’s enough math. I think I’m starting to break out in hives.
What if we thought of these circles as genres? “A” could be Science Fiction (SF) and
“B” could be Western and the intersection of SF and Western would be genre
bleedover, where they blend together and share some stuff (your story perhaps)
yet still remain who they are outside that intersection.
If you picture these circles as genres and where they overlap as the bleedover, you
can probably tell that if they bleedover too much, they no longer remain who they
were originally.

If we blend “A’s Science Fiction” and “B’s Western” elements together totally, it’s no longer just “A” or
just “B,” but something new, “AB” or, as I like to call it, “A B Normal” or “Abby Normal.” (And you only
get THAT joke if you like the movie Young Frankenstein by Mel Brooks starring Peter Boyle, Gene Wilder,
and Terri Garr.)
Fantasy + Romance = ?
What do we get when we merge the Fantasy genre with the Romance genre?
Fantasy Romance
?
Fromance? Or Rantasy? 
That blend can be called “Fantasy Romance”, “Romantic Fantasy,” “Fantasy with Romantic elements,” or
it can be called “Paranormal Romance” or just “Paranormal.”
Back in the day, when I began reading genre fiction, there wasn’t such a thing as “Paranormal” fiction of
any kind. There were paranormal nonfiction topics, but for fiction, the Fantasy elements blending with
Romance and making its own genre didn’t exist. Back in the day, it was much easier to determine genre
also. Genre marketing for literature had just begun to be defined in the 60s. Bookstores didn’t always
separate genres, which can be both good and bad for authors, but genre definitions as well as the
writing of genre literature has developed quite a bit and is still developing as a growing, evolving entity
of categorizing and marketing stories (of which we as authors have little control).
More on genre fiction

Wikipedia says:
Genre fiction, also known as popular fiction, is plot-
driven fictional works written with the intent of fitting into a
specific literary genre, in order to appeal to readers and fans
already familiar with that genre.
Screenwriting instructor
Robert McKee defines
genre conventions as the
"specific settings, roles, events, and
values that define individual genres
and their subgenres."
These conventions, (continues Wikipedia) always fluid, are usually

implicit, but sometimes are made into explicit requirements by
publishers of fiction as a guide to authors seeking publication.
There is no consensus as to exactly what the conventions of any

genre are, or even what the genres themselves are; assigning of

works to genres is to some extent arbitrary and subjective. i
And while the genre conventions are fluid, as writers, our understanding of them and ability to
write to them, is essential.
So, remember on page one I asked, “What is worldbuilding?”
Our study of worldbuilding is also a study of genre, because without knowing
what makes our genre tick, we cannot build a proper world for our story.
If you are interested in learning more about how genre began and developed,
you’re in for some interesting reading. I’d start with Wikipedia explanations—
Genre, List of Genres, Genre Studies.
Science fiction writers will happily note the impression technology had on
genre.
DISCUSSION 2 – Define Worldbuilding

So, how do YOU define worldbuilding? (We’ll build this chart with your answers.) You can use this chart
to list your current works in progress and how they work in various genres.
NAME TITLE MAIN GENRE BLEEDOVER GENRE
Pat Hauldren (Alley) The Downing Science Fiction Romance, Adventure,

TOPIC: BOOKSTORE GENRE CATEGORIES
Field trip! And you don't even need your Mom's signature. Go to your local big chain bookstore. Note
where certain genres and subgenres are shelved.
YA/TEEN
1. Is the teen section separated from the

children's area? If so, how far away is the teen
section? How close to the bookstore's main
aisle?
2. Is there more than one section of YA? All the

teen books may be on one shelf unit, or might be
in its own little section. (In my bookstore, the
shelves form a sort of square) How does yours
look? Are Paranormals separated from other
SF/Fantasy? If they are, are these Paranormals books with both male and female protags? You might like
to take a sampling, look in the book itself and count up male per female for that section.
ROMANCE/PARANORMAL
1. In the Romance/Paranormal section of your bookstore.... how many Paranormal books in your
sampling have male protags? (MAIN protag, not love interest 2nd place) Your sampling might be
somewhere around 20 or more books. Don't mince it.
2. Where is the Paranormal romance section located in your bookstore? Is it next to the Romance
section? Is it integrated into the Romance section? (which will make it difficult to do the previous
question) Is it near a main aisle or hidden in a corner? Why? Popularity will determine where the
bookstore locates a particular genre—whether it’s hidden or up front near the door or centered in the
store.
SCIENCE FICTION (SF)

I think we all understand that in the "Science Fiction" genre, and especially in the "Science Fiction"
section of a bookstore (most bookstores), that "Science Fiction" covers fantasy, steampunk, often
horror, etc. Many today also call it “Speculative Fiction” because it covers such a variety of sub-genres or
bleedover genres. And it’s convenient that both names can use the “SF” initials.
1. Where is your SF section located in your bookstore? hidden away or on or near a main aisle?
2. Does it have a place for new SF where they turn the books with the cover face out?
3. Take a sample of SF/F/Etc. books, noting which were SF, which were Fantasy, and so on. Note which
had male protags and which had female protags (for multiple protags like Game of Thrones, toss it back

and select a different one).
4. What age (approximately) was the protag? -17, 18-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50+
You might need to make a chart for these answers, like...

MAIN GENRE* / PROTAG M/F / PROTAG AGE / NOTES
Or a table…
MAIN GENRE PROTAG M/F? PROTAGE AGE NOTES
(BKSTORE)
You can add book title if you wish.

* (by MAIN GENRE I mean where you found it in the bookstore)
A. TOPIC: CURRENT BESTSELLING GENRES
1. Look at the NY Times Bestseller list for Friday, or Saturday, or Sunday. How many of the top 20
books are:
1. YA
2. YA Paranormal or SF
3. SF or Fantasy (NOT Paranormal/Romance)
2. Make a list for 1. Hardback, 2. Paperback (mass), 3. eBook (if it's available)
(If one of the given genres isn’t the genre you are currently writing in, do #1 & #2 for your current
genre.)
3. Which genre(s) are the most popular?
4. Are you writing in the most popular genres? (If not, why not? )
5. How can you get on the NY Times Bestseller list? (Let’s work on our Worldbuilding and get
there!)

LESSON 2: GENRE CONVENTIONS Worldbuilding WizardryWorldbuilding Wizardry/ 10
NOTE: Please read 2 files: David Farland’s “Audience Analysis Parts 1 & 2” and his “Analyzing
Your Novel’s Audience” found on my website under RESOURCES.
Big or little?
In Lesson 1, we talked a bit about genre—what it is and isn’t—and a bit

about story elements. In the replies, we talked about where your story
probably sits in the genre spectrum. In your Extra Credit, I asked you to
look at what types of books were shelved where in the bookstore.
Whether their protags were male or female, and we looked at bleedover
genres. I also asked you to select one of your stories to work on and we
gave it a genre designation to get us going.
Before we can build our world, we must know more about our story. We
need to know how big or little to build our world.
What I really mean is, whether we need to do a lot of worldbuilding or a little.

What is “little worldbuilding?”
Little worldbuilding is when the planet our story is on is Earth. Having our home planet in the story as
the only planet in the story allows us a lot of “given.”
Remember geometry?
GIVEN: A union B
PROVE: A union B intersects C
Or some such like that. (Hey, it’s been

a while for me.)
So, if the only planet in our story is

Earth, then we have it fairly easy,
right? We know, or can look up,
whatever we need for setting details.
What is “big worldbuilding?”
Big worldbuilding is when we have to start from scratch and create our world/s, perhaps even the
entire universe!

Most of us, however, won’t be creating an entirely new set of physics, so, let’s assume that most of our
known 21st century physics are still the physics of our world, and we can change some of it at times and
call it “magic” (or perhaps “new physics” or “Fantasy” or “soft Science Fiction”).
Think of the difference as picking up dinner at a fast food drive

through vs. coming home after a hard day at work and cooking from
scratch… I mean SCRATCH…from flour and oil and vegetables and
meat, etc., not popping open a can of beans or nuking a box of
lasagna.
Does that allow you to consider how long “big worldbuilding” might
take? And how much work it might be?
Ah, but, we might really enjoy that part of our story process, and that’s
OK (I do, too, though not the cooking part, just the worldbuilding part).
So, little worldbuilding is keeping not only our own physics laws but
also our own planet in all its oval glory. Big worldbuilding is where
maybe our own homegrown Earth is there, or maybe not, but we have something new to work with on a
planetary scale.
So, even without finalizing our specific genre, we know whether we’re going keep our home planet or go
“new and improved.” 
Now, things become a little more work.
Some of you are writing “Urban Fantasy” some are writing “Space Opera”
and some “Paranormal,” some are writing “Historical Fantasy,” some are
writing “Science Fiction” and many other genres and subgenres. There are
some genres where little worldbuilding is used and some for big, and
some in-between. So let’s look a bit more about genre elements.
Genre elements
Each genre has certain elements in it that without those elements, it wouldn’t be a genre anymore.
(Remember, we talked about the element water?).
For most of us, there are two basic divisions of story genre that we need to talk about: Science Fiction &
Fantasy and Romance & Paranormal.
1. Science Fiction & Fantasy

Science Fiction and Fantasy, as literary genre titles, have been around longer than Paranormal, and
Science Fiction has been around longer than Fantasy. If you do a little research, you’ll learn about the
development of fiction and genre.

Exploring the consequences of scientific innovations is one purpose of science fiction,

making it a "literature of ideas". ii
Science fiction differs from fantasy in that in SF, the imaginary elements are largely possible within
scientifically established or scientifically postulated laws of nature. In other words, known and widely-
accepted theoretical physics only for this genre classification. (Of course, there are always exceptions
and refined definitions.)
What is Science Fiction?

According to science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein,
"a handy short definition of almost all science fiction might read: realistic
speculation about possible future events, based solidly on adequate knowledge of the
real world, past and present, and on a thorough understanding of the nature and
significance of the scientific method."
Rod Serling's definition is
"fantasy is the impossible made probable. Science fiction is the improbable made
possible.”
Science Fiction elements

Science Fiction elements that differ from the mainstream are:
Some Science Fiction elements include:
• Time—future, near future, alternative timelines
• Setting—space, subterranean Earth, different planet, Earth with
alternate technology (like Steampunk)
• Characters—includes non-humans (robots, werewolves, super-
intelligent animals, mutants, aliens)
• Technology—usually advanced or altered (androids, teleportation, ray guns)
• Social/political systems—new and/or different (dystopian, post-apocalyptic)
• Paranormal abilities—as defined by science today (mind control, telepathy)
• Universes—other, more, different
• Science—scientific principles are different than currently accepted, or have grown out of the
norm
Science Fiction Types

The type of Science Fiction is determined by what TYPE OF SCIENCE is in the story.
Hard SF—think physics, astrophysics, chemistry, biology
Soft SF (also called Social SF)—think social sciences like psychology, economics, political science,
sociology, anthropology
Science Fiction subgenres

Almost any genre can be a subgenre.

Time travel, alternate history, military SF, superhuman, apocalyptic, space opera, space western,
feminist SF, Steampunk, etc.
2. Fantasy
iii
While Science Fiction deals with things that have or might
happen, Fantasy deals with things that have never actually
happened or things that will never actually happen. Science
Fiction deals more with a reality that might be possible,
whether in the future or past, while Fantasy deals with a reality
that has never been nor ever will be possible.
For instance, we might go to Mars, and we might visit other
planets, but we will never meet an elf or watch a tree walk. We
might someday be able to time travel back to our past and meet Napoleon, but we will never travel to
Astapor and meet Daenerys Targaryen iv.
According to Wikipedia,
“Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and
other supernatural phenomena as a primary plot element, theme, or setting. Many
works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common.
Fantasy is generally distinguished from the genre of science fiction by the
expectation that it steers clear of scientific themes, though there is a great deal of
overlap between the two.”
Types of Fantasy
In Fantasy, there is no “hard” or “soft” classification, for the Fantasy genre deals with fantastical
elements, things which are not real. One way we could classify Fantasy is by time period:
1. Present day, or Contemporary, can sometimes be called “Hard Fantasy” due to its modern
setting and deals with the world in a rational manner
2. Not present day, and can cover historical, recent past, and the future.
“Present day” is modern and part of today’s world, yet includes fantastical elements. The contemporary
setting then allows us certain subgenre labels—Contemporary and Urban
Fantasy, for instance.
While “not present day” gives us everything else, both historical and futuristic.
Fantasy subgenres
These first two time settings are specified as Fantasy subgenres and like the
Venn diagram, can overlap each other:
1. Contemporary Fantasy—modern, in current time period with
fantastical elements
2. Urban Fantasy—modern Fantasies also defined by place—the urban setting—though these lines
have blurred and so the definition may change to be equivalent of a Contemporary or even
Steampunk, depending on which elements are major—technology or fantastical. And so on.
Contemporary and UF can be the same thing, or different, depending on who is classifying them and
how they want to set them up. These two can also be called Modern Fantasy or Indigenous Fantasy.

3. Dark Fantasy—includes elements of horror, or has a dark, gloomy atmosphere, usually deals
with demons and the darker side of life.
4. Fables and Fairy Tales—based on our own legends and stories from the past
5. Heroic Fantasy—think Joseph Campbell
6. High or Epic Fantasy—think Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings. Often involves medieval-type
social structure
7. Historical Fantasy—includes Medieval Fantasy and there are set time periods for types,
including Arthurian legends
8. Sword and Sorcery—usually included in High/Epic Fantasy, but not always. Robert E Howard is
considered the founder of the genre with this Conan the Cimmerian, Kull of Atlantis, etc.
For more information on Fantasy as a genre, see Wikipedia’s page on Outline of Fantasy Fiction.
Fantasy elements
Fantasy elements cover almost anything not real. OK, maybe everything not real .
Worldbuilding is certainly a big element!
Element or trope? I use the words interchangeably because an element is a trope and a trope usually is
an element. Some people define a trope as a clichéd element, one that is overused and therefore to be
avoided. But still, it is an element and we are smart writers, right? We can turn many of those tired,
clichéd tropes into some new, fresh, fantastical
elements. 
Some basic Fantasy elements are:
• Worldbuilding—why we’re here 
• Creature characters—made-up races,
monsters, characters
o Races—orcs, elves, dwarves, fairies
o Creatures—griffins, giants, goblins,
unicorns
o Monsters—dragons, demons, sea
monsters
• Technology/science--may or may not exist,
magic is often considered the “technology”
of Fantasy and magic items are the
“equipment”
• Setting—anywhere and any-when,
Medievalism can be a Fantasy setting drawing from the folklore of Europe and the romances of
medieval Europe
• Gods/Religion/Mythology—May include all or some or none, draw from our own history
(Greek, Roman, Norse, Chinese, etc.) or make entirely new
3. Romance
Romance novels are all about the romantic relationship(s) and most romantic stories must have a happy
or “emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending.” Well, I did say “most.” 
According to the Romance Writers of America, the main plot of a romance novel must revolve around
the two people as they develop romantic love for each other and work to build a relationship together.

Both the conflict and the climax of the novel should be directly related to that core theme of developing
a romantic relationship although the novel can also contain subplots that do not specifically relate to the
main characters' romantic love. Furthermore, a romance novel must have an "emotionally satisfying and
optimistic ending."
Leslie Gelbman, a president of the Berkley Group, defines the genre more simply, stating only that a
romance must make the "… romantic relationship between the
hero and the heroine ... the core of the book."
Romance categories
There are two main categories of Romances:
1. Category romance, aka series romances—shorter books
(usually less than 200 pages) with about a one-month shelf-
life, remaining on a bookseller's shelves until they are sold
out or until the next month's titles are released and take
their place. First released by British publishing company
Mills and Boon in the 1930s and resold in North America by
Harlequin Enterprises.
2. Single-title romance—longer books with a longer shelf-life
(but no promises, right?). Single-title novels remain on the
booksellers' shelves at the discretion of the store. The first
single-title romance novel to be published as an original
paperback in the US was Kathleen Woodiwiss’s The Flame
and the Flower. The US was a little behind the time because
in the UK, Georgette Heyer, Catherine Cookson, and others
had long established the romance genre.
Romance subgenres
Romance is like the Queen Succubus of genres, absorbing the best
(and maybe the worst) of all other genres available. There are as
many subgenres in Romance as there are genres to label. However,
there are some genres more popular and more successful (and
therefore, more successful for the writer) than others. Here are a few
subgenres, in no particular order, that are popular:
1. Contemporary Romance—set after WWII, usually in the time
they are written
2. Historical Romance—set before WWII and can include other
subgenres like Regency. Rarely published in hardcover,
unfortunately. Less than 1/5th the number of Contemporary
hardcovers
3. Romantic Suspense—involves intrigue or mystery the
protagonist must solve. Often uses such elements as police
officers, Navy SEALS, FBI
4. Paranormal Romance—blends the real with the unreal—
Fantasy or Science Fiction (semi-real). Can be a blend of
subgenres
5. Science Fiction Romance—a Romance that takes place in a

story that would otherwise be classified as a Science Fiction story, but the romance takes
precendence. First Futuristic romance: Jayne Ann Krentz’s Sweet Starfire, in 1986
6. Fantasy Romance—aka Paranormal, a Fantasy story with Romance or a Romance with Fantasy.
You decide.  Both Romance publishers and Fantasy publishers publish this subgenre, as the
lines between the two blur
7. Time-travel Romances—are so popular, they have their own
subgenre. Usually treated as the “fish out of water” type of
story
8. Inspiration Romance—usually combines Christian themes with
the romantic relationship (doesn’t have to be Christian, but
usually is)
9. Multicultural Romance—features a hero who is usually African
American, though any non-white race will do. (Won’t it be nice
when someday, there’ll be no differentiating in whether the hero
is one race or the other?) In 1984, Arabesque by Kensington
Books was the first line of multicultural romance novels.
10. Erotic Romance—steamy stuff, aka romantic. Has strong sexual
content with more frank language and more sex scenes, yet the
relationship and story are more developed than porn.
Why write Romance? HER LAST FLING

According to RWA: by Candace Havens
Harlequin Blaze Books
• Romance fiction generated $1.368 billion in sales in 2011.
• Other genres:
• Religion/inspirational: $715 million
• Mystery: $709 million
• Science fiction/fantasy: $579 million
• Classic literary fiction: $467 million
• From 2007–2011, romance was the second top-performing category (based on consolidated
ranking across the NYT,USA Today, and PW best-seller lists).
• Romance fiction sales are estimated at $1.336 billion for 2012.
• 74.8 million people read at least one romance novel in 2008. (source: RWA Reader Survey)
• Romance fiction was the largest share of the U.S. consumer market in 2011 at 14.3 percent.
2011 Romance
Book Consumer
survey from
RWA

(Ebook) “…publishing market

information issued by Nielsen at
Digital Book World. … genre is
increasingly where the real sales
are. Nielsen’s data suggests that
the truth of this statement
depends on which genre you’re
looking at. Romance now enjoys
nearly a quarter (24%) of ebook
sales by volume, compared to
19% in 2010. (Interestingly
Nielsen’s data also appears to
claim to be able to draw on a
whole year of ebook sales data
in these graphs, even though it’s
missing Q4 data in other graphs
in its presentation.) Other
popular genres, including
mystery, thrillers, suspense and
v fantasy were all conspicuously
down in terms of market share
on 2010.”
4. Paranormal Romance
Don’t get “Paranormal” and “Paranormal Romance” definitions mixed up. While we often use
“Paranormal” to describe “Paranormal Romance,” people who are not writers might think that a
Paranormal is like a paranormal phenomenon, not a novel genre. So here, when we say “Paranormal”
we mean the genre .
“Paranormal romance is a sub-genre of the romance
novel. A type of speculative fiction, paranormal romance
focuses on romance and includes elements beyond the
range of scientific explanation, blending together themes
from the genres of traditional fantasy, science fiction,
or horror. Beyond the more prevalent themes
involving vampires, shape shifters, ghosts, or time travel,
paranormal romances can also include books featuring
characters with psychic abilities,
like telekinesis or telepathy.”
According to RWA.org,
“Paranormal Romance: Romance novels in which the
future, a fantasy world, or paranormal elements are an
integral part of the plot.”
When Paranormal Romance began, it began as a subgenre to Romance, but it grew quickly and now you
will often find the Paranormal books in their own section of the bookstore (though usually near the
Romance section.) Most of today’s Paranormals deal with Fantasy elements but the Science Fiction
elements are also coming under that umbrella. Often, they can be both, Fantasy and Science Fiction.

Also, when this genre began, Romance was the main focus. And today, most of the Paranormal novels
out there have romance as the main focus set in a fantastical world of some kind.
Be aware that genre lines are blurring even further and while romance might be one element of the
Paranormal, it isn’t always the main element.
This makes it hard to pin down subgenres and even some basic
genre traits. We can say that a Paranormal has romance, but may
or may not have romance as the main theme, and that makes it
difficult to label.
We can say that MOST of the Paranormal books published today
have STRONG romantic elements (maybe not the only strong
element) and most have FANTASY as their 2nd element.
What we can say for now is that there are two genres that might
have blurring definitions—Paranormal and Fantasy—we definitely
know some are marketed as Fantasy and put in the SF/F section
and some are marketed as Paranormal and put in the Paranormal
Romance section (even if they have little to no romance).
Clear as mud, right? 
RWA as an association has some clout, so if you have any
questions about anything Paranormal and/or Romance, they are
the peeps to ask. They have some great resources on their website www.rwa.org. There you can find
definitions, and even word counts, of the genres and subgenres.
Young Adult
Young adult can be both a genre or a category of fiction. Here I will
deal with it like a genre. Young Adult usually has its own section in
the bookstore and any and all other genres are written as Young
Adult (OK, maybe not Erotic Romance ).
Young Adult fantasy—the most recent of Fantasy subgenres to
enjoy critical acceptance—is best understood in relation to the
emergence of young adult literature and the prior origin and
development of children’s literature, in particular children’s fantasy.
The major reason for the current preference for “Young Adult” is
that, as it conveniently function as an umbrella term for anything and
everything teens read, it also lends dignity and respect to that
reading material. If you are writing Young Adult as a genre, be sure to
examine your intended market’s criteria for age grouping. What a 15-
year-old teen reads is different from a 13 year old pre-teen (tween?).
You could say YA literature is merely another way of exploiting a
segment of the population that is too self-conscious and too liberal with its money. Yet, the fact remains
that narratives are being written, published, and reviewed, and made available to those in passage
between childhood and adulthood, whatever that actual boundary of years may be.

One author that has exploded on the scene is Rosemary Clemente-

Moore, with her college-aged protagonist exploring her
contemporary world impeded by fantastical elements. Other
established authors in the Fantasy field jumped on the horse, like
Neil Gaiman, producing both adult books, young adult books, and
even children’s books. And who can ignore Suzanne Collins’ Hunger
Games Trilogy?
Why does YA fantasy flourish?

Because it satisfies two genuine needs of the audience it is designed
to reach: aesthetic and psychological.
YA fantasy at its best is very effective storytelling, providing
believable characters, stimulating description, original setting, and
distinctive writing.
Young people yearn for guidance, even if they don’t outright ask for
it. They yearn to be adults, free of their current restrictions and afflictions from acne to grounding. YA
literature speaks to those concerns, letting the reader know she or he is not the only person with those
problems.
“The subject matter and story lines of YA literature are typically consistent with the
age and experience of the main character, but, beyond that, YA stories span the
spectrum of fiction genres.
The modern classification of young-adult fiction originated during the 1950s and
1960s, especially after the publication of S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders. It focused on a
group of teens not yet represented in works of fiction. Instead of having the nostalgic
tone, which was typical in young adult books written by adults, it displayed a truer,
darker side of adolescent life because it was written by a young adult.”
Literature for teens came into its own in the 1960s, which makes sense because much of genre
literature made changes during that time. The 60s were a time of change and no part of human life
escaped some kind of impact.
Dividing lines by age

Even YA literature gets categorized eventually and one way to do this is by age group.
Young Adult – ages 12-17 – older middle school through high
school – 40K to 60K words
Middle Grade – ages 9-12 – older elementary to middle
school – 25K to 45K words
(and a separate section of Middle Grade – ages 10-14 – middle
school to early high school)
You might like to check out “Writing Young Adult Fiction For
Dummies” for more information on how to create a youthful
narrative voice, teen dialogue, character and plot, etc.

DISCUSSION Lesson 2
Now I hope you have a better understanding of where your novel sits. Remember, there’s subgenres
and genres that share the same characteristics and some that have the same label but have different
characteristics under a different genre name.
Urban Fantasy is a good example. When we are talking about Urban Fantasy for most Romance agents
and editors, then it means there’s a romantic element. And as I said before, one editor explained UF as
1. First person POV, 2. Strong romantic element, 3. Female protag. Whether it was in the city or urban
area wasn’t a problem for her.
However, if you talk to a Science Fiction/Fantasy editor, UF may or may not have romance, doesn’t have
to be in first person, and may or may not have a female protag.
So be aware that scouting out your potential markets and intended publishers is very important. One
editor’s UF is another editor’s Paranormal Romance .
Have you reassessed what genre/subgenre/bleedovers your genre is in?
Compare your results with other authors. The answers just might surprise you 
Now that you know where you fit in the genre/subgenre Venn diagram puzzle, let’s start worldbuilding
your story.
NOTES
_____________________________________________________________________________________

LESSON 3: SETTING Worldbuilding WizardryWorldbuilding Wizardry/ 21
You might think setting is the #1 element in worldbuilding. In fact, you might think setting is the only
element in worldbuilding, and you would be almost right and mostly wrong.
Setting is essential to worldbuilding, but it’s not the only element of building your fictional world. There
are your characters, both creature and human, your fantastical
elements like magic, space travel, or telepathy, and there is the
technology, like today’s tech level or Bronze Age or dystopian, and so
on. Worldbuilding is quite complex, but it is only as complex or simple
as your story, for worldbuilding reflects your story in many ways.
But you would be right in saying that setting is important, very
important. In fact, I doubt any story, much less our stories, would be
able to exist without good setting development.
I dare say most of you are writing pa Paranormal of some type,
whether it’s Paranormal Fantasy, Paranormal Romance, Paranormal
Historical, etc. (Why do I dare to say that? Because in my many years
teaching writing both online and in a classroom, those are usually the
newest of writers, and that’s not a bad thing at all. Everyone starts at
the beginning and starting at the beginning means you are lucky
because you have so much less to unlearn. )
So I’ll try not to bore you with too much detail on creating a world
from scratch, but it’s something we have to cover because your next book might not be on Earth or
might not be contemporary. Taking our collective genres into consideration, we can categorize our
setting into:
1. Time – contemporary, past, future
2. Technology – contemporary (known), historical, future
3. Place – Earth (contemporary and past), not-Earth (space, planets, etc.)
See why we spent two entire lessons on studying genre?
If you are writing anything in the contemporary time period, your worldbuilding will probably be a bit
easier than someone writing a Fantasy located on an alien planet, and so an Urban Fantasy will be a bit
easier to worldbuild than a pure Fantasy. If you are writing about contemporary times, your
worldbuilding might be a bit easier than someone writing in the past (say medieval times) or the future
(unknown times), so a Contemporary Paranormal Romance might be easier to worldbuild than a
Historical Fantasy or Science Fiction.
If you're writing Literary fiction, for example, your readers will probably know, say, where the
characters' food comes from and how gravity works because most Literary fiction is based on planet
Earth. On an alien planet, though, such basic rules won't apply. (Though the fact that we need them still
applies. )
The author is the director and cameraman in setting. The author decides when and where a scene will
take place, what props it will have, and so on.

Whatever genre and subgenre you are writing, they all have one thing in
common: setting. And if we don’t get the setting right, no one will read
our books or believe our stories as “real.”
What is setting?
The setting is the environment in which a story or event takes place.
That seems obvious, doesn’t it? But what does that mean, exactly?
Setting can include specific information about time and place (e.g.
Boston, Massachusetts, in 1809) or can simply be descriptive (e.g. a
lonely farmhouse on a dark night). Often a novel or other long work has an overall setting (e.g. a
Midwestern town during the Depression), within which episodes or scenes occur in different specific
settings (e.g. the courthouse). Geographical location, historical era, social conditions, weather,
immediate surroundings, and time of day can all be aspects of setting. vi
So setting includes the historical moment in time and geographic location in which a story takes place.
It also initiates the main backdrop and mood for a story, which comes from the milieu, the social
environment, social context, and cultural context of the story. Milieu refers to the immediate physical
and social setting in which people live or something happens or develops. It includes the culture that the
individual was educated or lives in, and the people and institutions with whom they interact. vii
So when developing our story, we must consider three
main items in our setting:
1. Historical moment in time
2. Geographic location (could say “in space”)
3. Milieu
Why is setting important?

Setting provides a backdrop for the action. Think about
setting not just as factual information, but as an
essential part of a story's mood and emotional impact.
Careful portrayal of setting can convey meaning
through interaction with characters and plot. For
example, in Jack London's Call of the Wild, the setting
for Buck's adventures changes frequently, moving
from a civilized environment to a wild and dangerous
environment. These changes of setting are crucial to Buck's development as a character and to the
events in the tale. viii
According to Wikipedia:
“Setting is a critical component for assisting the plot, as in man vs. nature or man
vs. society stories. In some stories the setting becomes a character itself. The
term "setting" is often used to refer to the social milieu in which the events of a novel
occur. Novelist and novel-writing instructor Donna Levin has described how this
social milieu shapes the characters’ values. Setting is another way of
identifying where a story takes place.”

How do we create setting?

To create setting, provide information about time and place and use descriptive language to evoke vivid
sights, sounds, smells, and other sensations. Pay close attention to the mood a setting conveys.
To portray setting in both fiction and non-fiction,
• Refer specifically to place and time:
"In the early weeks of 1837, Charles Darwin was a busy young man living in London." —David
Quammen, The Reluctant Mr. Darwin
• Provide clues about the place and time by using details that correspond to certain historical
eras or events:
"Because the nights were cold, and because the monsoons were wet, each [man] carried a green
plastic poncho that could be used as a raincoat or groundsheet or makeshift tent. With its quilted
liner, the poncho weighed almost 2 pounds, but it was worth every ounce. In April, for instance, when
Ted Lavender was shot, they used his poncho to wrap him up, then to carry him across the paddy,
then to lift him into the chopper that took him away." —Tim O'Brien, "The Things They Carried"
(A short story about the Vietnam War)
• Describe the inside of a room where a scene
takes place:
"The walls were made of dark stone, dimly lit by
torches. Empty benches rose on either side of him, but
ahead, in the highest benches of all, were many
shadowy figures. They had been talking in low voices,
but as the heavy door swung closed behind Harry an
ominous silence fell." —J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and
the Order of the Phoenix
• Describe the weather and the natural
surroundings:
"And after all the weather was ideal. They could not have had a more perfect day for a garden-party
if they had ordered it. Windless, warm, the sky without a cloud. Only the blue was veiled with a haze
of light gold, as it is sometimes in early summer. The gardener had been up since dawn, mowing the
lawns and sweeping them, until the grass and the dark flat rosettes where the daisy plants had been
seemed to shine." —Katherine Mansfield, "The Garden-Party"
• Weave details about setting into the descriptions of action:
"During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung
oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary
tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the
melancholy House of Usher." —Edgar Allan Poe, "The Fall of the House of Usher"
Ask yourself these questions to help you recognize and understand setting:
• Where is it?
• When is it?
• What is the weather like?

• What are the social conditions?

• What is the landscape or environment like?
• What special details make the setting vivid?
When considering setting, look for descriptive words and phrases. The setting not only provides
information about place and time but also is a powerful tool authors use to create atmosphere and
make the story come alive.
Worldbuilding is figuring out how your world works. Setting is where our story takes place, the basis
for all that comes after.
We know how Earth works (pretty much) and we can postulate how other planets works based on our
own knowledge of Earth, of other planets, and our imagination. Worldbuilding can be as simple as
building out which families live in a small town, or as complicated as crafting an entire solar system.
This lesson is on setting, but we will continue to build setting as we make our way through the different
elements of worldbuilding.
So let’s start by asking:
Is your setting on Earth or off Earth?

If your setting is on Earth, you go the fairly easy part. Earth is a
known quantity and what we don’t know, we can look up. That
doesn’t mean we can’t use our imagination with Earth as a
setting, it just means it’s a starting point. (I have a short story
that deals with the Earth as a living being trying to communicate
with a human, kind of a Gaia-type story.)
On Earth
If your story is on Earth, then you don’t have to worry about
gravity (unless your story is about the loss of gravity on Earth,
like mine, where pockets of gravity disappear and God forbid
you were standing in that pocket when it lost gravity, because
what does that mean? That we’d also lose oxygen and the exchange of atmosphere would suck
whatever was in that spot right out into space…. Well, that’s my story LOL.)
On Earth, we can still have our fantasy characters. We can pull from mythology and our imagination and
build our world accordingly. Many Paranormal and
Paranormal Romance, as well as Steampunk, stories occur on
Earth.
Why are dwarves short, stocky, and hairy?
Why are elves tall and slender?
If your character and that species lives underground 99% of
the time, wouldn’t it seem probable that the species would
develop and mutate to accommodate a small living space?
Instead of growing up, their species might grow “out.”
And a species who lives in trees, must climb them (long

limbs), hide among them (tall and slender), and use them (bows and arrows) would probably be elf-like.
You see how all our worldbuilding elements aren’t totally separated from each other. Each element links
into the next. Our setting is a good place to start, but you probably already innately know that a
character will reflect the elements or traits of its surroundings. And we’ll talk more about character in
the next lesson, but do think on your characters while we build our world.
How do they survive on this world?
If we are in contemporary times and your character is a witch, how does she obtain her magic? Is it
drawn from the Earth? Some stories state there is no more magic in the Earth, but there used to be.
Some say there never was magic, some say there still is.
If your magic is from the Earth, how did it get there?
If your character is a vampire, did they really live in crypts buried deep into the Earth? Perhaps they can
get some kind of rejuvenation when buried? How does the planet provide what they need?
Off Earth
So off-Earth, we worry about gravity, breathable air, exposure to radiation, how to grow our food,
minerals and materials for building and machinery, and so on.
Planet size
There are lots of things to consider when building
a planet. We can’t go into all of them here, but
hopefully, we can look at some basics and then I’ll
offer some links and research material.
Have you seen those movies (or even books)
where there’s two moons going around the
planet?
Gasp and horror is what I think. How would that
change the world? Well, the tides are aligned to
the moon’s presence, how close it is, how far away it is, from Earth. What would happen with two
moons? Would the tides be bigger, more extreme? Perhaps if the moons were in the same phase all the
time, then the tides and such would be the same, just perhaps bigger? Stronger? What would happen
with the tides if the moons were at opposite phases? Would the ocean tides war with each other,
crashing like tsunamis all over the place? I don’t know, I’m not an oceanographer. But there are
oceanographers who’d be happy to tell you.
And with two moons, what about the plants and animals who depend on the moon phases to lay their
eggs and mate? What about us even, human females who’s menses depend on the moon?
So a lot of stuff to think about. Here’s some more stuff to think about.
Would planet-size make a difference in your story/novel if the characters do not travel to other worlds?
Would there be advantages to being born on a planet with a particular gravity and then moving to
another planet? What would those advantages (and disadvantages) be? (Just ask Superman, right?)
What effect would gravity/mass/distance of the planets in our solar system have on the types of stories
you could tell about people on those worlds?

So we might want to research Newton’s equation for the relationship between gravity, mass, and
distance. And we need to be able to compare the mass, weight, and gravity of different planets to set
them in their proper place in your particular solar system.
Have you ever wondered why life thrives on Earth and not on any other planet (that we know of)? Why
is it the THIRD planet that is all blue and oxygen-laden instead of #2 or #3? Why do we breathe air? Do
your characters breathe something else?
What is the “Goldilocks Zone?”
And just what is a planet? What is the history of the word “planet” and how are they defined presently,
or in the future of your story?
What would a character be like if it lived on
Jupiter?
When we view Jupiter through a telescope, we
don’t see the actual planet, but the
atmosphere as alternating bands of light
regions, called zones, and dark regions, called
belts that run parallel to the equator. The
zones are higher in altitude. The belts lower,
representing (scientists think) descending areas
of low pressure. The zones carry energy to the
surface and then cool and sink again.
Jupiter’s composition is nearly an exact copy of
the Sun with about 82% hydrogen, 18% helium,
and other trace elements, mostly in the form
of molecular compounds, ammonia, methane, molecular hydrogen and water. The upper areas are
believed to be ammonia ice crystals and below that, probably floats liquid ammonia. As we go from
outside to inside, the layers get thicker and denser until it reaches a total liquid state.
Jupiter’s atmosphere rotates at a different rate. The Earth rotates at the same rate all over the planet.
But Jupiter’s rotation varies with latitude. The equator rotates a few minutes slower than the poles and
because of this and its fast rotation, Jupiter is flatter at the poles (when we say Jupiter, we mean the
clouds really, we don’t know much about the actual insides or guts of the planet.)
And what’s really cool about Jupiter is the red spot?
Between the belts and zones form jet streams that create disturbances in the zones and belts. These jet
streams are very fast, over 3 times the speed of the fastest jet stream on Earth and Jupiter’s jet streams
can be very short or very long-lived.
The most famous jet stream is the Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. This spot is higher in altitude than the zones
and a few degrees cooler. It rotates counterclockwise once every 7 days.
How cool would it be to have a race of beings who lived only on the Red Spot? They might live or die
depending on the life of the disturbance. Or maybe it’s a sport, where humans go to “spot dive.”
Knowing our own planets in our own solar system can help us develop planets in our imaginary ones.
Then we must ask if our story is:

Contemporary or not contemporary?

If our story is contemporary, then again, we are using a known quantity. If it’s not contemporary, then
some research and imagination are in store.
Our time period is important and we must know something about it. If you have a Historical Fantasy, will
your characters use forks to eat with or simply a knife blade or fingers? Well, that depends on time and
location.
If your character is located in Egypt, then she might use a fork if
she were royalty, or part of a religious ceremony. However, if your
character is in medieval England, it would depend on when. Again,
royalty used forks long before the common person.
If your character lived after 1633, when Charles I of England
declared, “It is decent to use a fork,” and so began what we know
of today as civilized table manners, she might have used a fork as
royalty, yet again, forks weren’t common among the lower class
for almost a century after that.
Perhaps your character is from Asia and uses chopsticks. How has that developed and changed through
the centuries?
Even if your story is contemporary, it has a rich history to consider.
If you story is not contemporary, be sure the history is valid, especially if you have to make it up.
Contemporary and historical settings can come from many places.
My favorites are mythology and religion, the time-tested stories we have all dealt with at one time or
another in some form or another. By using some form of setting that we as readers can resonate with,
we build a setting for our story that triggers certain emotions—mythological Gods might trigger the
wonder and fun of a time past (I learned about Greek gods when I was young, and so I tend to think of
mythology as something really fun to delve into.)
Don’t dismiss religion, either. One man’s religion is another man’s
mythology (or philosophy, plug in the words). The Norse revered their
Gods and that was there religion, but now it’s stuff for history books. In
several thousand years, what will your particular religion be? A historical
oddity or religion gone mad?
Most of you know, much of our planetary names in the Western world
come from old religious names: Mars for the God of War, Venus the
Roman goddess of love, beauty, sex, fertility, and prosperity, and so on.
The days of the week are based on gods from Roman, Norse and Saxon.
Sunday is for Sol/Sun, Monday is for the Moon, Saturday is Saturn, and
so on. The naming practices are mostly Roman, which derived from
Greek and Babylonians.
The classical planets consisted of seven fixed objects in the sky—the
Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. In fact the word
“planet” means “wanderer” or “wandering stars” in our case.
(Answering my own question from earlier, what does planet mean?)

In East Asia, the five true planets are also part of the weekdays in Japanese and Korean complemented
with Sunday and Monday. Chinese and Vietnamese number the days other than Sunday. Different
cultures have different naming conventions. Did you know that the Chinese, before they adopted the
Western-style week, used a ten-day cycle. The Chinese government finally adopted the Christian week
of seven days in 1912, after the fall of the Imperial dynasty. So if you were writing about an Asian
culture, even the number of weekdays and their names would be different.
Different cultures have different names, but most seem to rely on the stars and planets. Hmm. Can you
think of why?  And can you use it in your story?
In your story, what do your characters see when they gaze up at the night sky? How does that image
weave itself into your story and the history of your world and
characters?
Top down or bottom up?

We can begin our worldbuilding process in two basic ways—top
down or bottom up.
Top down
The Macroscopic Scale is a top down approach. We begin on the
outside and work our way in, starting from the largest scale
possible and moving down. For SF or Fantasy, we might begin with
the planet, universe, or galaxy where our story takes place.
1. Astronomical process: In the top down approach, we can create our universe using the
astronomical process, which we discussed a bit earlier by creating our universe, galaxy, or
planet.
For some details information on building a planet, universe, or galaxy from the top down, you might like
Christopher D. Eldridge’s World-Building (Astronomical Processes).
2. Mapmaking: create a world for your map. Begin in pencil so you can erase and alter as you
develop your world.
2a. Create your land masses (continents/islands) and oceans
2b. Create your biomes/ecosystems – Also add in mountain
ranges, lakes and rivers. Doing this well help decide where
your cities go.
2c. Create/define your countries/nations/empires
2d. Create your cities/towns/villages, etc.
2e. Add in roads between cities and important places of travel
2f. Label everything (continents, biomes, empires, cities, roads,
etc.)
2g. Add navigation lines, compass and scale
2h. Fine tune, fix various problems, continue to add/build.
Some of you might balk at having to draw a map. I happen to love this part of worldbuilding. In fact,
maybe a bit too much.  If mapmaking isn’t your forte, get a friend to help. Even if you have to go
online to find someone who enjoys and is good at this sort of thing. Having a good solid foundation in
your world map is essential and it will help you feel grounded as you write about your world.

I like to use plain white typing paper to start, then when I get it pretty much contained with what I need,
I transfer it over to vellum. I also scan it to keep it safe and I pop it up in Photoshop (you can use Paint or
some other program, of course) and play with it there. Whatever you do with your map, have fun with
it. No one will ever see it if you don’t want them to. Your publisher will provide a map if needed but with
your basic map, their artist will have a better understanding of your world.
To begin your map building, I recommend: The authors Guide to Drawing Maps
You might also enjoy the Cartographers Guild. Their website states:
THE CARTOGRAPHERS’ GUILD IS A FORUM CREATED BY AND FOR MAP MAKERS AND AFICIONADOS, A PLACE WHERE EVERY
ASPECT OF CARTOGRAPHY CAN BE ADMIRED, EXAMINED, LEARNED, AND DISCUSSED. OUR MEMBERSHIP CONSISTS OF
PROFESSIONAL DESIGNERS AND ARTISTS, HOBBYISTS, AND AMATEURS—ALL ARE WELCOME TO JOIN AND PARTICIPATE IN THE
QUEST FOR CARTOGRAPHIC SKILL AND KNOWLEDGE.
ALTHOUGH WE SPECIALIZE IN MAPS OF FICTIONAL REALMS, AS COMMONLY USED IN BOTH NOVELS AND GAMES (BOTH
TABLETOP AND ROLE-PLAYING), MANY GUILD MEMBERS ARE ALSO PROFICIENT IN HISTORICAL AND CONTEMPORARY MAPS.
LIKEWISE, WE SPECIALIZE IN COMPUTER-ASSISTED CARTOGRAPHY (SUCH AS WITH GIMP, ADOBE APPS, CAMPAIGN
CARTOGRAPHER, DUNDJINNI, ETC.), ALTHOUGH MANY MEMBERS HERE ALSO HAVE INTEREST IN MAPS DRAFTED BY HAND.
3. History: timelines, past wars, fallen civilizations, etc. (this is the history of your world, your
universe, not your specific character) You may only have a vague idea of some of this
information and that’s OK. Write some ideas down and keep them handy.

Historical-Based World-Building – Think About Your World’s:

o Creation – How was the world created? Was it created? How many different creation
myths are there in your world? How did these belief systems come to shape your world
and affect things today? Is your world fairly new or ancient?
o Government(s) – How has the history of your world shaped how countries/empires/cities
interact? Has religion, race, or separate sentient species united your world in democracy,
torn it apart leaving mass anarchy, or created enemies and alliances of monarchies? What
sort of wars have led to this?
o Timelines – What kind of major historical events have made the world what it is today?
Have there been major wars or major shifts in the world’s beliefs, say in science or
religion? Maybe there is some kind of natural/supernatural event that happens every so
often. For example, the God Cyclico destroys the world every ten thousand years and
rebuilds it anew.
4. Sociology (milieu): sentient beings, religions, mythology, civilization, politics, economy, etc. (this
is the world your character lives in, interacts with.) You might have to “backtrack” on this one. I
did. I had to create my characters first, then backtrack to develop their history and their society
and its history.
o Cultures adapt to the area that they're in and the conditions they're in. There's a reason
why monotheistic religions tend to get established among desert herders, for example.
o Cultures change as conditions change. However, things do tend to get 'kept around' long
after the conditions that inspired them have left. For example, the United States Electoral
College, or the Royal Family in Great Britain.
o Your character is part of the world that they inhabit. They shouldn't have views that
radically differ from the ideals of the mainstream of the world without good reason.
5. Science/Technology: weaponry, or its Fantasy alternative, magic, transportation,

communication (this is the technology your character lives with both big and small). Does your
character ride in cars with wheels or without? Does he zap to locations using telepathy or
technology? Is technology absent in your world, present in a balanced amount, or overdone and
part of the unraveling of your society?

Although taking a Scientific or Technological approach would be

quite appropriate if you’re writing SF, it’s also a good place to
start for any story in which technology will play a major role. With
this approach, science will take center stage. Perhaps you want a
host of planets connected across the universe by a vast collection
of wormholes, making travel anywhere across the cosmos as easy
as driving/flying your car down the block (remember Stargate?).
Or perhaps the fate of worlds hinges on the development of
advanced weaponry, the first to finish say a prototype “Planet
Killer” that will give one world control over all others.
Worldbuilding with this approach lends itself to a combination of many of the other methods. For
instance, perhaps you want to start with a single character who has the ability to interface with any
electronic device, or anything that has electricity, from a single wall outlet to an entire ecumenopolis ix
connected through a vast world-wide electrical grid. Or perhaps a single technological advancement
changed the course of history. What if technology advanced so far that it transformed humanity or even
the universe itself?
In the Fantasy genre, science and technology is often replaced with magic. While many novels have
used, and continue to use, the tried and tested magic consisting of spells read (and/or memorized) from
scrolls, tomes, or books and conjured through a conduit such as a wand, stave, or staff, I challenge you
to move beyond this. Why do what thousands of others have done? Why should magic simply happen
(Because it’s magic?)? Just as technology works through elaborate science, come up with an elaborate
system of magic, a system that will set your novel apart and keep an agent from throwing your
manuscript in file 13. Of course, it is likely that you will borrow from someone who has come before you
as creating something that is truly unique is astronomically rare. Be that as it may, you can still make
your magic uniquely your own.
The possibilities of worldbuilding with this method are virtually endless. If you want, your universe
doesn’t even have to be our universe. It can be a universe where
our scientific principles don’t apply, a universe that has different
fundamental forces (fundamental interactions). What would a
world be like without gravity or electromagnetism? What if
there were other fundamental forces or if all four forces were
one?
Scientific & Magical-Based Examples from fiction:
1. Patrick Rothfuss’ Kingkiller Chronicles. A
unique system of magic called Sympathy,
which is a marriage of both science and
magic.
2. Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn Trilogy.
Three unique magic systems:
Allomancy, Feruchemy, and Hemalurgy.
When developing your tech or magic systems, do your
homework and be thorough.

6. Zoology/ecology: various planets and animals in the ecosystems of your world. Here we may
not need a whole zoo, but there are natural animals in your world and plants that are like
common weeds or carnivorous flowers or civets or flying monkeys or whatever, that you can use
to base some other-worldly plants and animals on. The oddities of our own planet go far in
helping us create a new world.
7. Characters: then we can begin on our characters, which we will cover in Lesson 4.
Bottom Up
Obviously, this is the opposite of the Top Down approach. With
the Bottom Up approach you start with the smallest part of your
world, say a single town, and then work your way up/out. Maybe
you have an idea for a single city struggling against a powerful or
corrupt nation. Or maybe this tiny city is the last of a treasured
people, or the last citizens to wield an ancient magic. Here you
might start by drawing your single city on the beginning of your
world map or you may start to develop the religion, science, magic
system, etc. of these people.
Beginning with your character is also the Bottom Up approach in that you are likely to develop the
things that make up a person or people such as their history and the sociological constraints upon them.
For instance in A Discovery of Witches, the protagonist is a witch,
and the love interest is a vampire and they are forbidden to mate
and what is worse, breed. This comes from a group of people who
are chosen to oversee the different non-human beings and keep
them out of human affairs and fairly undercover and unknown.
The question then is why is the mating of two different species,
witch and vampire (or demon and
whatever) forbidden? What caused
the non-human species to need a
regulatory congregation to oversee
their actions? And what catastrophe
must ensue should they breed?
This is the sociological impact that is
developed in this novel, a really
intriguing one, while still set on our
home planet Earth and using our own
popular Fantasy characters, the
author, Deborah Harkness, has dug some mysterious holes in our general
perceptions of these fantastical creatures. And so with her world comes
society’s constraints and their suffocating effect on our two main
characters.
Have you read Angelology by Danielle Trussoni?
In a Q&A with the author on the Penguin Group website, Trussoni was asked “What inspired her to
combine the Orpheus myth with the Biblical tale of the fallen angels?”

Trussoni replied:
“I began to write Angelology with a very clear picture of the settings I wanted to include in the story. I
knew that I wanted to write about a convent and I knew that I wanted to write about The Devil's Throat, a
cave in the Rhodopes Mountains of Bulgaria with an amazing waterfall and underground river that is
now a UNESCO World Heritage site, but I wasn't entirely sure of how to bring the material together.”
(I skipped some paragraphs)
“I came to the Orpheus myth in an equally roundabout fashion. The Devil's Throat captured my
imagination when I lived in Sofia, Bulgaria, with my husband, the writer Nikolai Grozni. He took me to
the cave for the first time and I fell in love with the stark, craggy landscape and the mythologies that
surrounded the cave. In local legend, the Devil's Throat forms the entrance to the underworld where
Orpheus descended to save his lover Eurydice. So my interest in Orpheus was really secondary to my
interest in the cave itself, at least in the beginning.”
So Trussoni had some ideas of setting—the convent, The Devil’s Throat—along with some mythology—
Orpheus myth, Nephilim—and created a bestselling novel and series.
In Lesson 3 we talked a bit about what made a mainstream novel out of genre fiction. Both of these
novels—A Discover of Witches and Angelology—are prime examples.
Remember
Keep Notes – Stay organized in
your world-building by keeping
detailed notes. I suggest making
an excel document or a table of
some kind with several
categories in which you can
summarize/explain everything
from your characters/people,
places in your world (cities,
biomes, etc.), individual
societies, monetary system
including things like
gems/stones, magic system(s),
races, etc. Doing this will not
only help you document
everything you create, but also
to keep things organized and
easy to find.
Timeline – Keep a timeline of
important dates for characters
and historical events. In the real
world dates are very important.
In your novel, dates can be
overdone. You might need
setting to help anchor your

reader in your world timeline.

Consistency – Be consistent in your world-building to keep
from contradicting things in your writing. Keeping notes will be
extremely beneficial for this. I use Excel for organization and
often Microsoft OneNote to import entire documents or
partial documents. On my cell phone, I use Evernote to record
my thoughts that come to me while I’m driving, or jot down
ideas when I’m away from my computer. Evernote imports
seamlessly to my computer. I use Scrivener to write my novel
because I like how it divides up the scenes and chapters and
parts of my book. It fits right in with Larry Brooks’ four parts to
storytelling that he describes in his book Story Engineering.
You will find your favorite programs and apps, too.
What to show/tell – As the world-builder and author you should know every little nuance of your world,
but your reader shouldn’t. Too much description and info-dumping will bore them and may even cause
them to skim over your writing. Your worldbuilding should be subtle and used to tell your story. It
should enrich your characters and serve to build tension, not deflate it.
Don’t be afraid or get frustrated – The amount of time you can spend world-building can be exhausting.
It’s easy to get burnt out. If you need to take a break, do so. And don’t be afraid to step out of your
comfort zone. and try new things. Read books (fiction/non-fiction), watch movies and try for inspiration,
and above all, have fun.
Rise of the Roman Empire

The Heroes Journey
NOTES

READING 3: Geographical Mythology Worldbuilding WizardryWorldbuilding Wizardry/ 36
To know how to use our paranormal and fantasy elements in our stories, we must
understand them. First we’ll cover geographical mythology.
Myths are the result of people who tried to explain the world. We, as humans,
want to explain the unexplainable and make our world stable, dependable,
predictable. Otherwise, how else could we plan our days or live our lives?
Our human myths have many common elements, but many of them differ either completely or vary
upon a theme and geography has a lot to do with that.
Encyclopedia Mythicai at http://www.pantheon.org breaks down myth into 6 geographical regions:

Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe, and Oceania. Selecting one continent will display the mythologies in that
particular area and has interesting articles on each.
Browse through several and see how these ancient (and some not so ancient) Earth myths might
enhance your story.
DISCUSSION Reading 3
Consider the following questions and how they can help your story.
1. Does your story have geographical elements? If so, list. Keep your list handy so you don’t forget them
and so you don’t forget to use them and take advantage of them to keep your story fresh and unique.
2. Does your story have any of these particular geographic elements? Which ones? How do they work
into your story? Do you use their history to enhance your story’s history? Keep a list to remember them
and to remember to use them to their best effect.
3. If your story does not have any geographical elements and you are writing Paranormal/Fantasy, why
not? Why do I ask this? Because there is no way you can have a Fantasy or a Paranormal Fantasy of any
kind without a mythology of some kind to act as a foundation to build on. This is worldbuilding. Your
story-characters, magic, science, land masses, religion, technology, belief systems, politics—nothing in
your story arose from a void. It might take having to write your entire book, rewriting and editing it
several times before you can really delve into your book’s roots, but eventually, you will. 
4. When you were reading this piece, did you see any elements you might incorporate into your story?
For the class: If yes, please share. For the book: Make a list. Not all elements you want to incorporate at
first might be perfect, but it’s a start. But if you don’t write them down and keep them handy, you’ll
forget.
5. What is your favorite myth? For the class: Why? For the book: why? Why did I ask the same for both?
Because this essential and seemingly simple question is probably why you are writing the book you are
writing, or the genre. 

DISCUSSION Lesson 3
Consider the following discussion items.
o For the class: Do you have a map already made to share with us? Or would you like to draw
one up and share your experience? For the book: Use a map you like and modify it to fit
your novel or what you think you’d like your novel to be. Need help? I’d be happy to talk to
you via email if the links I provided aren’t enough.
o What got you started with your story? Character? Place? Object? Dream? Time? In other
words, which came first for you? Do you think your story would be different if you’d
started with a different element?
o If you’re writing a story on Earth, make a list of things that are different, why they are
different, and how they affect your main character and his/her journey through your story.
Keep this list handy and apply them whenever possible.
o If you’re writing a story not on Earth, what characteristics of your world are different than
ours and what characteristics in your world are the same or similar. Why? And how do
they affect your main character? Keep this list handy, apply these elements as much as
possible to flavor and enhance your worldbuilding and your characters.
Here is a sample:
TITLE: THE DOWNING
GENRE: SF/space opera
SETTING: mostly in space, on space ships, etc., with a bit of contemporary Earth
DIFFERENT FROM EARTH WHY/HOW AFFECTS CHARACTER
Space travel Ftl normal tech, need to travel Gets kidnapped, must find her
the entire universe way back home
Space ships Flt, imaginary ships that humans Char wakes up on one, must
and other beings can work and travel in them
live on without today’s concerns
on space travel (radiation,
gravity, etc)
Other planets Each planetary system has it’s Main char must work her way
history and culture through these worlds. Learning
about the diversity of life, before
returning to Earth
Technology not completely filled out yet, can Main char is abducted to provide
extract pheromones and sell pheromones to species who is
them as drugs, some species get feeds off them
high on these, ftl, ray guns, etc.

SAME AS EARTH WHY/HOW AFFECTS CHARACTER

Earth Is a protected planet, not Lives on Earth, gets abducted,
advanced enough to be in the finds her way back to Earth
“Federation” type league
Politics Act much the way they do now, Black market pheromones are
with a Council, underlings, etc. actually sanctioned by one
politician for personal gain
Politics Nepotism We discover the bounty hunter
who first kidnaps our heroine is
the Federation Councilor’s
estranged son, whom the
Councilor later tries to bribe
NOTES

READING 4 OTHER WORLDBUILDING TECHNOLOGICAL ELEMENTS TO CONSIDER Worldbuilding
WizardryWorldbuilding Wizardry/ 39
Here are some additional elements to

consider when building your world.
MAKE RULES FOR YOUR WORLD—make them
consistent. Doesn’t matter if it’s magic or
technology, logic or emotion, they should be
consistent. If one uses magic, where does the
energy come from? Humans want a bit of logic
to their world. Einstein’s theories do work
even in fantasy and science fiction. E=mc2 and
all that .
Speculative fiction always differs from the real
world in some way. The reader is uncertain
about those rules until you show them. And
the writer must know the rules of his/her
world.
STARFLIGHT—Why does a story exist in
‘space’ at all? Why does it need space travel?
Maybe you want a space landscape, maybe on
a ‘frontier’ far away. Maybe it’s more basic, an
alien society. The aliens need to be alien enough not to have evolved on Earth. Yet, we must give them
some tangible human-like characteristics, or we won’t care about them. Remember, your story isn’t
about space or space travel. Your story is about character.
HYPERSPACE—This idea is as old as the 1940s at least. If hyperspace is ever found to exist, it will be
called hyperspace (just like when robots finally came into existence, scientists called them robots even
though robots existed in fiction long before). What is hyperspace? Hyperspace is based on the idea that
space, which seems 3 dimensional to us, is really multi-dimensional. In another dimension, our space is
folded and curved so that locations that seem far apart to us are really quite close together, provided
you can find a way to get out of our 3-dimensional space, pass through hyper-dimensional space, then
return to the point you desire. Clear as hyper-dimensional mud, right?  Different versions of
hyperspace use different methods of traversing them. Don’t steal another writer’s method without
knowing where it came from. If you decide to have your character’s “jump” dimensions, know that Isaac
Asimov had a robot story in which the jump to hyperspace caused human beings to temporarily cease to
exist, a sort o mini-death that drove a robot pilot mad trying to take humans through the jump. Check
out Timothy Zahn’s “Cascade Point.” Other methods are gates, tunnels, worm holes, etc. Larry Niven
says natural doorways through dimensions are not possible, but machines create the passages.
Hyperspace allows quick, relatively cheap, method of transportation. How quick and cheap is up to you.
GENERATION SHIPS—sublight voyages take a long time. Lots of fuel. Assuming that the ship is a
completely self-contained environment, a whole human (or alien) society can live on board. People are
born, grow old, and die (hence the “generational” part of it. ) Check out the story “Projectile Weapons
and Wild Alien Water” by Rebecca Brown Ore.

Cryogenics,
courtesy Futureprospects
CRYO-TRAVEL—travel in a state of suspended animation.

RAMDRIVES—Long before the personal computer, SF readers were
introduced to the ramscoop stardrive, or ramdrive, that solved part of
the fuel problem. Check it out. 
TIME DILATION—Your starship travels close to the speed of light, you
don’t turn into pure energy, and get from point A to point B almost
lightspeed time. This assumes that there are limitations to light speed
and FTL (Faster Than Light speed).
THE ANSIBLE—All science fiction writers learn this one either on their own, reading, or in SF lectures,
panel discussions at cons, or here, in my class and books.  An ansible is a device that allows you to
communicate instantaneously,
regardless of distance. This
defeats the lightspeed limit of
space travel.
WARP SPEED—Most trekkies
know this one.  The speed of
light is no longer a barrier. This
works in a Star Trek universe, but
as a science fiction
transportation method, it’s a bit
iffy. Don’t use this word, even if
you are making up your own
stories with this type of
transportation. Use something theoretical warp drive - NASA scientists are currently performing experiments that
different. This little term is might make warp drive a possibility in the future from a lab built for the Apollo
licensed by Paramount Pictures. program at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
TIME TRAVEL—There are tons of variations of the consequences (or lack thereof) with time travel.
Whatever you choose to do and however you choose to handle this, make it consistent, both backward
and forward. Remember, your reader wants a world they can believe in, even though it’s a fake world.

MAGIC—again, consequences. If Joey uses his powers of persuasion
on Suzie to kiss him, what consequences does the use of magic have
on Joey? Does he need more rest to “power up” like a computer
game? Does he lose time off his life span? Whatever you choose here,
make it solid, planned, and believable. The more drastic the
consequences the more believable and fun.  I like David Farland’s
Runelord series, how he has his magic users use magic power and the
consequences others pay for it.
INVENT THE PAST—worlds, people, cultures, societies, don’t just pop
up out of a Crackerjack box (well, maybe in your world they do) but
even then, the Crackerjack box would have a history. This is the
biggest, and most complicated, part of worldbuilding. One must
combine technology, sociology, anthropology, archeology,
psychology, and many other –ologies to create their chosen worlds.

How might yours come about? Evolution? Created by Gods? (how did the Gods get there?) Distributed
by a past civilization?
LANGUAGE—I’m awful at languages so this is an area you gotta do some
research. Most readers are tired of reading names and places with lots
of unpronounceable wording and apostrophes.
“Ahga’feeyocha’’ba’hagrail” is not a word we want to repeat. Maybe
your world has “common” or lingua franca, a trading language like
Pidgin, Swahili, or English. Maybe you are as industrious as Tolken and
create your own language, cool, just make it work and make it
interesting and easy to read.
Some authors choose to use only certain words in a foreign tongue, or
make up a new word for a new meaning. But be careful. James Blish
called needlessly coined words “schmerps.” If it looks like a rabbit, it
acts like a rabbit, then it’s a rabbit, not a schmerp. Only use made up
words when there is no word in your own language (aka English) for that
thing. Your invented language should have concepts that can’t be transcribed to English. The commonly
accepted method to writing alien phrases is to write the phrase, then rewrite it in English.
“Eu so queria tomar cafezinho,” I said. All I wanted was a little coffee.
Make sure the human mouth can pronounce it. You can use jargon as subsets of English to convey a
more alien feel. Think Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange.
SCENERY—We’ve talked about setting and scenery is definitely a
part of that. Make sure your scenery is essential to your story. If
your plants are blue, then there’s a reason they are blue. They
can’t be some odd color on a planet otherwise the same as Earth.
Robert Forward’s novel Dragon’s Egg came from a very simple
proposal: What kind of life might emerge on the surface of a
neutron star? The result was one of the best pure-science novels
every written (IMHO).
Creating a strange imaginary world is often the best way to help
readers see the real world through fresh eyes and notice things
that would otherwise remain hidden. But don’t dictate your
world, don’t force it down their gullet. Presentation is as
important in writing a story as it is in serving a meal. You want to
throw meat on their plate and call it dinner? (You can if they are
quite carnivorous species LOL). Otherwise, we want to present
our stories in the most appealing way to get our readers to love
them.

LESSON 4 MAKING IT WORK Worldbuilding WizardryWorldbuilding Wizardry/ 42
Here I’ll try to supply you with some information and charts to get you started on your worldbuilding
journey.
Questions? Just email me: [email protected]
PRE-PLANNING WORLDBUILDING x
When we worldbuild, we usually do a little pre-planning. Well, OK, some of us are pantsers, that is, we
write by the seat of our pants, at least for the first draft, or like me, at least a partial first draft. But
eventually, I have to do some kind of planning. I have to know that what makes my world different from
the norm will work, work continuously, and be essential to my world and my characters’ lives
throughout the novel. So to do that, I do what I always do, make lists.
To begin with, let’s only consider the “big picture” things that are different. Not so much the little things.
Those will come later.
1. Special physics:
• How, for example, does your hyperdrive work?
• Why does it work?
• Why does it matter? is just that. What conflict does this special physics
thing give to your story that it would not otherwise have?
2. Created races:
• How goes like this. If your MC is a vampire, then how does that vampirism
work? How are your rules DIFFERENT
from the standard vampire rules (stake
through the heart, garlic, no sunlight).
• Why for created races is "Why are
there vampires in your world? In mine,
it was because of an evil secret
organization and a plot to rule the
universe.
• Why do your creatures matter? is
justifying the special effects budget, all
those costumes, all that makeup and
time. Nobody needs to read about humans in rubber suits, Star Trek aliens
who are just people set up as straw men. What does your created race do
that makes it DIFFERENT than a human, and makes that difference critical
to your characters?
3. Special environment:
• How is this environment different than the one we live in?
• Why did people build a city there, for instance? Why do they live THERE.
• Why does their environment matter?
4. Alternate history:
• How is your change different from what really happened?
• Why did this change happen?
• Why does this change create conflict for your characters?
5. Alternate map:

An alternate map is any map that

is not our world as it is now.
Fantasy maps, maps from the
past, galactic maps,
contemporary our-world maps of
towns that don't exist, layouts of
the insides of houses, castles,
caves or mines, sailors' maps of
nonexistent shipping routes to
otherworldly shores....
For this exercise, keep your map

simple. Outlines, a few roads, a
few houses, whatever is
important to your character to
give YOU the author the lay of
the land, what is different from
Courtesy pixgod.com Begin more like this normal, what is important to the
world and your character,
important to remember. You can
fill in all the details much later. We are PRE-planning, remember? 
Remember, we are only looking at the big picture, a few really different things, not mega-details.
Some explanation:
You're only going to build:
• Details that are extraordinarily different from your contemporary surroundings, AND
• Directly connected to the central conflict your character deals with, AND
• That are complex enough that you can't just wing it.
Courtesy pixgod.com
Don’t expect to start out with

something as complete as this
map. You may end up with
this eventually, but it’s not
necessary. Remember, you are
here to write a novel, not play
a D&D game .

Maps and World Pre-Plan Sheet A

Project:___________________________ Page:________
Circle one:
Special Physics, Created Races, Special Environment, Alternate History
How_________________________________________________?
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
Why_________________________________________________?
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
Why does it matter--
_____________________________________________________?
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________

Maps and World Pre-Plan B
Project:___________________________ Page:________
Maps, Artifacts, other CRITICAL drawings.
How?_____________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
Why?_____________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
Why does it matter?

__________________________________________________________

RESOURCES Worldbuilding WizardryWorldbuilding Wizardry/ 46
Links on the web
7 Deadly sins of worldbuilding – i09

An impatient writer’s approach to worldbuilding – Victoria Strauss
CREATING A MAP FOR YOUR FANTASY NOVEL
Fantasy Maps on Pinterest
How to build a fictional world – Kate Messner
How To Draw: Fantasy World Map on Youtube
How to Make a Fantasy World Map | Tor
Tips on world building for writers – how to make our imaginary world real – Writer’s Digest
Tutorials | Fantasy Maps
Worldbuilding – tvtropes.com
Worldbuilding – Wikipedia.com
Books
The Complete Guide to Writing Science Fiction: Volume One - First Contact (The Complete Guide to Writing Series)
by by Dave A. Law and Darin Park
Creating God: Worldbuilding A Religion (How To Write Fantasy Book 1) by Jay Marian and J. A. Marian
The Guide to Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction: 6 Steps to Writing and Publishing Your Bestseller by Philip
Athans and R.A. Salvatore
Holly Lisle's Create A Culture Clinic (WORLDBUILDING SERIES Book 2) [Kindle Edition] by Holly Lisle
How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy by Orson Scott Card
Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding by Wolfgang Baur and Scott Hungerford
The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers
Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction by Jeff VanderMeer and Jeremy Zerfoss
World-Building (Science Fiction Writing) by Stephen L. Gillett and Ben Bova
The Writer's Guide to Creating a Science Fiction Universe by George Ochoa and Jeffrey Osier
Writers Workshop of Science Fiction & Fantasy by Michael Knost and Matthew Perry
Writing Fantasy & Science Fiction: How to Create Out-of-This-World Novels and Short Stories by Orson Scott Card
and Philip Athans

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Worldbuilding WizardryWorldbuilding Wizardry/ 47
Pat Hauldren is a writer and editor in North Texas. She has published over 500 articles
in various online magazines on writing, editing, sports, and entertainment. She has
published short stories and award winning poems. Pat teaches writer’s workshops
both live and online. Find out more about Pat Hauldren and her other books on
writing at her website www.pathauldren.net.
i
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genre_fiction
ii
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction
iii
Game of Thrones by HBO
iv
Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin
v
Content Forward
vi
http://udleditions.cast.org/craft_elm_setting.html
vii
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_environment
viii
http://udleditions.cast.org/craft_elm_setting.html
ix
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecumenopolis
x
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Worldbuilding Wizardry: by Pat Hauldren

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What are the main genres discussed in the document?

What are the main genres discussed in the document?

What are some of the important elements of worldbuilding according to the document?

What are some of the important elements of worldbuilding according to the document?

Worldbuilding Wizardry

Copyright 2015 Pat Hauldren

LESSON 1: WHAT IS WORLDBUILDING? ........................................................................................................ 3

WORLDBUILDING WIZARDRY© with Pat Hauldren

WORLDBUILDING WIZARDRY© with Pat Hauldren

WORLDBUILDING WIZARDRY© with Pat Hauldren

Discussion 1 – Class genre chart

2. Bleedover genres—list the bleedover genres in your

If a story can be ported over to another genre WITHOUT CHANGING

WORLDBUILDING WIZARDRY© with Pat Hauldren

What is a Venn diagram?

“A Venn diagram or set diagram is a diagram

So it’s a method to show us visually how we can organize our “stuff.”

WORLDBUILDING WIZARDRY© with Pat Hauldren

More on genre fiction

These conventions, (continues Wikipedia) always fluid, are usually

WORLDBUILDING WIZARDRY© with Pat Hauldren

genre are, or even what the genres themselves are; assigning of

DISCUSSION 2 – Define Worldbuilding

Pat Hauldren (Alley) The Downing Science Fiction Romance, Adventure,

WORLDBUILDING WIZARDRY© with Pat Hauldren

TOPIC: BOOKSTORE GENRE CATEGORIES

1. Is the teen section separated from the

2. Is there more than one section of YA? All the

SCIENCE FICTION (SF)

WORLDBUILDING WIZARDRY© with Pat Hauldren

and select a different one).

You might need to make a chart for these answers, like...

You can add book title if you wish.

A. TOPIC: CURRENT BESTSELLING GENRES

WORLDBUILDING WIZARDRY© with Pat Hauldren

In Lesson 1, we talked a bit about genre—what it is and isn’t—and a bit

What I really mean is, whether we need to do a lot of worldbuilding or a little.

Or some such like that. (Hey, it’s been

So, if the only planet in our story is

What is “big worldbuilding?”

WORLDBUILDING WIZARDRY© with Pat Hauldren

Think of the difference as picking up dinner at a fast food drive

Now, things become a little more work.

1. Science Fiction & Fantasy

WORLDBUILDING WIZARDRY© with Pat Hauldren

Exploring the consequences of scientific innovations is one purpose of science fiction,

What is Science Fiction?

Science Fiction elements

Science Fiction Types

Science Fiction subgenres

WORLDBUILDING WIZARDRY© with Pat Hauldren

WORLDBUILDING WIZARDRY© with Pat Hauldren

WORLDBUILDING WIZARDRY© with Pat Hauldren

WORLDBUILDING WIZARDRY© with Pat Hauldren

Why write Romance? HER LAST FLING

WORLDBUILDING WIZARDRY© with Pat Hauldren

(Ebook) “…publishing market

WORLDBUILDING WIZARDRY© with Pat Hauldren

WORLDBUILDING WIZARDRY© with Pat Hauldren