For many writers, sci-fi or fantasy, designing a planet is probably one of the most intense achievements you can accomplish in your world building journey. Simply put, a planet is basically an amalgamation of everything you’ve worked for when designing your world. It is pretty much the final destination. It is an expansive place full of countries, nations, cultures, religions, and more. This is why I consider planet design to be the most complex, because it requires you to design everything else first.
However, planet design is also the simplest because you can even start at the planet and work your way down. It completely depends on your style of writing. But, let’s just assume for the sake of this post that you haven’t even touched a single element of your world but you really want to start planet building. So, here’s what I would do to design amazing planets for your book:
Physical Appearance of your Planet
Planets can be very different from the outside. It really depends on how you want it to look. If we think of planets in our current solar system, we find that there are planets with certain climates or weather events that make it look a certain way.
For example, Saturn has many rings around it. Jupiter has a massive storm eye on it. These are all defining characteristics of planetary exteriors. Earth looks like, well, Earth. If you think about planets in our current solar system, it may be able to help you determine what yours looks like.
You can be as creative as you want or as basic as you want, but remember that ultimately your planet’s appearance can change as you go about your world-building process.
However, I think that in order to understand the outside, we need to know what is inside the planet. This way, we can really see how the planet may look to something like a spaceship.
Defining Features of the Planet
When we think of what most planets look like, there are lots of mountains on planetary systems. Imagine Mars, which we’ve been able to see quite a lot of thanks to NASA’s efforts. When we see Mars, we see images of mountains, craters, and more. The same can be said for Earth. There are many mountain regions that have most certainly been worn away over time due to erosion and weather patterns.
However, not all planets look the same. You still need to consider the fact that planets are literally giant floating rock formations in space. So, planets will have some level of rock on its surface, be it under an ocean or in the form of mountains. The planetary crust will be rocky.
When you consider this, it makes it easier to imagine an planet’s surface. If we look at examples from my series, The Fallen Age Saga, one of the main alien planets is called Karnakania. This planet has a surface covered by 90% water, with the remaining 10% being hostile volcanic regions. There is little vegetation on this planet. The aliens that live there built their cities to hover over the water.
If we look at Star Wars, Tatooine is a desert planet which has a surface that is basically 100% desert. You don’t have to create so many climate regions for each planet if you’re working with so many at once. I have many planets in my series, so not every planet is going to get the special treatment. Just the most important ones.
What is our Species?
Planets typically have more than one species. One of the biggest issues in scifi, especially military scifi, is that the invading aliens are almost always just one species. Now, you can have one species invade Earth, but their home planets are never talked about. They have no motive besides taking over Earth.
If you’re writing a full-fledged story, you need to consider that your planetary species can and will impact how your world looks. Again, looking back at Karnakania, the main species that lives there colonized the planet. These guys are the Ones Above, who you can read about in Book 1, Malware, for more information. However, there are other species that are maybe less advanced than the Ones Above.
Think about your main species: What are their characteristics? Why do they live there? If your planet is all desert or all water or a mix of many things, consider the fact that some animals were better built to withstand certain climates than others. Do you remember Cool City from one of the previous guides? If not, I’ve linked it here for you to read.
Cool City was comprised of a lizard species because it’s a desert planet. These lizards have tough skin built to withstand the heat. This makes sense. Humans would most likely not choose to live on a planet like this, especially if you have advanced space travel in your story.
The Ones Above are made of fire, so they couldn’t care less how hot their planet’s climate is. In fact, Earth is a fairly cold planet to them.
You see how we’re doing this? Always think of the details that allow for your world to feel more immersive!
Do I need to talk about Atmosphere and all that?
No. Let’s be honest with each other: Who is actually gonna care if your planet has oxygen or anything on it? The most basic thing you probably need is water, since life requires water to survive. But still, if you have an alien species that doesn’t need water to live, then it doesn’t even matter.
You see, the thing with scifi and fantasy is that you have the full liberty to do whatever it is you want to do. If you want to have a species made of rocks, you can. You want to have human-like species? You can. It’s your universe at that point.
Planets are not complicated on their own. Where it becomes complicated is when you have multiple planets. This is where you need to be creative, because if you’re not, you risk falling into just repeating yourself with every planet you create.
Creating Concept Art
When you’re designing a planet, it sometimes helps to create concept art of some sorts. This can be very basic just to give your brain an idea of what you’re working with, but this can also be very, extremely elaborate as well. If you’re an artist, go crazy with this part.
If you’re not an artist (like me, lol), then AI art is really a helpful and amazing tool that you can use to give yourself some sort of idea of a planet’s design from the outside. There are so many AI image generators out there that you can look into and decide on which one works best for you.
Here is an example planet I designed with AI:
Have fun with making concept art. It’s there to give your more inspiration!
Of course, there’s still so much to talk about when it comes to world building, so be sure to check out the rest of my posts. Also, check out my series, The Fallen Age Saga, which you can purchase over on Amazon right now!