What Needs World Building (and Why)?
Table of Contents
Most people often associate the idea of books with world building and they don’t realize just how much world building can impact. Any story or experience that requires an audience to believe in a palce, culture, or set of rules that exists outside the standard norm needs world building. When done well, world building can fuel the plot, the characters, and everything beyond that so your work actually feels lived-in. So, what actually needs world building? And why do these things need world building so badly?
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Why World Building Matters
Let’s start with a few factors that explain why world building matters so much in literary works:
- Immersion: Clear rules and sensory details let readers/viewers drop in fast.
- Consistency: Internal logic prevents plot holes and continuity headaches.
- Story fuel: Laws, limits, and history create conflicts and choices.
- Efficiency: A shared “source of truth” keeps you and your readers aligned with the story.
In essence, world building makes a difference in the way your work is interacted with.
What Things Need World Building?
Books and Series
Noit just fantasy and sci-fi need world building. In fact, world building can help with historical fiction, contemporary fiction, and a lot of other genres and subgenres. You define the rules that pressure your characters and you understand how things interact with each other when you have proper world building.
Film & TV
A lot of movies and TV shows also need a lot of world building, and sometimes, it may require more complex world building than books might. That’s not to say that you can do less world building for a book, but film and TV have visual components to them. It’s important to have rules and a visual consistency with costumes, sets, propts, and VFX. Plus, the more compelling the visuals are, the better viewer perception will be.
Comics and Animation
Not only do film and TV shows need world building, but comics and animation pieces also need world building. You need rules, stylistic concistency, and oftentimes, you also have an immersive story to go with the visuals of your production and works.
Video Games
Video games actually require a ton of world building and quite methodical world building at that. Magic systems will often require points associated to their abilities and weapons will have levels attached to them. Gameplay ties in directly with world building and the world itself is interacted with by the player the entire time.
Check out a game like The Elder Scrolls Oblivion to see world building in action!
TTRPGs
Similar to video games, table-top role playing games are also HUGE with world building. Game masters need to create factions, magic systems, encounters, maps, and more. It’s important to keep games interesting for the players, especially with limited visual work.
So, if you’re working on something from the list above, chances are, you’ll need to work with world building!
Think About Depth and Your Project
World builiding can get really intense, especially if you’re working on very sprawling worlds. Video games often will have tons of locations and cultures and languages and magic systems, so it’s important to think about just how deep your world needs to be.
Something that can help is my Ultimate Guide to World Building, which covers major and minor details in world building alike. What’s nice is that it’s built to fit the scope of MANY projects with all sorts of depths required. So, if you’re writing a short story, you can use it. If you’re writing for a video game, you can use it too! Grab your copy today 👉 Ultimate Guide to World Building
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