You probably have a great idea for a story right? Ready to grab that pencil or tap those keys? Well you shouldn’t yet. As much as you want to start writing your story, for now just jot those ideas in a journal, you need to do something very important before starting it especially if that story is Fantasy.
Before writing, before characters, before all of that fun stuff it would be a good idea to create the world your story is going to be in. Where is the country your characters will be active in? How big is the country? How many cities does this country have? How many races does this country have? etc.
Before mapping everything out why not actually think about how your world is created. You can either go the way of religion where the world is created by an entity or many or you can go the way of science where the world is created by asteroids smashing into each other or something like that. The best examples are literally right here on the Internet. You can look up the different mythologies, NOTE: Some are very, hilariously weird, and the many active religions as well, NOTE: Yes each religion has something different about how the world was created.
If that is not your forte, as I said a moment ago you can also go the way of science and see how our world was created that way and how other planets in our system were created as well. In one our moon was created after an asteroid hit the surface of our planet and in another the human race was created when the blood of a titan mixed with the water of our planet. There are literally so many possibilities you can reference off of, not to mention the religions made up for video games and other medias, but for now focus on our mythologies and our many world religions before needing or wanting to jump into all ready made up religions.
How I Created Midgard and Hada Cuentos:
It was really fun when I created these two worlds of mine. For both Midgard and Hada Cuentos I took our world map, threw it into Photoshop, created a layer on top of it, and only traced the continents I liked the shape of for these specific worlds, grabbed the warp tool, and began shaping them to look a certain way. Once I got an outline of one I began creating another by still looking at our world map and studying other Fantasy based maps such as Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Falling Kingdoms, etc. NOTE: If you don’t have Photoshop, don’t worry. Go to a nearby store or Amazon and buy a graph paper book or any sheet of paper that is large enough and can trace, and if possible a world map, and try creating your world that way.
After the countries are created I go to a website called Inkarnate so I can get started on what the terrain of the lands will look like to how big a forest I can have to how big the mountains can be to how vast a dessert will be. The possibilities are endless.
NOTE: For Inkarnate you will be recreating your worlds on that site, it is also a free beta at this time. You can find video tutorials of the program on YouTube so you won’t have to worry about what the hell it is you should be able to do.
Once the terrains are created then you start placing cities, castles, towns, etc. Where is anything on your map? I say it is a good idea to know exactly where things are and keep things consistent or else once you get to writing you may actually get confused and lost along with your characters. Know which way is North, South, East, and West. Remember this is your world so make it how you want it to be, large cracks in the world? Make it so, how was it created? This is how, etc.
Another way to create your world, and this is thanks to S.H. Ing, NOTE: She is a traditional Fantasy map creator herself, she has a big box of lots of kinds of dices, shakes it up a bit, then tilts it over, and drops the dices on a big sheet of paper. Where ever the dices land whether in big chunks or small, she leaves them be, and traces around the dices, making sure not to knock any of them out of place, and BAM! Countries are created. Find ways to make the world for now, it doesn’t have to be professional, remembers J.K. Rowling created most of the mapping of Hogwarts on a thin napkin. The way how I see it that will also work too, so long as you know where things are now.
After you have placed your towns, cities, camps, etc. for your characters, map out the important cities so again you know where your characters should go. Don’t map out all of them, if your characters aren’t going to every city in your world then that is fine, map the ones they will. It will also be nice to map out their homes as well. Do they live in a castle? Do they live in a forest or mountain? How many floors or tunnels does it have? Where do they go for training or studies? You know have fun. If your not an architect, as I said that is fine, it doesn’t have to be perfect you just need to know where things are not only for yourself but for your characters as well.
Once the world, land, buildings, and lore behind each are created, the next fun step in creating is the race of people and beings themselves.
If you guys have any questions about what I just went over please feel free to ask. I hope you liked my little insight on creating Fantasy Worlds, I honestly can’t wait to hear how many of you created yours. Please stay tune for Friday will be another post about how to jot ideas. Thank you all so much for reading and please have a wonderful day.
Fantasy Worlds of A.J. Torres 