I take a variety of approaches to world building. Much of it comes out when I write my first draft (I'm an intuitive-type, non-outliner). I'll jot down notes as they come to me ("Wouldn't it be cool if...?").

At some point I sit down and start writing out the details. Depending on the story, I'll use the following categories: Daily Life, Military, Politics, History, Religion, Science/ Technology (most of the time everything gets dumped into "Daily Life"). I start with a historical outline, going back about 2,000 years or so, and write down a short synopsis for each century. When I get closer to the time my story starts, I'll do maybe every 10 years, or every year within the life-time of my characters.

Once that's done, I start thinking about how my characters, and the others in my world life. What do they eat? Where do they live? What do they wear? How educated are they? Do they practice birth control? I'll maybe do a "day-in-the-life" for people in different classes to get a feel for what they do. I find this helps a lot, and makes me think concretely about practical things I might not otherwise think of. Then I might do one for a military person, depending on whether my story will involve soldiers or not. I'll work out basic politics, define how they got where they are, that sort of thing. Same thing for religion and technology.

I'll usually do this as I draw people or scenes. I love drawing clothing. At some point I'll draw maps of the main cities (I find this is also a great way to start world building), and then maps of some of the buildings or rooms if my characters are going to spend a lot of time there.

I guess this is all on a lesser scale. i don't generally bother with too much planet wide stuff, as long as my climates make sense. I've known people to use formulas and knowledge of currents etc to plan out their climate. I usually pull from geography that i'm familiar with, using my somewhat sketchy knowledge of climate to change it. I'll sometimes do a list of flora/ fauna, but more often, I use familiar enough climates that I know what could be found there (heck, all my worlds are kind of California-esque!).

[This message has been edited by annepin (edited December 30, 2007).]

i should add I only go to this much trouble for a book. Well, for really the one book that I've written--the other world I'm still in the day-dreaming phases.

I do a lot (perhaps too much) of research on the things that I want to have in my world. For example, the world I built was a dystopian alternate history mostly focused on the United States. The story takes place in 2012, which isn't too far way, so rather than speculate on what technology would be like, I created an alternate history that supported the things that I wanted. I took a reverse engineering approach.

First, it's a dystopian world ruled by two powerful megacorporations, so I asked "how did they get to be like that? How can a corporation be so powerful?"

I found the answer by researching things like natural disasters and peak oil - things that could destroy economies. Global War tends to tear things up pretty badly. I used those elements to have a point of divergence for the alternate timeline.

Next, I tried to visualize the environment - checkpoints, secret police, old technology for the masses, etc. -- things most people would consider dytopian. I then created events in the previous years to explain these. They may never make it into the story, but at least I have a logical explanation for why things are the way they are.

For example, it's 2021, but you'll see video stores still having Beta and VHS tapes. That's odd, but there's a reason behind why technology stopped.

I then divided up the existing countries into territories and again found reasons why they were like that. I found a lot of nice info on Pripyat, a city near Chernobyl, Ukraine. I created a city similar to it and found a place to put it. I then created the story to explain why that city was stripped of its name and abandonded.

This is where the characters started coming in. I knew some were scientists and some were ex-soldiers, so I fit their backgrounds into the timeline - when they were born and what they did at various points in history. It's a time travel story, so all of that is important to the plot.

I then built a lot of the technology that the megacorps possessed and used to control their territories. This is what got me into trouble because I spent so much time researching physics and science to make the technology believable that it consumed literally years.

On a micro scale, I have several maps of locations, particularly the research facility where most of the story takes place. Since this began as an interactive fiction game and then branched into a parallel story, I have every room of the complex and surrounding area mapped out.

To create a visual reference, I found or took pictures of old factories and vacant buildings and used them to match locations in my story/game. I also found interesting buildings and used some of their layouts for my interior locations.

The story has a religious element also, so to build that part, I researched various religions and found a group called the Luddites that fit what I was after. I needed a place for them to live, so I went back to the city and put them around that area. I built some other areas and named them and found a way to tie them into the overall map in time and space.

I have a complete timeline from 1960 to 2012 with most years popluated with events that are important to the story. My intent was to build a world that I could use for multiple stories and characters. I think I have it done, but I'm sort of burned out on it now, so I have put it on the shelf for now - both story and game - in order to work on another project.

Maybe it helps to ask the question, "What makes an imaginary world rich?"

My answer to that question is, in a word, "connections".

I think that in a rich imaginary world there are connections between its various elements, which interact logically. Like characters need motivation, worlds need a logic of survival.

As annepin and KPKilburn suggested, I think history provides valuable inspiration especially for seeds of conflict. Also, readers will recognise the historical allusions (connections), enrichening the world because it feels credible.

Let me work an example to show what I mean. I don't plan to use the following ideas so they're free for anyone to use, if they choose.

First, a historical seed: When they started building bridges across the Thames in London umpteen years ago the ferry-men were understandably upset. Why would anyone wait for their boats when the bridge was always available?

I like to create a new world by asking myself, "What's different about this world?" Then I ask a series of questions about the consequences.

What's different? Let's imagine a world where there are no major land masses. It's just islands, lots of them, some small, some large, none larger than say Long Island.

Consequence? --How do people get from one island to the others? Well, either bridges or ferries. Seeds of conflict from London's history: the ferry-men hate the bridge builders and try to stop them when they can.

Consequence? --There are groups of islands connected by bridges, and groups of islands connected by ferries. They periodically get into wars with each other.

Consequence? Islands that are rich in the wood needed for boats are fiercely fought over. Ditto islands that have stone useful for bridge building. (They don't build bridges of wood because the ferry-men burn them down. Opportunities for historical connections between islands based on wars and alliances.)

Consequence? How does the stone get taken to the bridge-building sites? Special barges which the ferry-men hate even more than the bridge builders, so the barges have to be heavily protected from ferry-men piracy.

Consequence? If the world is mostly water, and it's salt, what do they drink? To make it interesting let's make them drink fresh water. So there's competition for those islands that have fresh water springs, and there are barges that ferry fresh water to other islands, there are water lords, water sellers, there are water pirates ... There are remote islands where fresh water is more precious than gemstones, more precious even than the lives of others ...

And so on. By asking questions about the consequences of an imaginary detail, I force myself to make connections between elements of the world and, I think, make it richer.

As you've probably heard, there's two main approaches to worldbuilding: top-down, and bottom-up. The top-down, or macro approach, zooms in from grand scale and gets progressively closer to the minutiae of daily life; you start with your solar system, get to your planet's geographical arrangement, climates, etc., until finally you wind up with village maps for your protagonist. The bottom-up approach works the opposite way, starting with what you know you want and finally zooming out to reveal the world.

Both have their pros and cons. I usually find myself switching between the two approaches, which isn't as counter-intuitive as it may sound at first. I do the macro approach down to the point where I have my planet maps and climates, because those are set in stone almost regardless of what humans can do initially, and such things as resources and natural barriers definitely impact how your cultures will emerge. For this macro stage, I use these sites to guide my hand (since I'm not a science student, but I like a degree of realism at this point):
http://curriculum.calstatela.edu/courses/builders/
http://www.cix.co.uk/~morven/worldkit/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6ppen_climate_classification
For books, I consult Stephen L. Gillett's World-Building, and/or Stanley Schmidt's Aliens & Alien Societies.

By now I've already considered what kinds of stories I want to write in this world. Epic fantasy, steampunk, science fiction, etc. Chances are, if you play your cards right, you'll be able to arrange a variety of cultures that appease several project urges on one planet, even if not at the exact same point in time. I let these questions percolate:
http://www.larseighner.com/world_builder/
http://www.sfwa.org/writing/worldbuilding1.htm

Building human societies up on a fantasy world is more difficult than worldbuilding for an early colony or first contact story. With human cultures established for the long-term, people will be judging your models against historical archetypes, and how you conform or deviate from those expectations will create a great part of the flavor and uniqueness of your world.

I'm a history student, so my focus at this point onward is usually the development of cultures to the point in their timeline where I want my story to be set. I have to force myself not to spend too much time detailing events that aren't going to be relevant for the story in mind (and I find it always helps to have at least one really tantalizing idea to be set in any given culture). If I think of something that doesn't effect the story directly, but is a big part of that culture's history, of course I'll include it. Usually a point-by-point timeline in text form works for me. I keep a folder for each culture in my bigger project file (in the program called Mori), and use the sfwa.org worldbuilding questions as a template for filling in the details. Gathering pictures from internet scouring sessions of inspiring architecture/landscapes/costumes is fun at this point, too.

Don't worry about having every little detail down before you proceed in writing. Things will come to you, and so long as you have a skeleton with a few really interesting/inspiring details to spice it up, it should continue to evolve on its own.

Study other cultures. Study a bit of why history happens in a certain way (essential for any alt-hist writing, of course, but useful to have the gist of in general. Guns, Germs, and Steel is a good one.) Go Wikipedia-surfing. Peruse the library's costume section, and guidebooks section. Look for little things that the average reader may not know. For example, the other day I found out that the Koreans eat (among many other morsels odd to the western mind) fermented stingray, which is purportedly the #2 smelliest food in the world. That piqued my interest, so it's going in somewhere. Be a fact tidbit pack-rat. Read and investigate everything from the point of view of a world-builder.

It's good to have a good group of people to act as a sounding board for ideas. Chances are something self-evident to the author will confuse another, or perhaps spark an interesting tangent that could lead to a deeper facet of your world.

Most importantly, make the impact of your culture and your world felt in every scene.

Some other resources if you feel like shelling out some cash (these were designed with RPG-designing efforts in mind, but they have a lot of information useful for writers, too):
http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=15805&it=1
http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=2977&it=1
http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=3218&it=1

There are more on RPG.now, but those are the three I have and consult regularly.

I never found the sfwa questions much use. It feels to much like turning the children's 20 questions game into 1000 questions. It doesn't add to my "feel" for the world or culture. As an example, I can't consider a question such as "What do people use as curse words?" without looking at the entire context of the culture. Taking the question in isolation never worked for me. But I'm sure that method works for some people. It is a tool worth knowing about.

I think my worldbuilding is somewhat organic and I can't even begin to explain that, except that I don't start with the world. I already have a character and at least a starting idea well before I've even started on the world building. The world to some extent has always grown around my storytelling. However, that has left a lot out and in my next novel I'd like to have more depth.

On the other hand spending months tinkering around with worldbuilding instead of going about the business of writing doesn't appeal to me much. I spent about a week doing worldbuilding on my last novel. Hmmmmm... *ponder ponder*

She has a unique way of cursing - by omission.

http://www.thatsplenty.com/2006/07/curse_words.html

This link discusses the etymology of several cuss words and is interesting because it discusses both British and American cursing:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A753527

This link includes more etymology. For example, the British "blimey" is a contraction of "God blind me" (one of those bad prayers) and--news to me--"bloody" is likely a contraction of "by Our Lady":

http://english2american.com/dictionary/wholelot.html

By defining how an imaginary culture swears we might define something of its history and its linguistics. For example, if they revere the Golden Eagle, they might curse by saying "by Golden Eagle", and we'd know (a) something bad happened, and (b) that the eagle is a revered creature. (I think this is a way of adding depth to a world--adding little details that aren't explained but which taken collectively colour the background.) Mind, if their language uses contractions or rhyming slang, and the example becomes "by g'eagle" or "seagull", the reader might become mystified unless other clues are provided.

With this history of cussing in mind, I think JeaneT's right when she says, "As an example, I can't consider a question such as "What do people use as curse words?" without looking at the entire context of the culture. Taking the question in isolation never worked for me."

Indeed, many if not most of those SFWA questions cannot be answered in isolation and that's why I think that a world that has depth has elements that logically connect to each other, for example through the imaginary world's history.

Just 2c,
Pat

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As an example, I can't consider a question such as "What do people use as curse words?" without looking at the entire context of the culture. Taking the question in isolation never worked for me.

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Indeed, many if not most of those SFWA questions cannot be answered in isolation and that's why I think that a world that has depth has elements that logically connect to each other, for example through the imaginary world's history.

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TaleSpinner essentially beat me to what I was going to say, but I just want to ditto the idea that, at least to me, the purpose of those questions seems to be to elicit thinking about data that might come into use later; the connectivity of it all is implied with good worldbuilding.

JeanneT, can you explain more of what you mean by the "depth" that's lacking? Complexity? Profundity? Detail? Diversity? It sounds like you know what method of worldbuilding works for you, but if you feel there's still something lacking, it could be a matter of just caulking the holes.

A few people have given overview of their methods, but it seems like we haven't put our finger on your troubles yet, have we?

I find it interesting that Brits are far more free with what Americans would consider "rude" words in their everyday language. I suppose that's because all the Puritans came over here, huh? It amazes me to get emails from Brits and Ozzies that have "F" words thrown in here and there with no worries about offending anyone, which isn't the case with a lot of Americans (including me).

I don't want to go as far as someone like Jordan who refers to some "dragon" 5000 years ago every two pages (and then goes on and on about it) but societies don't appear out of nowhere either. (Ok, not a Jordan fan.)

I think there are some great ideas here. I must admit I tend to ask these questions so we can share these things almost as much as for myself. It's always interesting to see how other people go about something as vital as world building.

As far as curses go, most of our curses are either something we consider dirty: sex and feces type curses and also religious "taking the lord's name in vain" type curses. (I think the reason for sex is that it isn't considered "lovemaking" but something degrading that men do TO someone else.) I have generally avoided the "sex is dirty" type societies and male dominated ones, so mine tend toward curses such as references to "dirty goat loving mongrel" which happens to be one I'm rather fond of. Sh** and dung work well. I think most societies are likely to be anti-feces. Under stress my characters are highly likely to say something like "Oh, goddess." as well. I picked that up from a friend of mine who says that. :d

What I have gone into in depth in my worldbuilding is the type of magic, the type of climate (lol ok always the area of the rocky mountains but still), the animals (frequently those in either the rockies or the Scottish Highlands), the plants, mapping... I think I haven't built the society's history itself as thoroughly as I should--or I wing it and figure that part out as I go.

This reminds me of one of my favourite pieces of world-building. In the TV series "Firefly" part of the backstory is that Earth becomes a two-nation world, dominated by the USA and China. Our heroes swear in Chinese. It adds colour and even though we have no idea what they're saying, we can guess well enough.

I'm pleased, JeanneT, that adding history to your worlds might help. Is it possible that connections with the past might add depth to some character motivations, too?

That really has to do with how I write. You know we are all very individual in that. I start with a scene that I see a character in--a woman in leather armor laying beside a body of water unconscious with an arrow in her back was the start of Neska's Tattoos, for instance.

From that I had to ask her who the heck she was and where she came from and what happened. She was fine with telling me. But I never really knew much of the history of her people, why there were so few of them, why they were part of a kingdom of somewhat different people (think Basques and Spain except no Basque revolution).

It wasn't necessary to the story. But I think it would have added a nice additional depth. I wouldn't have put a lot of it in--I think that's a mistake. It is part of why I took such a dislike of WoT. Hearing one more time about the history would have made me scream. I kept wanting him to get on with the blinking story. lol

But hints of it lets your reader know that they are reading about a "real" world.

I have a few little tricks that might help you add a little history to your world without writing a history text.

How are your years counted? Usually years are counted from some large event. (Ours is roughly the birth of Christ.) I've seen "thirty years since the flood" used before. Or since the war. Even of you only say it once in the whole text it adds a sense of history.

Add a war. Perhaps the MC's grandpa died in the war. Or the MC's people are slaves (Or masters) to some other people because of the war.

Perhaps there is an odd building in the town, and it was built by some crazy millionaire who liked ducks. He spent his fortune on the building as a palace for those ducks. Of course the ducks hated it, they prefer the lake. It devastated him, and now he is the crazy old man sitting out in front of him screaming obscenities. (Of course you'd add your own material, but you get what I mean. Just a short little color story that somehow illuminates the type of world your char's live in.)

Have at some point your char read a book, or refuse to read a book. Just give the title, like "the Adventures of the Hero Ghornac" the reader will get from that that there have been heroes in the world before, specifically one named Ghornac.

Perhaps name your char's dog after the ruler that had just died. With that you can show how people felt about that ruler, and also show how people feel about dogs.