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A GUIDE TO WORLD BUILDING FOR BORED PEOPLE BY A BORED PERSON

The rest of the Writing Mafia apologises for the turtle. It is not human and fails to empathise with other humans. We are not accountable for any emotional damage it causes you.

I, as a perfectionist writer, enjoy nothing more than deleting everything and starting over...aside from world building of course.


STEP 1 

SPREADSHEETS

The most important part of world building is staying consistent. ALWAYS BE CONSISTENT. Nothing ruins everything more than inconsistency. What's the best way to keep organised? A large database with rows and columns. Hey! You! Do you know a way of keeping several different graphs in an orderly way that I can access online? No? Well you're an idiot because the answer is Google Sheets. What? You want to know what to put in your spreadsheet? Well Mr(or Mrs or Ms) I can't think for myself. I have sub parts to tell you what to put in them.


SUBSTEP 1
FIRSTLY there are two thing this sheet needs to do. Provide a reference point while writing so you can stay consistent, and to make sure there is nothing obviously broken about your world. Providing a reference point for your writing isn't that hard. You basically need to make sure that several things stay consistent. Firstly you'll want your world to fit together. This is where drawing a map is handy and it needs to be to scale. To make a map you don't even need to know all the places you're going to use! You could start off with two places and you'll be fine. Just remember to add each new place to your map and add the numbers to the spreadsheet. Secondly you need to set the groundwork for your races. Assuming you have races, this are the trickiest part to figure out. The rows you need will change from person to person but it usually comes down to this: "What can x race do?", " Where do x races live?." SCREW IT! Just put the five w's and the one h and you can pull it off. Just remember this is literally the backbone of your entire book. This is what makes you different from your competition. DON'T MESS IT UP, BUT WHEN YOU DO DON'T BLAME THE TURTLE.

SUBSTEP 2
NEXT you need to make sure one race isn't absolutely overpowered. This is easy because of the nice colour coded graph you made. RIGHT? But loop holes are easily found, and if you're like me instead of fixing the race use it for your plot. JUST NOT AS A DEUS EX MACHINA. NEVER USE A DEUS EX MACHINA. Also don't make your protagonist the exception to the rule. That's just dumb. Also don't reveal powers at convenient times and they just instantly know how to use it. That too is dumb. This spreadsheet is to stop that from happening. Make your protagonists work hard to achieve their goal. Not just realise that they are all powerful and not breakdown in the crushing problems of the ethics of being all powerful.

WHAT'S THAT? YOU WANT STEP TWO? NO! SUBSCRIBE FOR PART TWO. THERE WILL BE NO PART TWO, BUT SUBSCRIBE ANYWAY.

- The Turtle

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