5 questions for your fantasy world

Creating a new fantasy world can be both exciting and utterly terrifying! While the opportunity is there to do absolutely anything in creating a new world, it can soon become overwhelming as you try to figure out how to make all of these different ideas work together. And it can be a lot!

So take a deep breath, and just start with a few simple questions.

What’s the weather like?

It’s a nice, simple place to start that offers a lot of places to go. Is there a lot of sun? Is it warm? Is it snowy and cold most of the year? Is it just a bit grey most of the time?

You can use this as a starting point to figure out what kind of terrain might be there, what kind of plants might be there, and what kind of people would inhabit a land like this. Take inspiration from people and places with a similar climate and understand why that happens. And then you can use that to better inform and develop the fantasy world you are creating!

Who is in charge?

In most cases, fantasy worlds tend to rely on either a monarchy or a council of some sort, but it’s important to figure out who is calling the shots in the world and what their motivations are. If it is something that they get by birthright, that world is likely going to operate a bit differently from a world where the ruling people can be replaced or aspired to.

Who gets magic?

In a fantasy world, there is often magic that people have access to. But who ultimately gets that access? Take some time to think about how the magic might work, and determine if there’s a methodology or process to someone getting access to that magic, or if it is a random thing that happens to some people with no rhyme or reason. Or maybe everyone gets magic, which makes magic a very mundane part of the universe!

How long has this place been around for?

You may want to approach a new world differently than an old world. If the world (or the part of the world you’re writing) has been around for a long time, you’re more likely to have very old architecture and established traditions which people have forgotten the origins of. In newer worlds, there may be fewer of these or even a larger mix of them coming from various new people settling in the place who are trying to bring their traditions with them.

What needs to change?

What is the world-wide conflict that affects the majority of the residents? And does your story touch on that? It’s entirely possible that it doesn’t, but it may serve as an important background element to provide context to why the people around them are behaving in the way they are.