Do you build your world around the story or the story around the world?

[Novakid]

Personally, I think it would be smarter to build the story around the world since you can plan ahead but I find myself more often than not writing the world around the story.

 

[Samuel_Spader]

Story around the world. I've written some stories before where you try to expand the world (or universe, whichever term is preferable) and then sometimes when you add more stuff, the story become increasingly difficult to follow, especially in the flow of the plot, since you could accidentally retcon some stuff just so the story can make sense.

This is just a personal opinion, btw.

 

[Friend]

Neither option, the poll is flawed. In reality, it's a secret every author should know -- it's both.
Start out either way, and sooner or later you need to fill in from the other, then come back to the original way (or go off on a new tangent with something else).

Worldbuilding is not and should not be formulaic; it has no 'right or wrong' answer. Some writer may 'prefer' one or the other but storywiting is a mixture of worldbuilding and storycrafting, altogether.

 

[Samuel_Spader]

Neither option, the poll is flawed. In reality, it's a secret every author should know -- it's both.
Start out either way, and sooner or later you need to fill in from the other, then come back to the original way (or go off on a new tangent with something else).

Worldbuilding is not and should not be formulaic; it has no 'right or wrong' answer. Some writer may 'prefer' one or the other but storywiting is a mixture of worldbuilding and storycrafting, altogether.

Hmmm, when you put it like that, U Rite.

 

[LostLibrarian]

I agree with the "neither/both" answer.

For me it's important to set the big rules early. Technology level, how magic works, the rough outline of the world, races, etc. Those make up the canvas I can paint my story on. Things that are more or less fixed through the story.

Afterwards I write my story and expand the world whenever I need it. Need another city in the world? Let's find a good place for it. Need a different race or a new nation? Let's find a place for it. Most stories shouldn't start with endless amount of info-dump about the world, so all those details were probably never mentioned before anyway. As long as I don't break the "big rules" and change the feeling of the world with that, it doesn't really matter...

And if you set up those bit things early and add details as you go along, those small details will feel planned out as well. To the reader it won't matter whether they were made up in that minute or planned out months in advance. As long as it fits into the world itself, it makes no visible difference.

 

[Sii]

I'm a pantser/discovery writer so I lean more towards building the world around the story I'm writing. But I also agree with an in between approach being smarter.

You definitely want some parts of your world to be concretely defined before you get too deep into your story. Like geographical layouts, magic systems, dominant religions, governmental systems, rules of the world, etc. It'll definitely help with making your writing experience smoother.

Personally, I'm a lazy ass and I'll retcon everything as I write. If I find that I wrote something one way at the beginning and turned it into something better down the line, I change it without hesitation.

 

[Novakid]

Yeah, I never really considered choosing both. Gotta admit, I was looking at it as only two options when I didn't really think about having both.

 

[Moonpearl]

Both as well. I usually start with the characters/concept as the idea, build the basic world to know where they sort of fit in, build the characters up a little, and then go back to the world to play around as much as I need/want to. Then I finish the characters off according to their environment.

The story therefore decides the basic world, and the world affects where I can go with the story.

 

[Goswick]

I build the world to complement a story usually. The one time I did it the other way around was in my first (now hiatus'd) fiction, which didn't end up working out too well...

 

[skillet]

I think it really depends!

One time I built this super elaborate world precisely because I wanted to make a super elaborate world, and while building it I almost naturally came up with plot points that I connected into a story. The pro of this is that it makes for some good use of the world instead of making it only convenient to the story :)

Other times, the world is built as I think up the details of the story simultaneously, though usually this means I (a) start with a character I want to read (therefore write) about, or (b) already have a basic plot in place. This is kinda bad though imo since I usually forego the finer details of the world so I run into problems the more I write.

I guess it's whatever gets me writing, in the end :)

 

[Sabruness]

generally, both. i usually start off with a concept and a character (or two), maybe write a draft chapter or two which leads into some world design which may lead to more chapters which leads to more world design. it's like a cycle.

 

[BenJepheneT]

It heavily depends on what kind of of an author you are. If you're the kind that does fantasy stories where your primary goal is to create a comfy atmosphere where aesthetically pleasing characters do aesthetically pleasing shit, you'd most probably base you story around your world.

My stories revolve on a consistent theme. The way I plan my story puts theme on the forefront pretty heavily. It literally dictates the plot, tone, and characters for me. I only put setting on the last leg. I use the plot/characters as a base for how I want to craft my setting and build my world.

World building actually becomes more fun that way, as the theme also grounds your world building to a certain direction and makes everything so much more fucking easier.

As an example: if I'm making a story about courage or bravery with a light tone and the setting has a village of dwarves, the backstory for the village would probably be the cookie cutter "we fought many battles and made many sacrifices but we managed to keep up this village because of courage and bravery" type of shit.

But if I'm making a grounded story with a theme of suffering and regret with a sombre tone, the same dwarf village would probably have a backstory leaning more towards a history of cut throat, backstabbing violence, "pay your pound of flesh to see tomorrow" kind of backstory.

It's actually amazing how much a simple switch of themes can change your setting so much.

 

[MajorKerina]

What I do is, as I need stuff, I come up with it. There's some stuff I start with but I try to rationally think through what would work in a world and what the pieces I have come up with do.

 

[gaylolis]

I build the story around the characters :D /

 

[atgongumerki]

For me what comes first is an idea of a story (or character).
Then this idea gets expanded upon.
After some time I create a world and a map.
And after that, I redo the story and check if it still fits into the world.

 

[HURGMCGURG]

I'm not going to spout some shit like I'm a fantastic author that's written lots of books because guess what? I'm not. I like to build both at the same time because the story is a part of the world as well. It shouldn't be some tack on where you try to show off your world, it should be a part of the history of your world.

 

[ForestDweller]

World around the story.

 

[KyoruS]

I would say you need a mix of both. As long as you don't go on both extreme ends you should be doing fine. The world should be deep enough that readers believes the world could 'realistically' exist. But the world should center around the story so that it will fit with the theme you want to explore in your story.

If your using this poll on whether to build a story or world first. You should first think about what kind of theme or message you want to get across to your readers, from there you can build the world while simultaneously creating key points or outline of the story. This way you have somekind of direction or goal on how to make both the world and the story. At least that's how I did it.

 

[hory-portier]

In my case I start with the general ideas of what I want to be special in my novel. No mater if it's related to the characters and their story or the world and its mechanics/history.

While I'm writing the story I find out that I need to decide how something I'm using for my story needs to be decided for the world. While deciding it I create a lot of other somehow related things that are not really important for the story now, just in case. Later in the story some things I added to the world now decide what will happen in the story.

For example, I have a lot of events happening in the background, other countries etc. I added them because I wondered why something happened at some point as I didn't want something to happen just for the story. The effect of the background event on the story earlier was quite small, but later it might result in a war, marriage proposal, assassination etc. And then I would have to include it in the story because the world events decided it for me.

So, my answer is both - Parts of the story creates parts of the world that makes another parts of the story and so on. With good imagination the plot of the story creates itself with you simply following the logic.

At least that's how I see it. I don't have that much experience.

 

[DDTStudios]

I do both since my world is so complicated that I don’t want to kill my readers with an onslaught of information.