Writing World Anvil

[Venusaur26]

In what occasions is and/or isn’t recommended to use World Anvil as a tool for helping writing a novel?

Worldbuilding and RPG Campaign Management | World Anvil

Worldbuilding and RPG Campaign Management tools for all Storytellers, Dungeon Masters and fiction Authorss

www.worldanvil.com

 

[aimless]

I have never heard of this tell me more of it I am very totally interested in worldanvil and wish to know more of the thing known as worldanvil

 

[ModernGold7ne]

First time hearing of it.

 

[Legi0n]

When you have massive world building.

 

[DarkeReises]

I think I saw a novel or two on RR that had a link to a World Anvil in their synopsis. It's definitely more geared towards stories with heavy world building, and was designed as a tool for organizing D&D and other tabletop rpg campaigns. Can't remember the book(s) I saw it on though.
I didn't really look too much into it, but I think it's more hassle than it's worth for the style of most fantasy stories on this site.

 

[SirDogeTheFirst]

If you want to work on your world-building for sure, and it can be fun to use your story as a DnD setting, and other than that, you don't really need it.

 

[Ilikewaterkusa]

In what occasions is and/or isn’t recommended to use World Anvil as a tool for helping writing a novel?

Worldbuilding and RPG Campaign Management | World Anvil

Worldbuilding and RPG Campaign Management tools for all Storytellers, Dungeon Masters and fiction Authorss

www.worldanvil.com

If you know how to use it, use it

 

[Dieter]

I wouldn't recommend using it unless your story is western fantasy or dnd esk.

 

[Sebas_Guzman]

Some of this advice is lacking. I've used world anvil and I've used other apps as I've looked for something that wasnt a pain to use.
So, first thing that has to be cleared is, are you the type of person that NEEDS to keep things organized?
Are you writing a long story?
Are you writing a series?
Does your story have many characters?
Do you have many minor plot threads?
Do you need to remember stuff that will come up 100,000 words or a 1,000,000 words later?
Do you actually like keeping things organized?
Answering yes to any of those indicates an organization tool like world anvil could be useful but then we have the next question.

Would you be against keeping a word document where you can just write everything down?

World Anvil is an organization tool that only really reaches its maximum potential in the hands of the person that knows how to keep track of things. It allows you to organize things in a more appealing way, but chances are that most people's World Anvil use would not be better than my microsoft word+ excel use.

So, to answer the original question. The scenarios where I wouldn't reccommend it would be if you're writing a one-off short story or if you're not the type that writes things down for later. If you're the type that doesn't want to learn a new tool, then I would also say not to pursue it.

 

[Sola-sama]

Sebas_Guzman's words is correct. It's a profound tool that would help greatly if your story have sufficient complexity (plot, characters, or factions, or if you have multiple worlds). For generic, low-complexity stores, it's not recommended.
Its too wasteful if you make short stories using worldanvil, better you put the energy and effort to write with excel or gdocs.

Personaly, I used it once, but too lazy to input each individual data as excell is currently sufficient for my current need but might use it later if my story progresses or have multiple stories that have connections with each other.

 

[Ai-chan]

World Anvil is amazing. If you have the money for it, at least.

While you can still use World Anvil for free and a lot of its features are available for free, from Ai-chan's memory, you are limited in what you can do with it. You can use the basic features for organization and brainstorming, but unless you pay, the very helpful writing tools are barred from you. In this case, there is no point in using it as you can do the same thing with personal wikis, scribblehub's glossary, scrivener and other similar tools.

 

[gaylolis]

When I first heard it I thought it's a blacksmithing + doodle god kind of game.

Personally I don't feel like I'm going to use it since my world building just focused on a specific place as naturally immersive i could and glossed over everything else until it's relevant to the plot.

I don't really keep track of things either. If I completely forgot about it, that means I failed to make a good, memorable one.

Most of my story focused on the characters and although the world played some role, it's mostly the characters shaping them as they desire, so yeah.

 

[CheertheDead]

Is it similar to campfire?

 

[Comiak]

I use campfire but only recently for planning my rewrite. Honestly, it's not something for discovery writers like me, I tried three times to use and all of those time I was just frustrated, only when I actually wanted to put what's already written into it do I actually have use for it. In my opinion don't spend money on something that is a glorified folder of text files. Campfire is free for basic things but the free version is limited.