Your World Building Challenge

1. Skillshare Intro Your Worldbuilding Challenge: hi and welcome to the skill share class your world building challenge. In this class, we will cover world building for creative writing. This classes for all experience levels of writers. You don't have to already have a novel in the works to learn something, but you can also get a lot from going over your work with the sort of fine tooth comb. Even if you've written a great deal before, I'd like to give you a little introduction to this class. First of all, who am I? My name is Devon, and I'm going to be your teacher for this class. I'm a writer as well as a social worker, and I specify that have a social worker because my training has been focused heavily on what I call systems. You'll hear that a lot in this class. The word systems refers to many different elements of the world that impact people. And if something will delve into a lot during this class, so what is world building? Really? World building is the process of creating the systems that effect to protagonist antagonised and other characters in your work systems affect everyone, and they affect everyone differently. If you look at the world we live in. People's different socioeconomic statuses and races, and from different countries are all going to have extremely different life experiences. You want to look at how your characters will be different from others based on the world around them. This is extremely important because you can have a great plot with great characters, but without a really interesting world, they will likely fall flat. This will also help you build a very diverse bunch of characters to so not everyone seems exactly the same. The class project will be to complete the challenge worksheet that I have provided for your world. You'll do this by starting with just one town and examining all the people there are affected by the world around them. If you want to do an extra challenge, you could do a different worksheet for each culture you have in your world. But this is totally optional just on idea. So here's the class overview so that you have an idea of what is ahead introduction. So this is what you're doing now, learning about the class and your project, Class one will be creating your town, the town on that you create is gonna be the frame for the entire class. So you'll be going over how to create and visualize just one town in your world class number two would be geography in this class will look at what your world looks like, what different climates there are. If there are multiple countries, what they look like things along those lines. Class three will be about the people of your world. So this class will cover different races where they live in the world and how that relates to the geography that you worked on, how they get along, what makes him unique. And I will talk about some trips to be where you have class four will be on politics and law. We'll look at what rules and orders you. Your people have to follow which laws are the most prevalent and who rules in the world. Class five will be about money. Money is such an important part of our world is an important part of yours. This class will look at everything from how money is made to have it spends. Classics will be on health care. This is definitely an important one. If your characters air getting in lots of scraps. But it's something to think about no matter what. Help. Here is something that every person has to interact with. At some point in their lives, Class seven will be on faith this classless for how religion and faith or spirituality affect your world. This condemn finitely tie into a lot of the previous category, so it should be a fun one. Class eight will be on arts and culture. This is something you definitely don't want to skip over, even if your characters aren't checking out their local museums on the weekend art, architecture, food, all of these things or things that make different cultures special on express our similarities and differences, the final class will be our conclusion. I want you to think of what other aspects of your world that you can apply this exercise, too. I hope you enjoy the class season 2. Building your Base: hello and welcome to the first class of the world Building Challenge. So this is the framework for the rest of your class today. We're going to be creating your town. You will use this town you create in this particular class to think about the world you're working out. It doesn't matter if you don't have a great deal of detail or if you have a son. If you like, you can try drawing and that while you plan, if you haven't tried that before, this might be an interesting viewpoint, a new way of looking at something. In this challenge class. You'll be answering a lot of questions again. This is just to get you thinking about what your world is really like. I can't tell you what your world it's like. Only you can step one first. Think of what character lives here. Is that your protagonist, your antagonised, A different point of view. Character from there. Think of where they live. Is it a house, A multi family unit, something completely different when they walk out their front door. If they have one, what do they see? What about if they go left or right? How far can they walk comfortably? Are there things along the way they stop out like a store or a friend's house. When you see your town in your mind's eye, what are some colors that stand out of their green trees? Brown dirt? Is it a particular season? All of these things can help you visualize your town. What else is there? Does your town have a name? Sometimes naming could be one of the hardest thing, so don't worry to. Much of the name doesn't come right away. Two other characters loop there. If so, list them, figure out where they lived to go back and do the same steps for them. This is not a comprehensive list by any means. If they're more things that you know about your town, write the men. Go ahead and copy the first part of your project from your worksheet and paste it in as a project in the class. Go to at least one classmate and give them feedback on their planning process so we can all improve together 3. Climate and Geography: hi again, everyone. I hope you're well. This class will be focusing on geography and climate, the world in which your character's air doing what they're doing. This is important, of course, is your characters do need to navigate the world around them. But thinking about geography of your world could also help with plot points is, Well, the first thing we'll look at is where your town is in the world. Think of the exercise we did last time. If your characters leave your town and go to the north, where do they end up? How long does it take them to get there? Try this for the other cardinal directions East, west and south. Is there anything blocking their way? Are there any obstacles they will be able to overcome? Or that they might need help? Overcoming, for instance, is their understanding of the world like this or a little more like this. Climate is the last thing we're going to talk about in this video. Of course, they're normal weather patterns that are world experiences but don't feel limited by what our world feels like. Revisit that first part of your plot. When your protagonist first comes onto the scene. What does that feel like? What part of the year is it if your protagonist is heading out on a long journey, What is coming down the pipe for them? What sort of different seasons are there? Are some cold and hot? Do they change back and forth really rapidly, or with a really long time? A popular example to look at is game of Thrones. Their seasons vessel it in a much different way than our stew in our world. We go through four seasons in the game of Thrones kind of world. They go mostly through two seasons, summer and winter, and their long, long, long times between. Remember also that our world differentiated seasons based on the hemisphere is there something like that in your world. Go ahead and copied the second part of your project from your worksheet and paste it in as a project in the class again, go to at least one classmate and give them feedback on their planning process so we can all learn together 4. People!: welcome to class three of your world building challenge. In this class, we will be talking about people. Now you have your whole town in mind. You have your geography all planned out. Now you just need to fill these amazing places with people. Now I'm going to be using the word people. But do you know that the supplies toe any sort of human knowledge is creature? Whether your world is full of humans sanctioned rocks or a happy mix of everything in between? Let's look at the people of your world. Think of the whole big world you play not from the last part of the class. What sort of different races are there? Are the humanoid or something different? What sort of different genders are there and how did they present? This is a huge topic. And one that again on Lee. You truly know one thing I want to emphasize is this was a place where you can really work to avoid troops, especially damaging ones, and represent people well in your writing. This is really important because a lot of people with marginalized identities can feel really appreciated and represented and happy when they see people who are kind of like them in writing or in other media again, This is a class or anyone writing in any genre, so I do want to provide a couple of examples or talking points to get you started. One that is problematic is villain design. This can be problematic because you don't want your you know, evil, bad people to just be people with marginalized identities. That sends this message that people with marginalized identities are bad and you don't want to do that. Do you want to make sure that if you're having kind of evil people, they're all sorts of different people? Another trip you want to be wary of is the darkest bad, and weight is good sort of thing. A really common example of this is anything that uses the kind of Christian religious ideology where the display angels as being white and light and demons and doubles as being dark, and that this is just something you want to avoid because you don't want Teoh continue this stereotype that things that are darker, bad. This is also a fun troop to turn on its head. You look at snow and ice, those air. Both wait to light things, but they can be really dangerous and really damaging. Different things like that can be really fun for you to play with and can be good for again . Avoiding tropes. This is just a new introductory kind of moment. You you have a lot to think about. I would advise doing a lot of research if you're making a character outside of your comfort zone to make sure you're not falling into any troops. And if a character you free does fall until some troops, making sure that you're working to add some different characteristics and things, so they're not just one sided. Now let's relate this directly to the last class, going back to just talking about your people. Do different kinds of people live on different continents or in different regions? It's so how do they communicate If your world has vast oceans like ours or some better crossing these than others, globalisation is something we'll talk about a little bit more in this class and could be really helpful to think about and give your different cultures some different characteristics. Now again, go ahead, copy this part of your project from your work. She and Peaster does a project in your class so that you can share with others and we can all learn together. Thank you so much. 5. The Law: in this part of your world building challenge will be talking about politics and law. Now that you're beautiful, world is full of beautiful people. It's time to punish them. Politics and law are parts of every world, some, maybe autocratic with one. Or if you having absolute power, some, maybe effectively in Turkey's or some may be very diplomatic and democratic. But all of these things play a role in how the residents of your world live. Let's go to your town. Let's say someone in your town commended a minor crime. For starters, what would you constitute as a minor crime? Are we talking jaywalking, theft, breaking and entering? There's a lot of spectrum here that you can go on what happens when they get caught? Do they have a trial or his punishment carried out in the moment, If they do have a trial, what does this look like? Did they have a jury of their peers? Are there a lot of different judges? Things like that. Another thing you'll need to think of is how your laws affect people in different systems. In America, for instance, there are currently and have historically been laws in place to prevent certain people from voting an important part of the democratic ideal in fantasy novels. If you want to look at that perspective, the young, scrappy street urchin is often unable to lift themselves up from impoverishment. Do toe loans, previous crimes, things like that, whereas a rich person might not have the same experience if they do break a law. If we look at what you considered a minor crime in the last part of this class, how does that punishment differ for someone who is poor or has a record versus someone who is wealthy or may not? What does the leadership of your town look like? Are they elected, appointed by somebody even higher up than them? Do they have absolute power or they answering up a chain of command? If you're looking back to your geography, if they are answering to someone higher up, where is that person? Are they close enough to really oversee this ruler, or is there a little bit of freedom for this ruler? As always, go ahead and share with the class your project and make sure to give feedback 6. Money, money, money: Class five of your World Building challenge is all about money. Some I required class material is going online and listening to money, money, money by ABBA. Go down a rabbit hole of listen to ABBA and then maybe back here. Money is the basis for the majority of our transactions here in our world. But this isn't always the case and doesn't have to be in your world. Money is generally a driving force behind everything that doesn't have to be the case. Your town could operate on a bartering system bartering. It's actually becoming more common in today's world amongst friends especially think of a pair of friends grabbing lunch when made by that time having faith that their friend will get them the next time. Or perhaps they bought the food because their friend had the unenviable task of driving during lunchtime traffic. These are often not exactly equivalent exchanges, but an effort is made the bartering in this manner, Austin relies on trust and appreciation. Looking back at money, let's look at the very basic level of it. What is your money made out of? We have coins. We have paper bills, different things like that How is the money, mate? What professions pay well in your world? What sort of education does it take to get into these professions? Aw, what do people spend money on? Food, Rent, utilities? What about recreation? If someone doesn't have a lot of money, how did they cut costs? Or perhaps how did they earn extra? As always, Go ahead and grab that part of your project from the worksheet pasted as a project in class and make sure to give feedback so that we can all learn together. 7. Healthcare: Class six. Your World Building Challenge focuses on health care. Even if you don't feature scenes where your heroes air getting medical care, everyone has some association with health care. What does health care look like in your world? Do you have a typical hospital, or do your people go to individual healers? What are situations people access health care for? Many people will go to the doctor every single year for an annual check up, while some only go when it's necessary. Some people give birth in hospitals or specific centers or even at home. Ah, lot of this can relate to cost, at least in countries without universal health care. Well, she'll talk about in a minute. However, Some different value systems or religions have different ideas on health care as well. So the important question is how your characters and people of your world access healthcare . Are there medical centers in every town in our world, many very rural areas struggle with access to health care. When it's a matter of life and death, time is extremely important. There are many organizations like life flight that hurry people from very far away to a hospital. There are also some treatments where people have to say very far from home for a very long time because they aren't able to go home and come back in case of an emergency. This comes back to money to how our healthcare providers paid. There are many systems in our world of universal health care to use a different example. America does not have this, and people do die as a result. Unfortunately, are there obstacles for people of lower income in your world as well as always? Go ahead and copy this part of your project from your worksheet and paste. It is a project in the class. Give at least one classmates some feedback so we can all learn together. 8. Faith (religion and spirituality): Class seven of your world building challenges about faith, faith or spirituality is an important part of our world. This is another question of Is this important in your world? Know that in this class, faith is not specific to religion. It can also relate to values or feelings of connectedness in the world, even for those people who may not practise fate that can be affected by it, depending on the rest of their family or the rest of their culture. If we're talking about religion, there are many different religions in our world that you can draw inspiration from. Just note that if you are going to base your religion on elements of existing Bates, you must really research the religion and understand it. Try not to just come from your own perspective. Relating this back to your town. How do people practice faith? Are their religious centers or days of the week focused on prayer and reflection In Christianity? People often go to Sunday mass at church. This could be not only a time for prayer and reflection, but also time for community getting to know others and spending time together. There's a lot you can do here in our world, there is, unfortunately a great deal of hatred and misunderstanding around religion. Is that present? Newer world? If so, how does it affect the characters in your town? People who share the same faith may not share how into it they are. Some people may need to go to church every single week, while some may go only around specific holidays or only when there were certain family. How does this affect your interpersonal relationships? As always? Go ahead and copy this part of the project from your worksheet and paste. It is a project in this class. Give at least one classmate feedback. 9. Art and Culture: your world building challenge. Class eight focuses on art and culture. This is a really fun topic where you can explore what your people are like unless your Dan Brown aren't, may not play a direct role in your writing. Understanding what your people create, though, is an important step in understanding what is valuable tooth. Um, the first question You must ask yourself this. What sort of art is revered in your society? How did these things differ across cultures in our world? Art, architecture and music are extremely different across continents, countries, even regions are the creative pursuits valuable for young people to pursue across genres and in real life, Children passionate about art are often told to focus on something more useful to society is not the case in your world. Another thing are concede justice about history. In the past, we can see what people used to wear in medieval times based on paintings. From that time, we can see what slang in different vocabulary was used by listening to music from different decades. Food is another important cultural artifact. Just as with the other arts, food differs so much from region to region, food can be such an important part of a family or talent identity. It is something that can be easily shared amongst people and replicated in ways that other art forms might not be able to be. This is a map of the Silk Road. Historically, trade between Europe and Asia brought new culture from material like silk to food, like spices as well as art and a greater understanding of the world. Does your town have a lot of trade with Other people? Are access to other people's cultural artifacts? What do they know about the rest of the world? And how did they get that information? As always, Go ahead and copy this part of your project from your worksheet to the class. Go to at least one classmate and get them be back on the planning process. 10. Conclusion: your world building challenge. Class nine is a conclusion. First, I want to thank you so much for taking this journey with me. Help this challenge. Spark some new ideas about the world, your building and help you get into it a little more. Your project this week is a simple one. Question. What else? They're so much more to the world. And so many more details that you can share. If you have any ideas that we didn't touch on post them is a project. And, as always, give feedback to your classmates. Thank you so much.