Writing help

How to create interesting world building

1. Choose your details.
There is beauty in deep, convoluted and realistic history for your fictional universe – it helps you to write deep characters, deep politics, complex cultures, and it gives you plenty of fodder for foreshadowing and mirroring. But. But it's not all necessary for the readers to know. No matter how much vital information you have (and it will probably all feel vital), with careful consideration and a pinch of brutality, you'll be able to pare away the non-vital details. Only include and share the information that

• involves the main characters or their culture
• has bearing on the conflict or message of the story
• answers a question your readers are probably asking already

2. Choose your moments.
There are times and places to share this information you've so carefully selected, and it's never in the heat of battle or while your characters are running from a giant monster. Find little moments between big events to teach your readers about your world – never at a moment that would distract the reader from the Actual Conflict Occurring Right Now (the ACORN). I just made that up and it's stupid but I'm proud of it.

3. Choose the messenger.
One of the best ways to bore your readers with more and more infodumping? Just have the same person reveal world information. every. time. Seriously, never in my real life have I learned everything I ever knew about real history from one teacher or one wise adult. Information comes from hundreds of sources, and everyone hears different things – and has different opinions about this varying information. Some people hear lies and believe them, so your protagonist may get misinformed a time or two. Some people just don't know what caused a certain war or what happened to that mystical hero of lore after the battle of Giggledyboop. And no way in hell does one wise person take the time to sit down with your protagonist and go over... everything that happened in the past few centuries. It just doesn't happen.