What is Worldbuilding in Writing? Examples and Tips for Fiction

Develop your story's setting by learning how worldbuilding works, exploring iconic literary worlds, and reading top advice from two sci-fi and speculative fiction authors

When readers enter an invented world they look for believability, depth, and meaning. Your worldbuilding is key to communicating themes, captivating your audience, and making your book impossible to put down.

So, what is worldbuilding and how can writers advance this skill? Award-winning authors Alberto Chimal and Andrea Chapela offer insights, examples, and practical techniques below.

What does worldbuilding mean?

Putting it simply, worldbuilding is the process of creating an "imaginary world” where your story will happen. That means deciding if the world looks like ours, is a little different, or is completely alien.

The world you build is more than just your story's setting: it’s a place that feels real, and means something to your characters. When you have successfully constructed a world, it becomes the foundation for finding your plot, and selecting which characters offer the strongest perspectives on it.

Worldbuilding is an essential skill for fiction writers, screenwriters, filmmakers, cartoonists, video game creators, or anyone who wants to give depth to fictional worlds. Any medium or genre can benefit from good worldbuilding. However, it’s especially important if you’re writing speculative fiction that is not based in everyday reality.

Luckily, our two professional authors are well-versed in this art. Alberto Chimal (@albertochimal) is one of Mexico’s most prolific authors and has published more than forty books and stories for adults and children. Andrea Chapela (@alcs99) is the author of the fantasy tetralogy Vâudïz and several other books. Both writers work across speculative genres, including sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and magical realism.

The basics: popular worldbuilding techniques and terms

Discover some of the common techniques and terms Andrea and Alberto discuss in their Domestika courses, to help you understand the basics.

- Top-down worldbuilding means starting with the big picture: geography, weather, physics, magic or tech, and long-term history. From there, you draw inwards to find character and plot. Top-down worlds can be super-detailed, but a downside is that this method requires heavy research.

- Bottom-up worldbuilding means starting from a small change. This style works if you have a specific what-if question that you want to apply to the wider world. This style has a more focused scope and is quicker to start, but the world can become imprecise and blurry. You’ll also need to worldbuild as you draft, rather than preparing beforehand.

- The primary world is our one, i.e. Earth. A fictional world might say something thematic about the real, primary world.

- The secondary world is a fictional one: an alien planet, or a completely imagined realm. Science fiction and high fantasy genres usually feature a secondary world.

- A uchronia is a world that is supposedly ours, but at a hypothetical or altered point of time. This can include altered historical events. For example, in his course, Alberto drafts a "Mexafuturista" story which reimagines Mexico without European colonization.

How to start worldbuilding: 8 tips for beginners

Now you've got the basics down, the two authors offer advice for aspiring writers and worldbuilders.

1. Identify the main characteristics and rules of your imaginary world

For Alberto, starting to construct a world means identifying its essential characteristics and internal logic. To do this, ask yourself questions like:

- What will seem familiar or different to the reader?
- How will characters relate to each other?
- Where are the potential plotholes or unclear elements I need to figure out?

As the writer, you need to know more about your world than the reader at first, then construct a story that reveals this world to them in an engaging way.

2. Think about space and time for your story setting

The space (or setting) is where the action takes place, while time is the movement of events and pacing of your story. As Alberto explains, you’ll probably share only a small portion of your world’s history and timeline, so think carefully about what this moment feels like.

3. Draw a map to help visualize your world

This can be especially useful if you’re building a huge, top-down world.

4. Examine how the world aligns with your genre and atmosphere

Match the amount of worldbuilding to the story genre you are writing. Ask yourself, what are the reader expectations for a world in this genre? Consider how your world fits into the atmosphere you want: is it scary, funny, or friendly?

5. Give your characters relatable features

However strange your characters might be—even if they are sentient aliens from another world—give them a human characteristic that the reader relates to. Are they loving? Jealous? Competitive?

6. Remember what excites you most

Never forget the element or aspect of your world that first excited you: come back to this throughout your process to stay motivated.

Creation takes time, Alberto reminds us. Be patient with yourself and your process.

7. Watch out for common worldbuilding issues

Hitting road bumps is an inevitable part of the creative process—but understanding the issues can help you avoid and overcome them. Here are some worldbuilding issues to look out for when you're researching and drafting your story:

- Worldbuilder’s disease is when you end up getting too lost in research, and never start your actual drafting!

- Infodumping happens when you drop a ton of worldbuilding details on the reader in long paragraphs or excessive dialogue that interrupts your story’s pacing. This can easily happen in prologues or the openings of chapters. To avoid this, interweave world details into your action and shorter dialogue.

8. Get inspired by examples of iconic fictional worlbuilding

Alberto and Andrea recommend examining these five literary worlds for inspiration:

- J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth: a uchronia that shows an alternative Earth in the past, inhabited by fantasy beings like hobbits, elves, dwarves, and orcs, perfect for its epic adventure plot.

- Charles Dickens’ England: Dickens wanted to tell specific stories about the pitfalls of the human condition in the Victorian era, and he built London in varying gothic and realistic styles to reflect his character journeys.

- Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea: an archipelago of thousands of islands with Iron Age-era technology. This allows a variety of magics to blossom, including dragons which help to keep a balance between good and evil.

- Gabriel García Márquez’s Macondo: a jungle town where he set multiple stories, getting to know it better each time. One Hundred Years of Solitude is set there, and the town’s fortune is closely tied to the actions of the Buendía family.

- The DC Universe: this superhero world started with Superman in issue one of Action Comics. He was so popular he took the series over and the world grew around him and other superheroes.

Grow your writing skillset with these resources

If you've been inspired to start writing, check out Andrea's full course to write a sci-fi or fantasy short story. Or, focus on developing a fictional world and plot outline with Alberto’s course. Finally, kickstart your creativity and learn more about genre and craft with these additional resources.

- Try these six creative writing tutorials to unlock your imagination.

- Learn more about speculative fiction and its subgenres.

- Define how novels and short stories differ, so you can choose the right medium.