DIY Story-World Building

World Building is when you create a world for your story to take place in. It adds a layer of realism that helps pull the reader in and keeps them there. A good world can help with subplots, plot twists, and is an interesting back drop. If you have a weak plot idea, it can be revived with a strong world that throws lots of challenges at the main character. A world can help shape a bland, boring character into a many-layered, well-developed one. However, a good world shouldn't draw the attention away from the story, it should blend seamlessly, or as close to seamlessly as you can make it, into the story. I would suggest only doing world-building for the story if you don't yet have it quite figured out, or when you're revising the story, because other wise it's rather confusing.

Here are some things that you can do to create your world:

- Draw a map of your world. Political borders and landforms are good. 

An example:

(I did not create this map nor do I own it)

- Figure out who rules which countries. Do they have a king? An emperor? A Council? Or an elected president? Are they a tyrant? What kind of laws do they have? Why? Are they obeyed? What happens if you don't obey the laws?

- Start figuring out the relations between countries, exports the countries have, and the climates. If there is a country with lots of exports next to a country that has good trade access, they will probably have allegiance of some sort. Is it a good, strong one or an unstable one? (If it's an unstable one, that's a good sub-plot that could be used to give more depth to your story.)

Warrior in a cold climate clothing

- Write out a rough history for the world. If you have decided two countries are enemies, why are they enemies? What happened? If two countries are allies, were they always allies? If not how did they become allies?

- What kind of clothes do they wear? Why? Do they wear different clothes according to class? Do they have some sort of symbolic significance, if so why? How does the climate effect what kind of clothes they wear? 

- What kind of feastivls are there? Do they celebrate birthdays? Do they have some sort of marriage ceremony? Do they celebrate spring or fall? What do they think about courting?

- Write some idioms, sayings and common beliefs. Some slang, swear words and other terms make it feel very much more real.

(I did not create this nor do I own it.)

- What kind of plants grow there? How does the climate effect them? Do they grow fruits of some sort? What kind of animals are there? Design a food chain.  

- What do the people who inhabit the world look like? What color hair do they have? Do they have any powers or things they are good at? Are there a lot of them? Do they get discriminated against?

- If there is magic in the world, are there rules/laws about it? How does it work? Are there schools on learning magic, or is it just something that comes naturally to someone?

Hogwarts, the most famous School Of Magic

- Indigo