Comic Fury Webcomic Hosting - Worldbuilding

So inspired by the thread on Extra Pages, I've begun working on doing worldbuilding. I started with Wikipedia's page on it, as well as (for me) the related page on a fantasy world.

And then it was Google, and the first thing I found (which I'm still in the middle of filling out. It's loooooooooooooooooooooooooooong, and quite detailed, with several things in there I probably wouldn't have thought of) was this.

Once I've finished doing my research, I'll see about posting good tips which I've figured out from it, along with good tips I found, and maybe show some of my process. But in the mean time (given the subject, this could potentially take a lifetime :P), I was wondering about others.

-How much worldbuilding have you done for your webcomic?
-Any tips which you have found to be useful?
-Do you know of any neat sites (like my above link) and/or articles which could potentially prove helpful to people who are trying to take a stab at worldbuilding?


...Basically...
...Well, a thread devoted entirely to that concept, of Building Your World.

Despite the fact that I rarely actually update that one story comic I do, I have done quite a bit of worldbuilding for it (although, by your scales, it's probably not that much :P)
I find that starting out with some kind of map is ridiculously helpful for thinking of concepts that are important in the world (yes, even non-cartographical ones), although this may have something to do with how much I like maps. So I always start with geography, and expand it from there. History falls out fairly quickly, as does the political situation, and those are pretty important :I

I find worldbuilding one of the most enjoyable aspects of creation. It feels like discovering it myself.
I start with the people, either individual characters or groups, determine how they need to be for the story to work, then work on a world that would have shaped them that way.
Geography and toponymy are my weaknesses. I think I should draw a crude map and at least write [country name] somewhere.

I didn't write Ocean Labyrinth, so I can't speak to that, but yes, I've done a bit of worldbuilding for other concepts I've been working on. The worldbuilding actually came first. I used to DM a D&D campaign and the part I enjoyed the most was creating the campaign world it was based in. Maps, countries, cultures, cities, history, etc. So much fun!

I really start the same way as Dodom. I find that I usually start with an idea of my main character, who he is, what is motivation in the story is...that sort of thing. After that I start building my world around that character.

The main things I focus on are what is the environment like, what would a map of an area look like, how might a typical family unit behave and how is the general society run. After that I work on fleshing out the world more, what is their history, what are some of their struggles, what does the world beyond this locations borders look like.

I feel like world building really helps me take my character down his or her journey because the world is sort of designed to help or hinder that process in some way.

I really do love world building, I always wish there was some way to add more of it into the actual story because there is so much that you think of that can really never be mentioned.

I do enjoy lists of questions for things like character building and world building, they are fun to complete, but in the end that information never seems to impact my story much...though I think that is just my own fault in how I fill it out.

Aside from making up a few details on a particular vital part of Cans of Beans, I just used Southern California as a basis and I didn't have to make up much from that.

On the other hand, I am developing a story (tentatively called Paranoia v. Paranoia) where there is a ton of world-building involved, but I didn't stray too far from what I do know, based on history and political systems from around the world. I don't like to get too involved in world-building, just because it's not something I completely care about. I want it to be credible, sure, but I care more about an engaging story/characters than a really cool world. A really cool world is just the icing on the cake, at least for me.

I see worldbuilding a lot like I see characters. You can have as much backstory as you want, but if the story sucks, nobody is going to care about who the characters are and why they act the way they do. World-building is the same, if the story isn't engaging, why would anyone care about the world this story takes place in?

I can spend years on world building. I'm a pretty meticulous planner and I like to have a lot of depth to worlds I'm working on.

The reason we never get shit done.

Worldcraft, as I call it, has always been an interest of mine. Setting is probably the most intriguing element for me. I love when the setting is filled with the same amount of idiosyncrasy, like the characters. It's like, the events of the plot couldn't happen anywhere else -- the political, historical, and geographical environments have come to this event.

I often look to examples of worldcraft. The best study of fantasy worldcraft that I've been able to do is read the Oz books by L.F. Baum and subsequently read the Wicked Years series by Gregory Maguire -- and I'm not just saying this because I love Wicked. This situation is pretty unique. If you read the Oz books, you provide yourself with the source material Maguire used to revision Oz. So you have the opportunity to see how the basic ideas in L. F. Baum's books are utilized in the worldcraft of another series by a different author.

I find it's important when executing your story to not load it up with your setting. If anybody has played around with Pottermore, you'll find that J.K. Rowling had a lot of background material that didn't make the books. And that's okay. You will have superfluous material. Not everything you conjure up about your world will make it to the audience. You have to know how to filter things out: what helps to flavor your story, what weighs it down?

For me, my worlds tend to be influenced by some kind of source material. I like to use a lot of mythology and social sciences. I have this one extensive world I built one semester using something from the lecture material during every class. (I have no idea what to do with this world though. It's just sitting in my old lecture notes.)

This is is a fun topic. I started with 2 charcters and the rest fell into place as I went, looking back there are some holes - then a timeline ( my main story takes place in 3528 and a friend of mine who is into political sciences did up a timeline ranging from 2007 to 3528, ( he predictied obama would be president ( creeeeeepy ) and the major points.

then the tech timeline - after that the 'world" was pretty simple - planet earth - with some modifications landmasses - changed enviromental factors. I also invited a group of friends to "role-play" in this world working for one of the major citys as "trouble shooters" the world kinda expanded on that.

I do have a map - its no where nearly ready for public as its mostly google earth screenshots with lots of notes.

I decided what medical . general tech ect - technology drove the world and the advances in it.

the main story skeleton is pretty simple and the main charcters arent really exploring. so sometimes things have to be explained as they go. ( sometimes making things a bit wordy ) :D i also added pages to help explain somethings so i didnt have to put so much in - now if i can just get my editor/co creator to make refernces to it woo!

I think it was Writing Excuses with Brandon Sanderson, or something similar, that basically echoed my view.. Don't spend so much time meticulously creating the world that they live in that you fail to write a story that makes it worthwhile.

World building for it's own merit was a problem I got into a lot in the past, especially with D&D type campaigns. However, I ended up feeling that I had to spend so much time on the world building that I barely got to use most of it, because people were waiting for the story that comes out of it, and I never felt it was ready.

With TOGM, the world building was a couple days of thinking about how things would work, and what differences a society made of zombies trying to be human would have... I took the core premise and then tried to come up with the various things that they would need and how they would maintain the order that they've created.

Interesting topic. I'll throw my hat in the thread on tuesday with a lengthy essay about world building. Now, since I don't have the time to write this essay atm, I'll just say: we do quite a lot of that. My authors and I spend more time to write background info than actually writing the comic. And not much of that info finds its way into the story.

Worldcraft. I like that. I started making realms and countries way back when l first started running D&D adventures (lm talking about way back when the red box first came out and figures were still made from lead).

I always began with the place where the adventure took place and expanded from there. As l began work on my comic (which goes live finally tomorrow, july 2nd)
I started with the character. Fleshed him out and started asking all the detailed questions of who he was and where he came from.

After that l focused on the journey and fleshed things out as l was writing the script. The next thing l did was create a D&D adventure based on those details, and ran my friends through it. I got a whole new perspective seeing how they played and reacted to the setting l had created. I have a great bunch of players who really helped me flesh out nooks and crannies l missed.

I try not to go too far beyond what is needed to tell the story. A simple trek through the haunted forest to kill an evil beastie is going to take less back story than solving the murder of a well known political figure.

Thats basically it. I enjoy worldcrafting as much as anyone, and l have a broad stroke rough draft for the world at latge, but l keep it to what l need and can use in the current story.

I dont do extra work for anything that wont be used, so I dont have a world THAT detailed. But I do have a big world playingfield for my comic, so it's been pretty much make-as-I-go and then go back and edit it to make it cohesive.

As Dystopian Sci-fi Action, I had lots of fake science things that I made up in my head using my very unproffessional knowledge of technology and such. But I do have a highly detailed political system (as Dystopia usually do). But for me I tend to use general words for my Proper nouns like "Nation", "Kaiser", "Triumvirates" and such that people are already familiar with. Weird, odd names in fantasy worlds and such always makes me confused and lost. (I had lots of problems reading Harry Potters)

This. The comic I'm doing now is my first serious attempt at making a comic with story/world. There have been so many times during the process of making character backstories, events, and designs that I found things coming together so randomly that I felt like somehow I was discovering it as I brainstormed ideas.

The best example is that I created two characters that were complete foils of each other all by accident. In character design, story, and the way they act. It made sense too based on what happens.

As for the physical geographics of worldbuilding, I haven't got that far. My main character might as well be drawing a map of where hes been and give it to me, thats as much as the world I've charted lol

I pretty much have the general stuff done; geography (and exogeography, since the setting includes the Moon, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter's Galilean moons, and numerous asteroid and artificial colonies), technology, and culture. My method for fleshing out the setting further is basically selecting an aspect of everyday life, considering its implications in the setting's various locales and then running with it.

My hope is that when we finally get to Mars, the readers will experience something of a culture shock after meeting the (relatively) laid-back and consumerist Martians, especially when contrasted with the siege and strength-in-unity mentality of the people of Earth.