Worldbuilding in Fantasy by Sydney Winward

Worldbuilding in Fantasy

When you are writing a book, particularly a fantasy novel, you could spend hours, weeks, even months (maybe more?) building out your fantasy world to perfection. You want to draw in your readers by creating an immersive world filled with lots of amazing things to discover.

In my opinion, one of the greatest worldbuilding masters is Brandon Sanderson. You’ll never read anything like the ash-filled skies in Mistborn or the highstorms in A Way of Kings.

Brandon Sanderson is a great example of taking a concept that’s completely unique and making it his own.

So What Goes Into Worldbuilding?

Setting

Ah, the setting. This can be one of the trickiest parts of fantasy worldbuilding. Where does the story take place? What’s unique about it? What does it look like? What kind of rules does it have?

In my Sunlight and Shadows series, I have broken apart my worldbuilding in terms of race. Sun Fae, Shadow Fae, Forest Fae, Ocean Fae, and humans. In the Sun Fae kingdom, they draw strength from sunlight, and the world I created for this particular fae race reflects that. The Shadow Fae are nocturnal and feel more comfortable in the darkness. The dangerous creatures in their kingdom reflect night, darkness, and shadow.

Theme

For every series I write, the themes change to reflect the moods of the books. Here are a few of the themes I created for my latest fantasy series.

Sunlight: The sunlight represents hope and finding the sliver of light even in the darkest of places. I draw on this theme in A Breath of Sunlight, centering the book around sunlight and hope.

Shadow: Darkness and shadows can be all-consuming. Deadly. Hopeless. But when you learn to navigate the darkness, it can become your truest ally. This theme is in book 2, A Taste of Shadows.

Music: I use this theme in book 3 of my Sunlight and Shadows series, centering around things unseen. You can’t see music, but you can hear it. You can’t see your emotions, but you can feel them. Music is about healing from your greatest wounds, about finding and accepting what love is given to you.

Colors: This is a big theme in this series. Gold, silver, bronze, black. They all have different meanings within the books and go along with sunlight, shadows, and music.

Characters

Another really important aspect to worldbuilding are the characters you create. Readers will want to be immersed in their culture from how they talk, how they live, and even what they wear. A great example of this is Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive. The women all have a “safe hand”, where in their culture, they have to keep one hand covered while they can reveal the other hand. To reveal their safe hand would be considered inappropriate.

Another great example in his series is that women are scribes while men can’t read.

In romantic fantasy, I love to create a culture and customs centered around marriage. In my Bloodborn series, vampires will present a handkerchief to someone they are interested in courting. If the person gifts a handkerchief back, the courtship begins. And then when they choose a mate, they mate for life.

History

I don’t always see this fleshed out in books, and sometimes you don’t need to explain a whole lot of the history. But it’s definitely something that rounds a book out. What happened in the world’s history that brought it to where it is now? How does it play a part in the characters’ lives? How has it shaped their understanding of life and the everyday choices they make?

When I read fantasy, I love seeing the unique history of that world, and I think it really helps round out the story as a whole.

There is so much that goes into writing fantasy! This is one of the reasons I love reading and writing it. I can make it uniquely my own, and create rules and customs that add depth to the world and characters.

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