Scribes & Archers

I recently discovered the existence of a couple of worldbuilding books I hadn’t previously come across in my searching, to my mingled dismay (that I had managed to miss them) and delight (that there are actually more authors writing about this topic). One was a series, and its collected volumes are huge, so it’s on the list to get later, but one was a reasonable impulse-buy price so I grabbed it, so here I am today with a review of World-Building for Writers!

What is World-Building for Writers about?

You Can Build A World

For many authors, there’s nothing that slows down their writing process more than world-building. Whether it’s deciding on what types of fantastic beasts to include in their stories or how to name characters and locations convincingly H.C. Harrington, Amazon Best-Selling Author of the Daughter of Havenglade Series, explains step-by-step how to create deep and engrossing worlds while saving time.

World-Building For Writers breaks down hundreds of examples of effective world-building from novels, films, and television to demystify the process, make it enjoyable, and help readers unleash the inner voice they never knew they had for creating worlds.

Prepare to enter the realm of your own imagination.

“In your hand is a map of creative imagination, good habits, and practical examples to ensure that you build a world that’s fun and functional, that births heroes, cultivates epic tales, and inspires awe in readers.”-Dustin Porta, author of The Dragon’s Hide

Review

Let me get the negatives out of the way first, most of which are fairly minor or specific to me and those of you who share similar priorities (as evidenced by the fact that I only docked half a star).

First, this book is split into two sections… except not really. The author talks about how he’s covering things in brief in the first half and will go deeper in the second half, to serve both writers who want to do bare bones worldbuilding and those who want to build deeper worlds. That’s all well and good, except there is no dividing line, so it’s a little confusing when he starts revisiting the same topics he already covered, and I would have liked for the chapters in the second half to have not only covered different and deeper details than their first half counterparts, but also to have been longer and more in-depth overall, which they were not.

This brings me to my second gripe, which is just that I don’t understand how or why all authors who write about worldbuilding seem to keep all of their chapters to 3-10 pages. The topic is worldbuilding, which is vast and varied and deep, and such brief chapters can only scratch the tiniest bit of the surface. When chapters are that short, it’s no wonder that the authors only explore very limited options and perspectives on a given sub-topic! If you’re looking for a book that will start to hint at some of the variety of options for founding and developing an element of your world, my advice is to look for a worldbuilding book with longer chapters.

For Christian readers, I would warn that the author is not Christian, so some of his examples reflect a secular worldview and his assessments of some Christian-authored stories–such as Lord of the Rings–often lack depth. There is also one use of “s***” used in a literal context in one of the excerpts he includes. His segment on potential foundations for magic systems is also very narrow in its scope and mostly covers options that many Christian authors may be uncomfortable with.

With all of that said, this is possibly the best worldbuilding book I’ve read so far in terms of covering foundational elements accurately, drawing in relevant examples, and discussing worldbuilding from a clear love for and understanding of the craft. It is also excellent at highlighting the connection between worldbuilding and other aspects of storytelling such as character and theme and touching on how one might tie these aspects together well; the author clearly understands the integral connection that should exist between a world and its story, and it was great to see that emphasized and encouraged in this book.

There are elements left out that I might include (notably, cultural worldview), and I do wish that the whole thing were less snappy because of the topic, but this is a solid worldbuilding resource to have on the shelf as a speculative fiction author.

Rating: 4.5 stars

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