Worldbuilding is a sizable undertaking, and it can be hard to know where to start. What’s important to know? How much do you need to know? What’s the best method to use? For only $27, this course will help you with all of that. You’ll learn:
- What makes worldbuilding immersive
- What details are important to focus on
- What worldbuilding method works best for you and your project
- and how to keep your worldbuilding organized so you can always find your notes.
Sound cool? Check it out!
The Worldbuilding Toolbox is my “starter kit” worldbuilding course. It focuses on what makes worldbuilding effective, the core skills that underlie the process, and methods for organizing your world’s information so you can make practical use of it when writing. It’s designed to help you find and fill in the areas where the foundation of your world–and your worldbuilding system–is weak, so that you can develop a world that you love, that supports your story, and that gives your readers more than just a pretty backdrop.
“Why should I listen to you?”
I’ve spent years reading writing blogs and craft books, working my way through courses, attending webinars, and watching videos about writing and worldbuilding.
What I’ve found is that very few authors take or share a systematic approach to worldbuilding. Worldbuilding content online isolates whatever aspect of a world it covers and rarely even mentions how those interact with the other elements of a world. And no one teaches you what a world should accomplish for your book, what to focus on in order to best accomplish that purpose, or how to make your world yours.
Which is why, when I figured these things out from reading, writing, and a lot of trial-and-error, I decided to put my findings into a course that I could offer to other authors like me. In The Worldbuilding Toolbox, I’ll teach you how to shape the purpose of your world, how to build according to that purpose, and how to ensure that your world is intrinsically interwoven with your story, your characters, and you as the author.
No one else offers a “basics of worldbuilding” type of course using this approach, and certainly not at this price. If building a cohesive, systematic, and unique world appeals to you and you want a straightforward breakdown of how to start, The Worldbuilding Toolbox is the resource you need.
“How will the Toolbox help me?”
The Worldbuilding Toolbox is designed to help authors facing a variety of writing struggles.
Most obviously, I have sections that answer the questions “How do I know if my worldbuilding is any good? What is the secret to ‘good’ worldbuilding?” and “How do I organize all of the information about my world?”
But the course goes deeper than that. The Worldbuilding Toolbox is designed to help you build worlds around things that are important to you. If you’ve been struggling with the feeling that your worlds are lackluster, generic, or boring, this might be just the key you’re looking for! (I can certainly say that it was for me.)
The Worldbuilding Toolbox is designed to help you shape a worldbuilding process that works for you and your project. If trying to follow the worldbuilding steps and advice from other authors feels like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, come find out how much flexibility there can be in building an effective world–and worldbuilding system! (Did you know that you can build a world that feels deep and detailed to your readers without sinking a ton of time into extensive development of aspects that aren’t deeply relevant to the story? There is a middle ground between thorough depth and bare sketch, and I can help you find it!)
If you just want to explore worldbuilding, there’s something here for you, too! Besides worldbuilding prompts and visual inspiration, the Worldbuilding Toolbox also looks at a few different ways you can approach the worldbuilding process–whether you want to start big-picture, expand from the details, or build your world through prose as opposed to basic notes!
And these principles don’t just apply to one genre, either. These worldbuilding tools and principles can be carried across fantasy, sci-fi, dystopia–even smaller-scale settings like the fictionalized towns you might find in contemporary or historical fiction. I use a lot of fantasy examples because that’s what I write, but any setting can be given more depth and more cohesion with these principles, and any worldbuilding process can be more closely aligned with what works for you as the author–no matter what kind of world you’re shaping for your characters.
“What do students say?”
Helpful and informative
Kristianne Hassman, historical fiction & fantasy author
Made me think
Libby Powell, sci-fi author & journalist