Creating your own imaginary world doesn't have to be difficult - you can make your world as detailed as you want. The trick is to add just enough detail to make your story believable!
Many people think of "world building" as something that only Science Fiction and fantasy writers use - but you create a world every time you invent a setting for your characters! Your world can be as simple as one room in a house, or as detailed as an entire galaxy.
There are some Excellent links below with tons of information for those of you wanting to do some really detailed world building.
Here are some basic things you should think about when creating a world for your stories or books:
- How much information do you need? The reader does not need to know that Akpok is the fifth planet from a double star if you are just writing a conversation between two people trying to decide what to eat for dinner! Just give the reader enough information to picture that one scene effectively.
- How much information do you need Part 2 - on the other hand, whatever you as the author need in order to describe that scene effectively is enough information. You just don't include all that you know in your scenes! Save some tidbits for your website, or extra material for your glossaries.
- How far out should I go? If your stories are (or could be) set in the "real world," then you're probably safe to just describe a typical Earth setting - an apartment, a railway station, the beach. If your story revolves around something being totally different from Earth, you're going to need to do a bit of world building and describe those differences effectively.
