Worldbuilding
A few days ago, I posted a worksheet on Character. I wanted to give another quick worksheet on Worldbuilding. These are super simple worksheets that you can use as a brainstorming activity. Or print them out and keep them in a binder with all the other documents about your book, so you don’t forget any key details. Just like last time, I’m going to walk you through the worksheet in this post!
I’m calling the first part of the worksheet Culture Questions. Basically, what is the cultural climate in the story? Is there religion, a history of wars, magic, mythology, social hierarchy, or politics? I made this a yes or no section because if you do decide to have any of these systems in your story, you are going to need to work those out. If your character comes from a war-torn fantasy world OR the story takes place after a major war like World War I, then you might need to brainstorm how that effects things and to what extent.
Next, you should write out where in the world your story takes place. If it’s fictional, like the Leslie Kim Serials, then you would put the fiction place and maybe a few things about it. For my story, I might write:
Kapaton. A fictional planet inhabited by aliens.
If your story takes place in Kenya in 2008, then you might write that. If it is a real place, narrow it down to the city/state/region.
Next, you can decide on what important political figures exist in your story. Maybe it’s the Queen of England. Maybe it’s the fictional Wizard of Oz. If there is an important figurehead then you’ll put their name here.
Before I went any further in the worksheet, I thought it would be helpful to write out if your story is reality or fiction. You might even get specific here and say, “Reality, taking place in 1925.” Or “Alternate Reality, taking place in 2080.” Or “Fictional, taking place in 56 Zortons.” It’s really up to you!
In the next part, you get to give your pen a workout and do some circling. I know it seems mundane to circle out all these settings but I think it can actually help with brainstorming. With Kapaton, I wanted to imagine that it was another planet that also had quite a bit of water and intricate cave systems. If you were writing a story about Superman, your story might take place on another planet and on a farm. Wherever your story takes place, be thinking about the topography of the area as well as the physical buildings around.
Lastly, I think it’s important to pin down what time of year it is. Weather can impact the story quite a bit. If you’re writing about a farm, you want to know when that farmer is planting his wheat. You can’t just randomly decide he’s planting in September without doing some research first. You might not have to have an exact month that it’s starting in, but you will want to know what the weather is like.
and yes, I did realize that I didn’t put the seasons in the correct order. This wasn’t on purpose, but I’m too lazy to go back and reupload the document for a little thing like that.
I hope that this worksheet helps you out!! Good luck with NaNo 2020.
If you’re interested in more free NaNo Resources, like this, I posted a Resource Roundup that I’ll be adding to for the rest of October. You can find that post here.
Review Mythical Investigations and Read It For Free! I’m giving way 20 copies of the first book in the Leslie Kim Serials to reviewers. You can find it in all available formats (ePub, Mobi, and PDF) here!
Book Description
Leslie Kim escaped Earth in the height of it’s takeover from Vampires. He’s left his career as a Bounty Hunter in the past, along with his old flings and bad memories. Now, he’s living on Kapaton, a planet that was discovered after they opened up a black hole to Earth and invaded. The Vampires discovered that they could go outside during the day in the new world, and Leslie found himself a new gig as a Private Investigator.
He’s living out of a rusted old camping ship that he modified for intergalactic travel and trying to break out of old routines by dating a Vampire. Until a once-believed mythical creature is unleashed on the Kapatonian population and his first customer wants him to find her missing husband, Leslie was living a relaxed lifestyle. Now, he’s tangled up in both problems and he’s starting to worry that he won’t solve either.
This Science Fiction/Mystery cross-over is action packed, fast paced, and full of Grootslang sized problems. Join the adventure as Leslie Kim juggles cases, Alien governments, and relationships, with only the aid of his unsympathetic AI, Frank.
Read Mythical Investigations for FREE. Why do I want reviews? Reviews will help readers to find The Leslie Kim Serials! It’s worth it for me to do promotions like this so that more people find this fast-paced, fun story. I hope you enjoy reading it!
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