The Worldbuilder Diaries: Organizing Ideas and Concepts

The Worldbuilder Diaries is a blog series intended to illustrate how I go about the process of worldbuilding for my fantasy and science-fiction novels. What works for me may not be ideal for another writer, but I will try to include alternatives for the processes outlined if they are available and/or relevant.

As an organizer at heart, it made sense to me to begin with that aspect in mind. How do I keep track of the various elements involved in each book’s world? And how do I decide which pieces are added to the story, versus saved for later or never included? (I’m just discussing the major elements of worldbuilding in this post; I’ll talk about character-specific items later.)

Organizing Your Ideas

I’m a fan of notebooks, though some of my worldbuilding adventures have graduated to binders. I try to contain like elements within marked sections for easy reference later. For example, all of the details pertaining to a nation’s specific laws and governance will be in one section, while another will focus on major events in its history.

I write down ideas as they come to me. It might be at some point well before I start writing the novel itself, or it might be while I’m knee-deep in the drafting stage. For me, ideas often come at random, which is partially why I like to use a paper-based system. Notebooks are easy to transport and don’t require a power cord—and I can’t take my laptop with me everywhere (like my scuba vacations. That seems like a very bad idea.)

The other reason why I like a paper-based system is that I detest having to switch to another program or tab while I’m in the middle of writing just to look up some detail I wrote down months or sometimes years ago. But I can grab a notebook from the corner of my desk and flip through it without minimizing my writing window. (This is 100% a quirk of my personality, and I’m very much aware of that. And yes, I do almost all of my drafting, revising, and editing on my laptop.)

I use stick on tabs for different sections and label them as they’re added. I also color-code some elements within a section to highlight importance. I use different colored pens, but a highlighter can work just as well.

There are some programs and apps available for worldbuilding, if that’s more to your preference. I haven’t tried most of these myself, since it doesn’t fit with my system, but I’ve seen them recommended enough by others to share the links here:

• Scrivener: While I have dabbled with this program and it has a lot of features that many writers love, the layout does not work for me personally. But you can use the program to keep track of your worldbuilding in addition to your story writing if it appeals to you. (I use Scrivener for the sole purpose of formatting and creating epub files.) Scrivener requires a one-time purchase, but offers a free 30-day trial.
• Plottr: This is a tool for plotting and outlining, but it does have ways of tracking characters and places, as well as adding in notes. It requires a subscription, but offers a free 60-day trial.
• Plot Factory: A worldbuilding and writing app (I believe it’s web-based, since it doesn’t require a download.) There is a free version, though it has very limited features.
• Novel Factory: Very similar to Plot Factory, but this one requires a download. It has a free 30-day trial, then is subscription-based afterwards.

No matter how you end up organizing your worldbuilding elements, I believe that making it easy to refer back to something is key. No one wants to spend hours sifting through notes for that one tiny detail they know they wrote down, but can’t remember where that was.

Speaking from experience, having organized notes helps tremendously when writing later books in a series, when rewriting from scratch (as I’ve done for The Relics of War trilogy), or when working on related stories. I’ve always believed consistency is important in worldbuilding (and trust me, if fans of your books find an inconsistency within your lore, you’ll hear about it.)

Determining Which Elements to Include

This is ultimately only something you and your editor(s) can decide.

My main piece of advice is to make sure any detail you include is relevant to the story in some way. For example, does the reader need to know the entire history of a kingdom in this scene? Or can you omit most of its back story, since the focus is only on a specific point in time?

But there is a balance that needs to be maintained. Give the reader enough to make your world feel real and lived-in, but don’t overload them with minutia. What that balance looks like for your book may be different than mine. Your intended audience, your goals—are you writing to market? Looking for an agent? Going indie?—and your storyline all contribute to what you may want to include or omit.

You can always save your unused bits of worldbuilding for a later book, a related series set in the same world, or as bonus content to share with your fanbase. (Some readers love getting “exclusive” bits of lore that were never included in a book—if you have a newsletter, sharing extras there may be a good idea.)

I have a whole list of topics I’m planning to cover in The Worldbuilder Diaries (you can see the list here: The Worldbuilder Diaries). I hope you enjoyed this one, and maybe even found some of it helpful.