Worldbuilding

Not to be confused with Terraforming, manipulating a planet to make it habitable to Earth lifeforms.
For other uses, see World Building.

Worldbuilding is the process of constructing an imaginary world or setting, sometimes associated with a fictional universe.[1] Developing the world with coherent qualities such as a history, geography, culture and ecology is a key task for many science fiction or fantasy writers.[2] Worldbuilding often involves the creation of geography, a backstory, flora, fauna, inhabitants, technology and often if writing speculative fiction, different peoples. This may include social customs as well as invented languages (often called conlangs) for the world.[3][4][5][6]: PT103 

The world could encompass different planets spanning vast distances of space or be limited in scope to a single small village.[6]: 104  Worldbuilding exists in novels, tabletop role-playing games, and visual media such as films, video games and comics.[7][8][9][10][11] Prior to 1900, most worldbuilding was conducted by novelists, who could leave imagination of the fictional setting in part to the reader.[6]: 106  Some authors of fiction set multiple works in the same world. This is known as a fictional universe.[12] For example, science fiction writer Jack Vance set a number of his novels in the Gaean Reach, a fictional region of space.[8] A fictional universe with works by multiple authors is known as a shared world. One notable example of such is the Star Wars Expanded Universe.[13]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference hamilton2009 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Stableford, Brian M. (2004). Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction Literature. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 0-8108-4938-0. OCLC 54416073.
  3. ^ Hergenrader, Trent (2019). Collaborative Worldbuilding for Writers and Gamers. London, UK. ISBN 978-1-350-01666-8. OCLC 1009182095.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  4. ^ Wolf, Mark J. P. (2020). World-builders on World-building: An Exploration of Subcreation. New York, NY. ISBN 978-0-429-24286-1. OCLC 1151513107.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  5. ^ Lawrence, Kelly (2014). Building Your Story: A Guide to Structure and Plot. Ropley. ISBN 978-1-78279-607-7. OCLC 883432427.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  6. ^ a b c Wolf, Mark J. P. (2018). The Routledge Companion to Imaginary Worlds. New York. ISBN 978-1-317-26828-4. OCLC 1004848638.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  7. ^ Gavins, Joanna; Lahey, Ernestine (2016). World Building: Discourse in the Mind. London. ISBN 978-1-4725-8655-1. OCLC 950613576.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  8. ^ a b Wolf, Mark J. P. (2012). Building Imaginary Worlds: The Theory and History of Subcreation. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis. ISBN 978-1-136-22081-4. OCLC 851971993.
  9. ^ Johnson, Derek (2013). Media Franchising: Creative License and Collaboration in the Culture Industries. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-4349-2. OCLC 830164533.
  10. ^ Letizia, Angelo (2020). Graphic Novels as Pedagogy in Social Studies: How to Draw Citizenship. Cham, Switzerland. ISBN 978-3-030-44252-1. OCLC 1153082894.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  11. ^ Paterson, Eddie; Simpson-Williams, Timothy; Cordner, Will (2020). Once Upon a Pixel: Storytelling and Worldbuilding in Video Games. Boca Raton, FL. ISBN 978-1-351-01427-4. OCLC 1127387835.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  12. ^ Brooker, Joseph (2020). Jonathan Lethem and the Galaxy of Writing. London. ISBN 978-1-350-00376-7. OCLC 1089274366.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  13. ^ Prucher, Jeff (2007). Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-989140-5. OCLC 608415902.