It Takes a Village: Worldbuilding, Pt 2

Lesson #4 | From Fantasies to Futures: Lessons from Speculative Fiction

Art by Mariam Chagelishvili

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Welcome back! Last time we talked about worldbuilding by changing aspects of nature: climate, flora, fauna, humanoids, space-time, etc. But some stories need a little bit more than a strange landscape and magical creatures. Some (okay, a lot) of stories also need people. 

As people (human and other sapient species included, of course), we are intelligent, social creatures. We are able to adapt to our environment and pass our knowledge down across generations. And all those behaviors are ripe for worldbuilding material! Keeping that iceberg model in the back of your mind (the audience only sees 10%!), let’s go into worldbuilding aspects you can use to create fictional societies.

Upgrade below to worldbuild so hard. No pressure though, our next free lesson will publish on Monday, December 16.