Creatures Of The Earth

When you're thinking about a creature, you have to think, what do you want this creature to do? How important is it to your story? Is it a domestic or wild animal? Why do you want this creature to be in your story? You must think of these questions when you create a creature. You can take inspiration from real life to help you as well! Many people, when making films and shows that have fantasy creatures, combine traits of different animals. For example, the Ikrans from Avatar were most likely inspired by dragons and birds of prey to give them their appearances and behavior. In many dinosaur documentaries, designers take inspiration from real-life animals.

Inspiration From Nature

 For example, in Dinosaur Revolution, they created a Temmick’s tragopan-inspired Gigantoraptor. And in the prehistoric planet, the male dreadnoughts' air sacs were most likely inspired by male sage grouse’s mating display. When people first illustrated animals, they were not quite good at it for example, the first illustration of a giraffe was quite… odd-looking to say the least. Not many people had seen a giraffe, so when it was drawn, they took the description of it quite…literally.

credit: Johothan Pointer on Youtube

Credit: Creative Diffrences

Open Your Imagination

But when you're trying to make your own creature, you have to be creative with it! Throw some things together to make it much more interesting. Let's say, for example, you wanna make a dragon that is gonna be the antagonist of your story. We can make him as big as a house with four legs and two wings, and he breathes fire. This is a standard description of a dragon and if you imagine him, he looks quite plain, so let’s make him more interesting. We could say he has long horns that curl back like a goat and that he has a row of spikes from his head to the end of his tail. His scales could be described as a mix of dark reds and orange, like a melted sunset, and his wings are golden like a fading sunset. Now he sounds much better and more interesting. It’s important to be descriptive with details so that the reader has something to imagine. You could also combine creatures to make something completely new, such as combining a bat with a hyena to make a creature that lurks in dungeons and seems intimidating, but in reality, is quite shy towards others. You must have fun when you think about making a new creature

Importance To The World

You also have to remember how the creatures are important to the world of your story. What is the effect that the creatures have on the world? What about the world affects them? Maybe your creature is a companion who provides comedic relief to the story and companionship to your characters. Small moments when the story interacts with the creatures make the world seem much more alive and fun! Having some creatures who play an important part in a culture is also another way you could connect them to your world. For example, one show named Mia and Me had unicorns, which were very significant to the story and world. They were important to the world since they used their magic to keep the plants alive and the land fertile. It is shown that without them doing this, the land withers and dies. This small detail becomes very important to the story since the main conflict of the show is the unicorns being hunted and taken away, and the heroes of the show must fight to defend them

Another media example is once again Avatar, the Na'vi use many creatures as transport, and quite a few are important to their culture, such as Ikrans, Direhorses, Great Leonopteryx, Ilu, Tsurak and Tulkun. Ikran and Direhorses are common mounts that help the Navi to travel quickly and reach places they couldn’t on foot. The Tulkun and Great Leonopteryx are a bit more spiritual to the culture of Navi. The Tulkun can communicate and form deep emotional bonds with the Navi, becoming part of their family, and the Great Leonoptryx is seen as a hero and uniter of people.

Credit: Disney

Credit: Disney

 Having creatures that play a huge or small part in your world makes it seem much more vibrant and alive, or gives your story wonder and Majesty. Something that makes your readers want to read everything about your story. So go outside, read a book, watch a show! Find something that inspires you and then use it to make something absolutely wonderful

How Food Can Kickstart Worldbuilding

So, what is worldbuilding?

Think of some of your favourite fictional worlds. What made them so immersive? You probably can’t put your finger on one thing. Rather, it’s everything in the world working together, making it believable. Every detail knits together to strengthen the narrative and suspend disbelief, to whisk your audience away to a land of make-believe of your creation. That is worldbuilding. Through these posts, we here at Brick by Brick aim to give you the tools to create immersive worlds of your own—regardless of experience.  

The spice must flow

One place you may wish to begin worldbuilding is with one of society's foundations: food. We all must eat. Food gives us insight into not only a character’s preferences, but also their geography, culture, and status. The agricultural revolution changed the way humans live and function forever, taking us from wandering nomadic tribes to settled peoples with growing cities.  

Not only should you think of what you want your society to eat, but also how they get the food in the first place. This can help inform how your society is structured from top to bottom. Try asking yourself some of the following questions to begin thinking about your world’s food source: 

• What kind of plants and animals are native to your world? 

• Is agriculture/farming the norm?  

• If not, perhaps fishing, hunting, gathering, or pillaging? How might these alter how people interact with one another? 

• Does your society trade for food? Who trades, and what? 

• Who in your society works to acquire food? 

• Are animals domesticated? If so, how are they fed and sheltered? 

• Does seasonality affect food? What is the climate like? 

• How long does it take to grow or acquire food? Is it scarce? 

• Does your world have access to spices or seasonings? Who gets them? 

Shaken, or stirred?

photo courtesy of Hayao Miyazaki, spirited away, 2001.

Once you have a grasp on how the food is harvested, you can begin looking at how it’s consumed—and by whom. Social status plays a part in who has access to what in our real world and will very likely be the case for any world you create as well. Not only the availability of ingredients, but also their preparation depends on the social status of whoever’s eating it. Some foods may be considered more ‘common’ than others—meaning that even if someone has the means to make something, they may not because of the status associated with it. Here are some more questions to consider: 

• What is the most/least common food in your world? 

• How visible are the different classes of society (i.e., can someone know what class you are from the way you look)? 

• How important are status symbols in your society? 

• How is the food eaten? Are plates and cutlery used? Are they used by everyone? 

• Who prepares the food? Do some households have staff to do their work? 

• Do holidays/religious ceremonies/celebrations affect what food is eaten? How might those outside these events be affected? 

• What happens with food waste? 

• How might recipes be shared? 

Answering these questions will tell you a lot more about your society than its food consumption. From this, you can develop a basic outline of the social structures in your world and the roles that might need filling. It will also help with geography as you work to pinpoint food sources and how a society might grow around them.  

Final food for thought

Food plays a much bigger role in your world than you might realize. If you think about the role food plays in your life, you can appreciate how it might have the power to unify or divide, to recall a time and place from long ago, or remind you who you are and where you come from. By examining the logistics of food—the where, why, who, and how—you can create a snapshot of both the world and the people inhabiting it as well as how they interact. By asking what some might consider the more tedious questions, you can learn the lay of the land—literally—and begin building a world worthy of getting lost in. 

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Melanie Pledger is a second-year student of Professional Writing at Algonquin College in Ottawa, Ontario. She is published in Heritage Matters magazine and has done extensive research on local soldiers from her hometown, Owen Sound, where she created a museum exhibit in 2015. Melanie received the Lieutenant Governor’s Ontario Heritage Award for Youth Achievement the same year. Melanie lives on the water where she enjoys swimming and paddle boarding—weather permitting, of course.

Building a Better World for Our Human Senses

What are the ingredients for building a world where readers want to spend their time? Readers want to feel like they are part of the experience, and this immersive quality requires connecting with our five human senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. These senses are how people gather information about the world around them, regardless of their social status or background, so connecting with this common currency of basic human perception is fundamental to building effective worlds which draw readers in and compel them to enter a story and its characters.

Sights might include colours, textures, backgrounds, plants, or animals. What would readers see if they were transported to a place and experiencing the world from a first-person point of view? Which elements would stand-out and capture readers’ attention? Movement is a crucial aspect of visual perception because movement implies transformation, and attention moves towards transformation and change.

Hearing might include sounds, music, language, words, and tone. These are all crucial elements of how readers understand the worlds and stories they choose to immerse themselves in. Sound can be at the forefront good storytelling when dialogue is propelling a story forward, creating conflict or covenants between characters, but sound can also be in the background, adding to the visual element and creating atmosphere.

Smell, according to neuroscience research, is a sense which connects directly to the emotional part of our brain, bypassing the executive control centre. Smells come in many different forms and can influence human decision-making by triggering aversion or desire. In world building, smells add to the emotional resonance of readers’ perspective and a feeling of being there with all their sensory awareness.

Taste transports readers to the pleasures of a hearty meal or the bitterness of something foul. Taste is an internal sense which only the taster can experience, so adding to the sights, sounds, and smells of our created environment, flavors pull readers even more deeply into our world and its denizens.

Touch is the realm of sensual pleasure and physical pain, two of the most powerful forces shaping life. Desire and aversion are engines which move stories forward, creating conflict, tension, or love between the denizens of our created worlds. Adding touch to our already rich array of sensory descriptions is adding something personal for our readers, like readers could reach out their arms and feel what it’s like to be in a story, touching a soft piece of moss, or another person.

Sensory awareness is at the heart of what Martin Heidegger called thrownness, the experience of each individual human being thrown into the world. Heidegger’s view fits with modern research in cognitive science (see Donald Hoffman, David Chalmers) which posits consciousness as the true starting point for a theory of everything. It’s hard to argue with this perspective when one stops to consider its origin. The scientific method is built on making observations, and sensory awareness is what allows humans to observe the world around them. All human knowledge begins with our five senses.

The same goes for world building when it focusses on pulling readers into our creations and keeping them engaged. Just like real life experiences which engage our five senses, pulling us more deeply into awareness of the present moment, successful world building means engaging with our readers’ senses by describing what it would be like to be part of our world, using all the sights, sounds, smells, flavors, and tactile experiences of that reality. Our goal, as writers, is building worlds which readers want to inhabit.

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Ryan is a writer who spends much of his free time reading; he especially enjoys philosophy and understanding the link between technology, mind, and culture. He teaches yoga and enjoys being physically active. Ryan has a degree in psychology and is working towards a diploma in professional writing. Ryan recently became a father for the first time.

Where Am I (And When)?

One of the most important steps in worldbuilding is determining what time and where the story is taking place. Is your story set in an old western town? Does this town hide a dark secret; one that all of the residents seem to know, but won’t dare speak? Or is it next to a booming gold mine that’s overrun with bandits constantly trying to steal from it? What about a seaside kingdom in the 1300s? Do the prim and proper nobles have large properties by the water? Or is that where the poor fishermen live in cramped stilt-houses? It’s necessary to think about details when you’re deciding when and where to set your story.

What Time Is It?

Let’s go over time periods first. As I’m sure any author that has written any work of historical fiction will tell you, nailing the time period can be quite difficult. Even if you do a ton of research, there are often gaps in historical records, and the farther back you go, the less information you have. Of course, perfection isn’t a requirement, even if you’re going for realism. If you have a compelling plot and characters, any historical inaccuracies—unless they’re very obvious, like an Ancient Egyptian having a cellphone—can mostly be ignored by your readers.

Genres like fantasy and sci-fi have a bit more wiggle room in terms of time periods and timelines. A lot of historical fantasy books in particular like to set their stories in some vague period during medieval times, often with some mixed influences from other eras as well. However, most people don’t really care, as any real historical accuracy goes out the window the moment you have dragons flying around. Sci-fi tends to be even more loose than historical fantasy, since usually sci-fi stories are more “what-if” scenarios, which can be anything you imagine it to be.

Location, Location, Location

One of the most important parts of story and world building is the setting. The story’s setting can immediately tell the reader a lot about what type of tale they’re in for and gives them an idea of what your world is going to be like. Setting can also serve as a good introduction for your characters. A good example is the start of The Killing Floor by Lee Child, which opens on the main character, Jack Reacher, sitting in a small-town café. The, at first, seemingly mundane atmosphere helps introduce the reader into the world and mind of Jack, firmly grounding the audience before the story starts to ramp up with action.

Similarly, you can also use characters to flesh out a location. Imagine for a moment that you go to a museum that has a ton of perfectly preserved artifacts, beautiful paintings, amazing statues, etc., but you just sit and play on your phone the whole time that you’re there. Are you going to remember any of the fantastic displays that the museum had? Probably not, right?  The same thing happens with characters and setting. You can describe a place in as much detail as you want, but if a character just stands and does nothing, it’s likely not going to leave much of an impact on the reader. If you’re struggling to add detail to a place, a good way to help with that it to imagine a character in that place. What can they do? What do they see? How do they feel?

Consistency

Whether you’re determining where the story is taking place, or when, the most important thing is being consistent. There are exceptions, such as a time travelling story, but your reader still needs to have a sense of where and when the characters are supposed to be, otherwise they just get confused. For example, The Witcher TV show has a storyline that jumps between the past, present, and future, but the show cleverly uses the character of Jaskier, or Dandelion, as a marker for when scenes are happening in the present, helping the audience to follow along with the winding tale.

Some authors draw maps of their worlds so that they, and the audience, can remember where everything is. This is strictly necessary, but you should still have some sense of how far one place in your world is to another, if climates are different in certain areas, etc. You don’t want to say that a town is the mountains to the north, only to later say that that same town is in the middle of a jungle. Similarly, if you say that the old saloon is the town hotel and bar, if the characters pass through that same town again, it shouldn’t now only be a bar. You never want to leave your audience wondering where the characters are supposed to be.

But, no matter what type of story you’re writing, you should ask yourself: What kind of technology does my world have? What clothing do they wear? What’s their architecture like? These are just some of the many important things to consider when trying to establish when and where your story is taking place

Casey Simpson

Casey Simpson is a college student and writer living in Ottawa, Ontario. Initially, Casey wanted to be an animator, earning a diploma in Drawing Foundations - Animation & Illustration at Algonquin College in 2022, before deciding to pursue their life-long love of writing in higher education, returning to the same institution to take the Professional Writing course, which they are graduating from in 2026. They started out writing short stories, then later shifted to writing for newspapers, journals, and websites. They have a variety of works—from dark tales plagued with tragedy, to fun, punchy blog posts.

A Guide to Worlds Without Clutter

When it comes to worldbuilding, some people make the mistake of believing that more details equate to a richer world. In reality, that’s not quite the case. It can dampen the reading experience by bloating the story with underdeveloped ideas. Plus, certain genres don’t require extensive worldbuilding. 

Now, you might be wondering what exactly counts as unnecessary detail? Anything that doesn’t contribute to the world counts. 

Cool Doesn’t Mean Cohesive

A story I once read had a magical, multicoloured flower introduced, but because of its lack of importance in the overall plot (it wasn't mentioned a second time), it felt unnecessary. There were already other elements to demonstrate that the story was magical. The flower itself brought no impact on the world.

It didn’t need to directly impact the plot, but what if the flower was part of the ecosystem meaningfully? What if its powers were used to sustain society, and its disappearance could cause consequences?

This is like referencing other media in your world, such as Greek mythology. Unless Greek mythos was always intended, adding random myths and lore from Greek mythologies comes off as uninspired.  

For instance, adding Cerberus as a creature characters have to fight, despite being in a world where monsters barely exist.  

Namesakes, on the other hand, can be interesting. A sci-fi robot with three heads can be called Cerberus or Hydra, and people’s knowledge of those names will help fill in the gaps. 

Mind-Numbing Logistics

Contrived details are another type of clutter in worldbuilding. These can range from how the planet tilts on its axis, to the calendar, to the phases of the moon, and to the exact temperature certain regions may have.  

These are neat details that, unless significant in how it shapes the world, are unnecessary. A lot of new writers make the mistake of adding things to their world because they find it fun and not because it fits.  

This seems to come from these authors being really invested in their worlds. They fill every country with details, religions, cultures… But once it gets to the writing process, their attachment to those details prevents them from streamlining what the reader needs to know. 

Learning what to prioritize is as essential as writing itself. You might think that, if everything’s consistent, then why not add more details to make sure others know about your extensive knowledge of the world? That’s because more often than not, no one’s going to care as much about this world as you.  

This ties back to “kill your darlings,” a saying often heard on the internet. It doesn’t mean getting rid of everything, but it means you don’t need to show the skeleton of your story.  

All those details you like about your world can be kept in a separate document, so if you ever want to make a second story set in the same world, you’ll have something to refer to. 

Details Depend on Genre

That being said, the expansion of a world strongly depends on the genre. Fantasy, sci-fi, or even historical can get away with extensive worldbuilding, because that’s generally what a reader expects from those types of stories. 

On the other hand, abundant details in other genres, such as romance or horror, feel pointless. In romance, the focus is the characters’ interactions, and the world serves as a backdrop rather than the focal point.  

In horror, a bit of worldbuilding can be helpful to assert the mood, but too much detracts from the main point, which is to be scared. Knowing too much erases the ability to fill in the blanks yourself and makes you think about the technicalities, which isn’t what you want. 

It’s for these reasons that you often see romance and horror taking place in the modern world, with a recurring “main” location. 

It’s not just in horror where too much detail detracts from the experience. It depends on what type of story you’re trying to build, but even fantasy can feel less fantastical with too much elaboration.

What I’m ultimately trying to say is that there is no shame in having a small or simple world for a story. Everyone’s creative process is different, so there will never be a hard set of rules. However, the reader knows best. People know what they want to read, and it’s typically not unfocused ramblings.   

There needs to be balance in everything. A story is meant to entertain, inspire, and that can’t be achieved without a clear purpose. Learning what to introduce is just one step towards reaching that purpose. 

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Marion Landry studies at Algonquin College in the Professional Writing program. She began writing personal stories for about six years and has developed a critical sense of storytelling. Her favourite genre is fantasy, as are most of her stories-all filled with in-depth worldbuilding and richly explored narratives.

Brick 1: Language

Have you ever found yourself enjoying a historical novel only to be jarred back to reality with modern slang? What about coming across an unoriginal explicative and wishing for something more creative? Or a fantasy creature suddenly being compared to a typical sci-fi alien.

Language is more important to worldbuilding than many people realise. It might be tempting to create an entirely new language for your world, but it’s not entirely necessary. A similar effect that immerses readers is achievable by crafting specific terminology, exclamations, and in-world metaphors.

Terminology

                The non-magical humans in Harry Potter are referred to as “Muggles”; “Light Sabers” are glowing electrical/magical weapons in Star Wars. These are just some of the examples of terminology that didn’t exist before the stories. Without words like these, you wouldn’t feel as involved in the story. They are unique to the world/universe they belong to. You don’t need an entire dictionary full of new names for things, but a few wouldn’t hurt.

Swearing and exclamations

                Every culture has their own words they use in frustration. However, when reading, the F-bomb is only interesting for so long. Giving your characters something offensive to exclaim in their world can help retain your reader’s attention, if it’s used well - for example, “blood and ashes” and “burn me” in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time.

Do you need to swear?

No. In fact, a lot of fantasy and other genres that rely heavily on worldbuilding don’t include swearing at all. This lack of swearing is due to the intended audience of young adults (12-18). But the characters still yell at each other (“Fool of a Took!” -Gandolf, Lord of the Rings). So, creating a pattern or selecting specific words to use in these instances is a good idea.

In-world metaphors keep readers engaged

                Keeping your metaphors relevant to your world may be the hardest angle to take when adjusting your language to suit your world. If the story is about pirates and takes place on the ocean, comparing something in the sky to a seagull makes more sense than comparing it to an airplane. In a medieval fantasy, saying someone is as smart as a computer brings the reader out of the world because computers presumably hadn’t been invented yet (unless they’ve already been introduced to the story, but I digress). Try to imagine what people of the world would be familiar with and use that.

Increase engagement with language three ways

                Whether following Tolkien by creating entire languages or adding a handful of unique words into your world, terminology helps set the scene and settles your reader into your world. Not every world needs expletives, but everyone exclaims something when they stub their toe. What they say gives a peek into the characters’ experience and culture, making it something found only in your world and giving the audience something to say themselves. Keep the comparisons in-world and you’ll keep your readers there too.

How important is language to worldbuilding?

Language might not be the most important tool for worldbuilding we discuss on Brick by Brick. However, there is no denying that curating the language you use with the three methods mentioned can increase how interesting and believable your world is. Not everyone talks the same way. In the real-world people use different words, phrases, and languages depending on where they come from. You wouldn’t expect someone from Texas to speak with a British accent. The slang a thirteen-year-old throws around is drastically different from what their grandparents say.  The same applies to the worlds you build.  Give it a try!

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Rebecca Roth is currently pursuing a certificate of Professional Writing at Algonquin College. She is an avid reader, preferring the fantasy genre. She is an aspiring author with several books in the works to publish in the next couple years.

Intro

Imagine this, you open a book, and you’re transported to a blank space. Slowly, colours and shapes bleed into your vision as the story unfolds and the setting expands. But for you to have this experience, someone had to fill in that blank space. Worldbuilding is essential to any story. Romance or mystery, fiction or non-fiction, they all need a place to be. Worldbuilding lets the world live on its own through architecture, customs, plants, people, and species. This blog discusses the best ways to approach worldbuilding in a way that makes stories more enjoyable.