World-building: A Tutorial

"Hello, everyone! Welcome to my channel. It’s your number one girl ‘OG’ here! So today I have a super exciting topic for us to talk about, and I know a lot of you have been requesting this for, like, centuries. Today we are discussing ‘world-building.’

For those of you who aren’t familiar ‘world-building’ is, well, exactly what it sounds like: creating your own world. Now, there are three very important parts of world-building. I will tell you all of them first, and then we’re going to break them down one by one. So, our three important parts are the environment, life, and supernatural elements. I know that doesn’t make much sense now, but it will soon. So let’s start to break them down.

First up we have ‘environment.’ This one is really easy to start with because it's the basics of any world. You’re trying to give people a good feel for what your world is like before they ever experience the other two parts of world-building. There are a lot of important things to consider. What’s the climate, or are there multiple climates? What’s your landscape going to look like? Mountains, rivers, snow, sand? Will it be natural or constructed by your lifeforms? How easily are all these things affected by outside factors? 

These, in addition to others, are all questions you need to think about when constructing a world for your lifeforms to live in. It’s important to plan your environment carefully, but don’t worry if you don’t have all the details worked out the first time. This is something you get better at the more you practice. All you have to do in the beginning is make sure the environment is suitable for whatever lives there.

Now, this brings us to our next topic: Life. Your world will be so boring without life. Life is what makes your world worth experiencing to others. It doesn’t matter if you want humans, animals, aliens, or something completely of your own creation, but you gotta have some life. So now that you have this environment you have the perfect setup to throw some lifeforms in. However, life is a lot harder to perfect than environment, because lifeforms have these complex things called, guess what, emotions. They have a consciousness, a sense of time, a memory. They love, and hate, and forgive, and cry, and a bunch of other super messy things. Here’s the thing though, don’t be afraid to make a messy life!

Look, your creatures will not be perfect, but that’s okay. The truth is, no one likes a perfect life. Have you ever seen something that’s completely perfect? Boring, like, so fast. Imperfect things are interesting, they make you think, and guess, and they do things so unexpected you wonder ‘Wow, what’s going to happen next?’ So, my advice? Just do it! Maybe you’ll like them, maybe you won’t. Remember, you can always change, get rid of, or add different lifeforms later if you’re not happy with the ones you start with.

Okay, guys, this is the final piece of advice I will be giving you today. Let’s talk about supernatural elements. This includes everything from magic and ghosts, to things like sudden natural disasters or unexpected events in your lifeforms’ existence. Basically, anything that can’t be explained in the world you have already created. Now, this one is by far the most complicated. Not because it’s hard to think of something supernatural, I mean, everyone has a couple up their sleeves, but because you need to know when it’s necessary. 

A lot of people make the mistake of having too many supernatural elements in their world. Doing this, while interesting, really takes away from the beauty of whatever life you’ve worked so hard to create. You already designed this lifeform to be interesting, why outshine it with a bunch of over-the-top nonsense? So maybe hold on a second and think things through before you decide you need an apocalypse thrown in there somewhere.

Now, that being said, it’s just as bad if you don’t use enough supernatural elements too. Of course, your lifeform is already good, but a supernatural element is what can make it great. Like adding a hint of spice to a dish to jazz it up a little. That unexpected push may be just what you need to send your lifeform over the edge and really bring them to life the way you imagined. You can either use this for individual character development in your lifeforms or unite them as a whole in some way. That part is really up to you, but again, everything should be in moderation.

Alright, guys, those are all the basics of world-building. I’ve given you a lot of help today, but the most important rule when doing this is just to have fun. It’s your world, make it into whatever you like. I hope I helped you guys today with this video, and I hope I can see some of your creations really soon! 

Once again I am your number one girl ‘OG,’ aka ‘Original Gaia.’ Check out my own personal example of world-building: #Earth. The link to that is attached below, and don’t forget to subscribe! See you soon!”

Gaia smiled as she saw the number of viewers on her video quickly climbing, but that wasn’t the only thing she saw. As she looked out into the blank abyss before her she noticed small spheres flashing into existence. At first, it was just a few, then hundreds, thousands even, spread out before her. They were doing it, they were learning. Worlds were being built. She glanced around at the new planets, the sceneries, the creatures that inhabited these worlds. 

Gaia had been debating sharing world-building with the other Gods for a while, but she was glad she did. She watched as even more worlds flashed into existence. She glanced over at her Earth, she wondered how long it would be before the other worlds started to interact with hers. She didn’t know, but she knew one thing for sure. The universe was about to get a lot more interesting.