Well That’s Adorable.

Fantasy Guide to Worldbuilding

Language and Culture

You have your land and your people. Now onto what kind of people they are and what they sound like. Culture is the greatest worldbuilding tool you need to master. Language is extra spice.

Culture

Culture is a collection of customs and attitudes formed over time. Culture forms around a land, metaphorical cling film if you will. Land influences culture.

Entertainment: What amuses your people? Bull fighting? Gladiators? Tasteful plays?

Food and drink: What food is common? Is there a delicacy popular in the region? Pasta is Italy’s delicacy. Beer is a common drink in Germany

Taboo: The no-no of society. What can’t be spoken about or done? In Harry Potter, the name of Voldemort is taboo. In our world, for most of us anyway, incest and cannibalism are the major taboos

Myths: Are stories that explain things without evidence from science. The Egyptians thought that a dung-beatle rolled the sun across the sky. Celtic cultures believe that a death is sounded by the scream of a banshee.

Games: What games are played by children or adults? Are card games popular or board games? Is it popular to watch games or gamble on them? How often are they fixed?

Traditions: What do your people do? Do they have holidays? In Incan tradition, human sacrifices were common. On a light note, the Greeks held the Olympics ever few years. Is there traditional ceremonies or words one says on a daily basis?

Values: The Spartans valued Spartan behaviour. Renaissance culture valued skill and honour. What is the important concepts of your people? Strength? Honour? Intelligence? Do people get treated differently when they don’t follow the values of the land?

Meeting and greeting: How do people say hello? Is there a word or saying? A signal? And goodbye?

Language

Language is the heart of a land. You don’t need to create a large lexicon of made up words and rules. You can. I did once, it was fun. You don’t need to show the language in every line. A word here and there can add spice to a story. Language effects accents and way of speaking.

Side note: “Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam.” A country without a language is a country without a soul. Ireland is a county with two main languages: Irish (Gaelige) and English. Colonization almost stamped out the language. The Irish language is difficult to learn but it brings pride to me as Irish girl to know parts of it. It breaks my heart not to be fluent in my native language even after almost fifteen years of study. Language is not just words. It is the heart and soul of a land.

9 Things That Would Make the World a Better Place

Books

Being

Printed

In

Glow

In

The

Dark

Ink

Peopleeeeeeeee

reblog this is you love the curse workers

I NEED TO FIND YOOOU.

Magic and Rules

It may be extremely easy to just put magic into a story you’re creating, or explain away things with the excuse of “magic.”  But if that is how magic is handled in your world, readers are going to find major plot holes in your story.  Magic needs rules and guidelines, even in stories where it’s not in the foreground.  Without rules, magic could be the solution to all, or you end overpowering a character because he has no restrictions on how he can use his magic.

But where do you start when setting ground rules for how and when magic can be used?  My goal in this post is to give you some ideas while you map out your world of magic.

Who can learn magic? Is magic a thing that all people can learn, or certain people who have a knack for it?  Is magic something that can be learned at all?  Perhaps it’s only readily available for those who are born with it, such as the wizards in Harry Potter.  Or magic is contained in things, such as charms, amulets, or unicorn horns.  People may have to learn how to access the magic contained in these items, but they are solely reliant on items in order to use magic.  Perhaps magic can only be learned by certain races.

How is magic learned?  In Harry Potter, wizards go to school for seven years to learn how to use magic.  Other books wizards have apprentices they train.    Can magic be self-taught?  How does a person access magic?  Through emotion, thoughts, something else?  Perhaps learning magic requires a large sacrifice.

Does the magic need to be channeled?  Once again, using the example of Harry Potter, wizards need wands in order to use magic.  Other common themes involve wizards using staffs in order to use magic.  But there are stories where wizards don’t need an item to channel the magic, such as the wizards in the anime/manga series Fairy Tail.  Perhaps magic does need an item to be channeled through, but it doesn’t have to be the traditional wand or staff.

How often can a person use magic? Does magic use up a person’s energy, and therefore a person’s magic is limited to how much energy they have?  Perhaps they have a different “energy”, such as mana, that restricts how much magic they can use?  Maybe you want to go the Once Upon a Time route and magic isn’t used in excess because it comes with a price.  Perhaps how magic is used is why people don’t use it so often.  Maybe magic is used very often.

Does magic need incantations?  Harry Potter uses incantations, whether is it is verbal or non-verbal.  There does not seem to be an incantations in the magic that the Witch uses in the Chronicles of Narnia.  Incantations are used quite often in the Septimus Heap series.  And there no incantations in Lord of the Rings.  Or maybe incantations are reserved for the more powerful, older spells.  Perhaps incantations make a spell more stable. 

Can magic be invoked by using items?  Potions is one of the common ways this is used.  But sometimes certain spells can only be invoked by using ingredients, like in the show Charmed or the movie Practical Magic.  Perhaps it’s only used occasionally, such as some spells performed in the show Sabrina the Teenage Witch.  Maybe items are used in only certain branches, such as Divination in Harry Potter.

What cannot be done by magic?  With the Genie’s magic in Disney’s Aladdin, he could not make someone come back from the dead, fall in love, or grant more wishes.  Food cannot be created out of thin air according to the rules of magic in Harry Potter.  Actual love in Harry Potter can’t be created, but enchantments that cause the victim to have an obsessive type of love does exist.  Perhaps the dead can be raised, as evidenced by stories with necromancy, but it can’t actually bring back the person completely.  Something’s missing.  Perhaps only skeletons can be brought back, or the person comes back in a zombie like state.  Perhaps you would go so far as to say that magic cannot create permanent things out of nothing.

Does magic have categories/a way it is organized? Potions, Divination, Transifiguration, Charms, etc.  Or light, dark, chaos, order,  water, fire, etc.  Or human magic, dragon magic, unicorn magic, elf magic, etc.  And it doesn’t have to have only one way of organization.  It can have several levels, just like when science organizes living organisms. 

So these are few things to consider when creating magic.  The nature of your magic may not necessarily fit into all of these questions, and that’s fine.  But don’t be afraid to have long explanations for your magic.  You probably won’t fit it all in your story - in fact, you’ll want to be careful how you incorporate magic rules as you don’t want to infodump on your readers - but having the rules there will help you create your story and give you some answers to the why questions that might come up, such as, “why don’t they just magic themselves out?”

these lists of books to read before you die that are full of classics are all well and good but what if you don’t like classics? and what about the ya ones that are just full of popular series? so this is an alternative list of ya books you should read before you die. thanks to everyone who contributed books; i’ve had to miss some off because i’ve got more than 100, so i’ll probably include them on a second list. (also, i’ve not actually read all these books. it’s a group effort)

under the lights by dahlia adler

the wrath and the dawn by renee ahdieh

throne of the crescent moon by saladin ahmed

simon vs the homo sapiens agenda by becky albertalli

the absolutely true diary of a part time indian by sherman alexie

last night i sang to the monster by benjamin alire sáenz

aristotle and dante discover the secrets of the universe by benjamin alire sáenz

mosquitoland by david arnold

pure trilogy by julianna baggott

the fixer by jennifer lynn barnes

the last leaves falling by sarah benwell

ashes trilogy by ilsa j bick

the darkest part of the forest by holly black

curse workers by holly black

noughts and crosses by malorie blackman

anna duology by kendare blake

the princess and the captain by anne-laure bondoux

the diviners by libba bray

gemma doyle trilogy by libba bray

fire and thorns by rae carson

gallagher girls by ally carter

heist society by ally carter

graceling realm by kristin cashore

a hero at the end of the world by erin claiborne

artemis fowl by eoin colfer

the miseducation of cameron post by emily m danforth

i’ll meet you there by heather demetrios

just listen by sarah dessen

spiderwick chronicles by tony diterlizzi & holly black

penryn and the end of days by susan ee

engelsfors trilogy by sara b elfgren & mats strandberg

fearsome dreamer by laure eve

dragonfly by julia golding

since you asked by maurine goo

half life trilogy by sally green

to all the boys i’ve loved before by jenny han

burn for burn by jenny han

saving june by hannah harrington

the outsiders by s e hinton

shades of london by maureen johnson

shadowshaper by daniel josé older

everybody sees the ants by a s king

in honor by jessi kirby

charm & strange by stephanie kuehn

everything leads to you by nina lacour

micah grey by laura lam

momentum by saci lloyd

huntress by malinda lo

adaptation by malinda lo

we were liars by e lockhart

legend by marie lu

the lost girl by sangu mandanna

the lumatere chronicles by melina marchetta

on the jellicoe road by melina marchetta

wicked lovely by melissa marr

since you’ve been gone by morgan matson

yaqui delgado wants to kick your ass by meg medina

the lunar chronicles by marissa meyer

conquered earth by j barton mitchell

if you find me by emily murdoch

i’ll give you the sun by jandy nelson

chaos walking by patrick ness

a monster calls by patrick ness

the summer of chasing mermaids by sarah ockler

before i fall by lauren oliver

wonder by r j palacio

even in paradise by chelsey philpot

his dark materials by philip pullman

the demon’s lexicon by sarah rees brennan

the lynburn legacy by sarah rees brennan

slice of cherry by dia reeves

falling kingdoms by morgan rhodes

how i live now by meg rosoff

bone gap by laura ruby

the winner’s trilogy by marie rutkoski

written in the stars by aisha saeed

persepolis by marjane satrapi

the archived by v e schwab

between shades of grey by ruth sepetys

the bone season by samantha shannon

far from you by tess sharpe

more happy than not by adam silvera

jasper jones by craig silvey

unwind dystology by neal shusterman

grasshopper jungle by andrew smith

the secrets of lily graves by sarah strohmeyer

all the rage by courtney summers

an ember in the ashes by sabaa tahir

because you’ll never meet me by leah thomas

my heart and other black holes by jasmine warga

ms marvel by g willow wilson

don’t touch by rachel m wilson

brown girl dreaming by jacqueline woodson

howl’s moving castle by dianna wynne jones

dirty london by kelley york

made of stars by kelley york

how to save a life by sara zarr

falling into place by amy zhang

i am the messenger by markus zusak

wolfe brothers by markus zusak

Yep. So much.

I want to travel

Excuse me wtf

Cute.

So helpful! Thank you! 💖💖💖

Hey guys, so I’m nearing the end of my senior year, and it’s been great so far! I accomplished my academic tasks efficiently and didn’t burn myself out, and I think the main contributor to my success as a student is my organization system. This system has been refined throughout my high school years, but I think now I’ve finally found the most effective methods.

Please remember that this isn’t the only organization system you can adopt; this is just the one that works the best for me, and I hope that by sharing it with you, you’ll gain a new perspective on how to stay organized as a high school student.

The first thing I wanna talk about is my notebook system, which I briefly mentioned in my Guide to Note-Taking.

My notebook system comprises three types of notebooks: the Everything Notebook, the subject notebook, and the revision notebook.

The Everything Notebook

The first stage is in-class notes. I only bring one notebook to school every day. I call it my Everything Notebook, and this is where I write down all of the notes I take in class. This way, I don’t have to lug around six notebooks where I’m only going to use a few pages in each of them that day.

Subject Notebooks

At the end of the day, I would revise my notes and compare them to the syllabus so I know where we are in the learning process. I would then transfer my class notes from my Everything Notebook to my different subject notebooks. This is stage two. I also start to jazz up my notes because I use the notes in my subject notebooks to study for tests.

In addition to my class notes, I include material from my teachers’ notes that they might not have elaborated on, as well as points in the syllabus (I’m currently taking A2) that were only glazed over briefly, or not at all, in some cases. (Note: this does not mean they completely skip a chapter or topic; it’s more like they missed a few bullet points that should be in my notes but aren’t. An example would be if we’re learning about phenol reactions and the teacher forgot to mention the use of FeCl3 as a test for phenol.)

Revision Notebooks

Stage three comes a little later, when exam week is just around the corner. Essentially, I rewrite and improve my notes from my five different subject notebooks into a single revision notebook or binder. (Recently, I’ve opted for a revision notebook because they’re lighter and easier to carry around.)

Because my teachers don’t always teach in the order of the syllabus, the first thing I do is organize my notes according to the syllabus. I would then fill in any other missing gaps in the material that hadn’t been filled in stage two.

When compiling material for my revision notebook, I use as many sources as possible: my own notes, my teachers’ notes, youtube videos, online sites, and my favorite, the mark scheme! I add in some answers from past papers (explanations only, so no calculations) mainly to secure marks. It’s safer to memorize definitions straight from the mark scheme than from the textbook or from handouts. I also do this to ease my memorization, especially for topics that require lengthy explanations. It’s a lot easier to remember the 6 points I need to explain the principles of NMRI than to remember everything in the four-page handout my teacher gave me.

Folders and binders are essential to organizing your papers. Some people keep a single accordion folder for all their papers, but for me it’s just too heavy to carry around all the time. The same goes for subject folders that are brought to school every day.

Instead, my binder/folder system comprises my Everything Folder and my subject binders.

The Everything Folder

The folder I carry with me to school every day is this A4 folder I got from Tokyu Hands. It has 5 pockets, one for each day of the week, so all the papers I receive on Monday will go behind the first divider, and so on.

Some people also keep blank papers in their folders; I don’t because my school has its own lined paper and graphing pads that I keep under my desk that I use if a teacher asks us to do an assignment on those papers. If I do work at home, I prefer to just use a plain A4 paper or a legal pad.

Subject Binders

At the end of the week, I’ll sort my papers into my subject binders. Sometimes I’ll keep some papers in the folder if I think I’ll be needing it the next week. This usually only applies to worksheets because all my teachers’ notes are available on Google Classroom, so I can access them even if I don’t physically have them.

Each of these binders have sections inside them:

Physics: 1 for handouts, notes, and tests, 1 for Paper 4 (Theory), 1 for Paper 5 (Practical Planning). I included extra tabs to mark the different topics in the handouts section.

Chemistry: same as Physics.

Economics: 1 for Paper 3 (MCQ), 1 for Paper 4 (Case Study and Essay). A lot of my Economics material is online, though.

English: 1 for Paper 3 (Text and Discourse analysis), and 2 for Paper 4 (Language Topics, which includes 1 for Child Language Acquisition, 1 for World Englishes). Past papers, handouts, and notes all go under their respective topics.

Mathematics: I just keep everything together because I never revise math and just constantly do past papers.

This makes it easier for me to revise each subject because I can just take one binder with me instead of a messy folder with everything just shoved in there.

I keep a magazine file for each of my A-Level subjects (English and Mathematics are combined). All my textbooks, revision guides, and subject notebooks are kept here, so if I need to revise one subject, that’s the magazine file I’ll take out.

These magazine files prevent any small things (like my book of flashcards) from being shoved to the back of my bookshelf, or materials from different subjects from getting mixed up.

In my senior year, I mostly plan using this app called Edo Agenda. It syncs across all my devices for free and has all the features I need: a to do list to organize tasks, monthly and weekly calendars to organize events, a journal to organize notes and memos.

I used to bullet journal regularly, but it takes too much time during weekdays, so now I just bullet journal for the therapeutic effects it gives me, and I use an app for organizing tasks and events. Sometimes at the end of each week, I’ll transfer my tasks to my bullet journal and then decorate the page, but again, this is just for its therapy.

Organizing your school supplies is just as important as organizing your papers and notes. With a more organized backpack and pencil case, you won’t waste time looking for your things at the bottom of an abyss.

Pencil Case

I don’t find it necessary to bring so much stationery to school unless I plan on making notes at school (usually during revision week).

Backpack

Because we’re already in the revision term, I don’t really carry a lot of things in my everyday backpack, just the following:

Pencil case

Everything Notebook

Everything Folder

Revision notebook

Kindle

Phone

Wallet

Earphones

Calculator

Speaker

Drinking bottle

A pouch with things like a hairbrush, pads, and lip balm

And that’s all for now! I hope this post will help you organize your school life (if you haven’t already) or at least provide some useful insights on some ways to stay organized as a high school student.

Advice for World-Building

As a long time Table Top role-player, I have a bunch of top secret techniques for creating a fully fleshed0out world rather quickly. Especially when you need to give your players a place to explore on short notice. 

Here is an easy way to turn a small town that is basically just a quest-giving-tavern attached to a inn, into a rich, thriving civilization. The trick is:

Economics.

Ask yourself, what does this place make, what does this place need?

Establishing the economic landscape of the village and how it relates to the area around it can work miracles for world building. 

Does the town have a community of hunters? Once the meat is smoked how is it distributed/sold? Do they harvest lumber? If so how do they keep that industry sustainable without chopping down every single tree? Are there druids who calm the animal and regrow the fallen trees?

Does it have any specific artisanal goods? Who trains the next generation of craftsmen? Is this village the only one in the area that can craft this specific item? Does that make them a target for competitors who want their secret techniques? 

What local animals could be tamed to assist in transporting the exports? How does the local wildlife treat the villagers? Is there issues from monster/animal attacks and how does the village defend itself?

What goods are important enough that the village will invest in protection from bandits while transporting it? If they easily produce tons of wheat, but it takes a lot of effort to grow sugar cane, who do they trade that sugar cane to in order to get a return on investment?

Once trade is complete, who gets the profits? Is there a merchants guild or union that makes sure the profits are fairly split? Or does a mafia control the flow of money? Is this town a branch of a larger trade union so there are hostilities between the locals and the out of town guild members? 

What resource does the town lack? What resource would cripple the town if it was suddenly cut off or their trade partner couldn’t produce enough of?

Once you are able to answer a few of these questions quickly, you can establish a locations unique identity with only a few of these points.

When you combine two of more of these question you can start to build a narrative that can facilitate stories. 

Example:

The Old Lor-Ahmek Parish:

Produces: Gold, Iron, Stone, Jewelry, Well Trained Archers

Requires: Labour, Produce, Transportation, Fabrics.

The abandoned castle once belonged to a vassal of the old King. The bitterly cold lands were given to a young lord as a show of good faith during a treaty signing. The lands turned out to be un-farmable since it was so far North that the harvest season was too sort to turn a profit. The lord sunk most of his fortune in building his massive castle and died in poverty. The land was returned to the king and was then gifted to a small sect of monks and turned into a Parish for study and meditation. 

It was a costly slice of land since it had no exports, until an excavation intended to expand a catacomb revealed rich deposits of iron and gold underneath the mountain. 

The parish was not equipped to become a full smithery so the iron and gold needs to be transported through the treacherous badlands to a warmer village in the South, where they have enough coal and lumber to keep their furnaces lit.

The monks of Lor-Ahmek study alchemy and various sciences, so while they can’t work with the materials on a large scale, they do craft jewelry and delicate accessories while they experiment on new metalworking techniques. 

In order to dig the monks brought in prisoners from the central kingdom to work off their crimes in the mine, and they spend their nights trying to convert lost souls. Because of the long stretches of cold badlands, Lor-Ahmek makes for a very functional prison. No one can escape without enough food and clothes to survive the blizzards. Many prisoners become monks themselves once their sentence is paid off, since it is easier than trying to escape. Not to mention day after day of the monks persistent conversion attempts tends to wear them down.

Due to the large amount of ex-prisoner converts, the monks of Lor-Ahmek are hardened and trained in various forms of combat. The wide variety of prisoners brought from all across the world means that Lor-Ahmek is a melting pot of diversity. The sharing of cultures has created a unique cuisine of hardy stews and spiced meats. The delicious warm foodstuffs attracts travelers that plan on heading further North and the upper layers function as one large tourist trap.

The stone brought up from the mine in search of more ore has been used to build wind-resistant walls the dot the desolate landscape. Guard patrols run from wall to wall and have to train their archers to fire with the curvature of the wind. The central kingdom sends their elite archers here to train them in cover based combat, as the conditions of Lor-Ahmek result in archers who can curve their long ranged arrows and hit enemies behind cover.

Food is often scarce and large cave dwelling bat-creatures are raised for their meat and milk. The archers hunt the rabbit-creatures and elk-creatures for meat, and when the massive rhino-moose migrate, it is almost a rite of passage to hunt one of the enormous creatures down as a team. The rough hides of the local fauna are useful, but Lor-Ahmek often trades for finer furs from the South to line their clothes for warmth. Vegetables and fruit are expensive delicacies, since only root-tubers and mushrooms grown in insulated mine shafts.

The King often has to pay mercenaries and merchant caravans to move dangerous prisoners to Lor-Ahmek in exchange for the precious minerals, so a strict royal merchants guild controls the parishes finances. The Monks have taken a vow of poverty and the prisoners make no money so nearly all of the profits go to the King, covering the cost of transportation by the profits made off the gold and iron. 

The monks and prisoners have to maintain the ancient crumbling estate and since profits go to the King, very little is provided for upkeep. Grey handmade clay mortar (dug up from the mine) is used for repairs, giving the buildings a cold, unsettling aesthetic. 

The mine itself goes deep into the earth and uses a massive network of pulleys and elevators to move stones and ore. Cave-ins happen as the mine-shafts dig outwards under the surrounding tundra, and sometimes they run into warrens that belong to dangerous burrowing monsters. When this happens the tunnel is intentionally collapsed and the prisoners within are often left for dead.

Already this location provides for many quests and plot threads, such as:

A bounty is placed on one of the Monks: A violent prisoner has paid off their debt and found peace at the parish, but the family of the victim still wants blood. The other monks refuse to let their new brother go since they consider his past sins forgiven, and the target has to be convinced to give himself up, taken by force or allowed to escape his bounty.

A gang of criminals wants you to go into the mines and rescue their trapped comrades: A cave-in trapped some prisoners that were members of a gang. The leader of the gang knows the monks and guards will not spare the men to rescue the prisoners. The gang can’t pay you much but you will earn the favor of the gang if you save their friends in time.

A caravan was lost in the blizzard: The yearly trade caravan of ore was run off the road by a blizzard and the monks worry they will be found by bandits before they get back on the road. A lot of survival and tracking skills are needed to brave the harsh climate and find the lost merchants in time, if they are not rescued the Parish is in great financial danger.

Transport a valuable reliquary: The monks have been using gold to craft a powerful alchemic reliquary and need to hire couriers to move it South undetected. However, this reliquary contains powerful magic and there are shady individuals willing to pay you more to NOT complete your quest.

Ghosts in the Mine: So many prisoners have died untimely deaths in the hungry mines that ghosts are appearing, and hindering the mining operations. Adventurers who can banish the dark spirits will be well rewarded to cover up the indifference of the monk overseers. 

Master Archery Challenge: An elderly guard has valuable information for the adventurers current main quest, but he won’t share his secrets until a member of the party proves themselves on the ice fields. A high level ranger or rouge might be able to compete against the Master Archer and victory might result in learning the secret techniques of the Lor-Ahmek. (Basic Ranged Attacks now ignore cover bonuses.)

There are lots of other techniques for fast world building but building stories through what they need/have is one of my favorites. 

Let me know if you want to see more guides to World-Building/Character Building.

Part 1/?

next->