Sometimes the process of worldbuilding can drag and steal your sense of excitement about a setting you’ve been crafting. The antidote? A good story, preferably a short one, set in your world that you can finish and share. Daniel McCormack talks with us about this powerful, instructive process that will make your worldbuilding richer, clearer and more fun than you dared to imagine.
Key takeaways:
- You have a limited reservoir of wonder and excitement for your setting and short stories help fan this affection into flame rather than quenching it.
- In completing short stories you actually finish projects. Finishing means you have something complete to share and get feedback on, you get the psychic satisfaction of completing a task, and you’re forced to practice skills that can only be practiced with a completed work (satisfying character arcs, understanding the reader experience)
- Short stories can crystalize your ideas by causing you to interrogate your worldbuilding both adding to it as well as pruning elements that are unneeded, they can also help you determine types of stories that suit your setting and your goals as a storyteller and worldbuilder.
- Writing about what you love or what you hate can be incredibly powerful as you have a deep well of passion to draw from. Don’t be afraid to major on that major.
Where you can find Daniel
- He wrote a blog on his medium about this topic that you can check out.
- Here’s his Facebook page.
Come hang out with the WorldCraft Club
- Our Linktree has got everything you need to reach out to use including our Discord server, our Instagram, Facebook, and web store where you can buy the incredible Worldbuilder’s Journal to supercharge your worldbuilding.