--- title: Worldbuilding description: Worldbuilding is the process of constructing an imaginary setting with its own history, geography, and rules. Learners will understand how to design cohesive speculative environments that support and enrich their narratives. category: literature-writing subcategory: creative-writing difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced url: /subject/worldbuilding --- # Worldbuilding Worldbuilding is the process of constructing an imaginary setting with its own history, geography, and rules. Learners will understand how to design cohesive speculative environments that support and enrich their narratives. ## Available Resources 1 Books • 2 Courses • 5 Websites ## Websites ### 1. r/worldbuilding Wiki The community-maintained wiki of the r/worldbuilding subreddit, collecting curated lists of guides, tools, mapmaking resources, and reference material on geography, cultures, languages, and magic systems. A starting index for finding vetted material on any specific aspect of building a fictional setting. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/wiki/index/ **Tags:** worldbuilding, fantasy-writing, mapmaking, conlangs, fiction-writing ### 2. World Anvil Web platform for organizing a fictional world in linked wiki-style articles, with templates for characters, locations, religions, and organizations plus interactive maps and timelines. Helps writers and game masters keep a large setting consistent and searchable as it grows. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.worldanvil.com/ **Tags:** worldbuilding, worldbuilding-tools, tabletop-rpg, fiction-writing ### 3. Mythcreants Long-running craft blog and podcast by Chris Winkle and Oren Ashkenazi, analyzing story structure, worldbuilding, character arcs and common failure modes in published speculative fiction. Posts diagnose why specific scenes work or collapse, giving writers repeatable revision criteria. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://mythcreants.com/ **Tags:** fiction-writing, worldbuilding, story-structure, speculative-fiction, writing-craft ### 4. writersdigest.com WritersDigest.com is a comprehensive resource for writers, featuring craft articles, writing prompts, market guides, contests, and publishing tips to help aspiring and established authors improve their craft and get published. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://writersdigest.com **Tags:** websites, personal-development, communication ### 5. worldbuilding.stackexchange.com Worldbuilding Stack Exchange is a Q&A community where creators ask and answer questions about constructing fictional worlds, from geography and cultures to magic systems, technology, and lore consistency. Members propose problems, share solutions, and receive upvotes and expert guidance from a specialized community. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com **Tags:** websites, humanities-social-sciences, creative-writing ## Courses ### 1. BYU Lectures on Fantasy Writing Learn worldbuilding from Brandon Sanderson's BYU lectures! Explore fantasy writing techniques to craft immersive, believable worlds. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSH_xM-KC3Zv-79sVZTTj-YA6IAqh8qeQ **Tags:** worldbuilding, fantasy-writing, magic-systems, creative-writing, brandon-sanderson ### 2. Creative Writing: The Craft of Setting and Description In this course aspiring writers will be introduced to the techniques that masters of fiction use to ground a story in a concrete world. From the most realist settings to the most fantastical, writers will learn how to describe the physical world in sharp, sensory detail. We will also learn how to build credibility through research, and to use creative meditation exercises to deepen our own understanding of our story worlds, so that our readers can see all that we imagine. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Duration:** 4 weeks of study, 1-3 hours/week | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.coursera.org/learn/craft-of-setting-and-description **Tags:** courses, humanities-social-sciences, creative-writing ## Podcasts ### 1. Conlangery **Author:** George Corley, William Annis Long-running monthly podcast about constructed languages in which linguistically literate hosts discuss phonology, morphology, syntax and writing systems, often using natural languages as models. Listeners gain a working vocabulary of linguistic typology and practical techniques for designing a coherent invented language. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** en-US | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://conlangery.com **Tags:** constructed-languages, conlanging, language-design, linguistic-typology, worldbuilding ## Youtubes ### 1. Brandon Sanderson's Writing Lecture Series (2025, BYU 318R) **Author:** Brandon Sanderson Sixteen filmed sessions of Brandon Sanderson's BYU English 318R course on writing science fiction and fantasy, covering plot, character, magic systems, short fiction, revision and the publishing business, with guest lecturers from inside the industry. The most-cited free SFF craft course in existence. It is an actual accredited university semester, not a content channel: 16 hour-long sessions on plot, character, worldbuilding, short fiction, revision and the business, plus guest lectures from agents and indie publishers. It anchors the entire topic and makes several paid 'learn to write fantasy' products redundant. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSH_xM-KC3ZvzkfVo_Dls0B5GiE2oMcLY **Tags:** fantasy-writing, science-fiction, magic-systems, worldbuilding, plotting, publishing ## Books ### 1. Building Imaginary Worlds **Author:** Mark J.P. Wolf Mark J.P. Wolf's scholarly study of imaginary worlds across literature, film, games, and other media, tracing their history and analyzing how invented geography, languages, and mythologies create coherence. Gives a theoretical vocabulary for analyzing why some fictional worlds feel complete and believable. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0415631203?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, humanities-social-sciences, creative-writing --- *This content is part of Dantes.io - Your Treasure Map to Knowledge* *Curated by humans at Dantes.io. Personal study use welcome; republishing this curation requires permission (team@dantes.io).* View this page online: https://dantes.io/subject/worldbuilding