Link to original article: Link

Part 1: Link

Part 3: Link

Are you excited? Probably not, as I’m making this and you’re just a bystander to my creative process. But isn’t that how a book, and its exposition, starts? You mosey around the words of the page, listening as the author establishes what the new normal in your life will be (as you read). I can’t tell you how many books I’ve read recently that fill the first twenty pages with almost pure exposition. Grossness.

I began perusing my slimwiki creation as any good old-school gamer would, I read the manual.

It begins with how to edit the main page, how to create links, the purposes of tables and teams (to build, invite only), and finally goes into collections.

Links are just hyperlinks, easy done. Tables and teams I won’t need unless I start up a litRPG style with character sheets and trait gains (don’t think I won’t). But the collections are wonderful. So here’s the first few I began to get started (Progression Fantasy author). I immediately changed the logo, as shown, to my own personal A.V.A. style. Just personal preference.

Good ole BWCP, Books/World(or village)/Characters/Powers. You’ll notice I haven’t placed plot or outline, as that’s not my purpose here. My characters will evolve, as will powers and the world my characters are within, but plot and outlines are for my scrivener file or whatever writing file you have. Don’t make the mistake, as someone pointed out on my royal road posts, of leaning too hard into technology. This wiki is the encyclopedia of my world, not my story.

I deleted the front page with it’s explanations, as it stated I can always review more information in the ? or help tab. I then typed The 100 Villages as that’s my current “world” wherein I write my books, and started pulling up all the information I’d written down over the years. Characters and names I’d made, book ideas, notes on powers, monsters, worlds and cultures. Now comes the heady process of transferring everything into my new worldbuilding wiki.

Here lies the difficulty. How do I organize this correctly and to make it best for me, not for others. I don’t care if it looks clean, this is just for me to use, so what is the next step?

Now we step into brainstorming. I need to think of my unique parts of fantasy and worldbuilding, and what I need to know as individual pages and templates help me better coalesce all of my different ideas over the last 10-odd years. I luckily have plenty of notes to get me started, but I now need to put as much focus as I can into worldbuilding so I can later tie them into my stories with sub-plots, foreshadowing, and potential plot twists as my writing demands.

The next part of the series will include my brainstorming, and where I need to take this next step of wiki worldbuilding.

Categories: Discovery and Writing Tips Thoughts and Tips

Tagged as: fantasy jd mullenary slimwiki wiki worldbuilding writing tips

abnormalvaverage

I'm a high school English teacher in Texas. I also hold degrees in radiography and radio and television broadcasting. Though I obtained certain knowledge and skills from my prior degrees, I do not currently use them.