What do you create first?

[WordsWillCome]

I have a question for all you fiction writers out there. When you write a story, how big of a world do you create before hand? Do you make one up as you go along or do you sit down and create a world and then drop your characters into it?

I've honestly written both ways. I think my favorite was to create a world and then to drop my characters into. I think I enjoy creating the world and characters as much as I do writing their story.

[NikolaiI]

I only pretty much write poetry, but I came across this quote, and thought of this thread;

"I want to write about people I love, and put them into a fictional world spun out of my own mind, not the world we actually have, because the world we actually have does not meet my standards. Okay, so I should revise my standards, I'm out of step. I should yield to reality. I have never yielded to reality. That's what science fiction is all about."
-Philip K. Dick,
"Now Wait For This Year", introduction to The Golden Man (anthology, 1980)

[WordsWillCome]

I always tell people that I make my own world to get out of this one. For the fantasy stories I write I already made up a planet they take place on. Complete with moons, suns, bodies of water, continents and cities. I have a few ready made characters I made up while playing DVD and now I expand their back stories and go from there.

[Passwave]

I like writing fantasy. I like creating and imagining a world with its own unique animals and cultures. I enjoy thinking about how magic works in this world and what its rules and limitations are. Most of the stories I write explain and explore this worlds history.

[WordsWillCome]

Yeah. I told my husband my world had two or three sun's and multiple moons and he was like "that's not possible. How do the tides work? Etc..." to which I said "they just do."

[Iain Sparrow]

Yeah. I told my husband my world had two or three sun's and multiple moons and he was like "that's not possible. How do the tides work? Etc..." to which I said "they just do."


More than possible; astronomers have already found several binary star systems, some of which could have planets with stable orbits. There are however problems with a planet having more than one very large moon.

[Steven Hunley]

First I do an outline, where I imagine the major characters and the scenario, and then take it from there. I make an outline so I don't write myself into a corner.

[Calidore]

Yeah. I told my husband my world had two or three sun's and multiple moons and he was like "that's not possible. How do the tides work? Etc..." to which I said "they just do."

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio..."

I think your reply is the correct one. Where people get into trouble is when they actually start trying to explain things when they shouldn't. For one example, the film Pitch Black took place on a world with three suns, which was important to the plot; how that could be, if it even can be, wasn't important at all, so that question was never raised.

[WordsWillCome]

I like that explanation Calidore. I think a little mystery and impossibility makes everything better.