NaNoWriMo Prep: Worldbuilding
Five prompts and one activity to render the storyworld of your novel
Photo by Jakob Braun on Unsplash
Do you and your students participate in NaNoWriMo? I’d love to hear from those who participate. How do students manage the word count? And how do you figure in writing time daily for this great project in addition to your normal scheduled programming? It’s certainly been a challenge for me the last eight years doing this, but the benefits have been great.
Each year about 10-12 of my students elect to take the Young Writers National Novel Writing Month challenge, so I spend a handful of days in September and October giving them some prep and plan tools. Most of them already have ideas for a novel they want to write, so we do an initial worldbuilding activity, then some character development exercises, then we start plotting and weaving scenes.
I ask students to think of the storyworld as everything that surrounds their main character and think of their main character as a manifestation or reflection of that story world. Who would Alice be without her Wonderland? Who would Peter Pan be without Neverland? The world of the story is a metaphor for the mood or the theme of the story. Think of of how the worldbuilding of Middle Earth, Hogwarts, Narnia, or even the Dublin of Ulysses reflects the journey of the characters within those novels. All of these places set a mood or theme that reflect the characters in some way.
Writing Prompts
Prompt #1: Jot down about five-seven places or spaces you know will be in your characters’ world.
Prompt #2: Next to each of the places or space you’ve written down, what mood or vibe do you hope each of these will be reflected in your character or generated in your reader?
Prompt #3: The three major elements to worldbuilding are natural spaces, man-made spaces, and technology/magic. Visualize your character in the natural outdoor space in the world of your story. What does it look/sound like? How does it feel to your character? Think of the floral and fauna, the bodies of water, weather, mountains, rivers, oceans. And this is important: what is the mood this space evokes in your characters and your reader? Brainstorm some qualities of your natural world.
Prompt #4: Now think about the man-made spaces in this world. The roads, the cities, houses, the buildings, the transports. Are they warm and inviting or terrifying and cold? Are the manmade spaces set against rural or urban environs? What's the architecture like? How does your character feel in this space? And this is important: what is the mood this space evokes in the reader? Brainstorm some qualities of the manmade world.
Prompt #5: Consider the technology or magic of your world. How do the characters interact? What are the rules of technology or magic? Does everyone have access to the technology or magic of your world or is it only certain people? How will the rules of technology or magic of your storyworld be explained or shown to the reader? Is the technology or magic of your storyworld intended to comfort or terrify your character and your reader?
Prompt #6: How will time work in your world? When in time does the action take place? Are we in the real world but in future time? Are we in a fantasy world where time and space work differently? What is the time frame of the novel? How will you mark narrative time in the story? Think of years, seasons, celebrations, holidays, and the time beginning point and the time end point of your storyworld.
Activity:
Using the markers and poster board provided, draw a map of your world. You can choose to draw the main “arena” where most of the activity will take place or you can divide your poster board into four-six compartments to draw the different smaller “arenas” of activity that will comprise the storyworld.
Identify natural spaces, such as oceans, mountains, rivers, trees, and so on, with symbols or labels.
Label or create symbols for important manmade elements, such as streets, roads, and buildings.
If the world changes over the course of the novel, draw a “before,” the world at the beginning of the novel and an “after” map, the world at the end of the novel.