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Q&A Which should come first, building my story or building my world?

Plot, character, and world are all an integral part of story. You don't have a story, if you don't know who lives it and where it takes place. You may not know all the details when you first have ...

posted 6y ago by Biological Stupidity‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T09:46:23Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/38787
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Biological Stupidity‭ · 2019-12-08T09:46:23Z (almost 5 years ago)
# Plot, character, and world are all an integral part of story.

You don't have a story, if you don't know who lives it and where it takes place. You may not know all the details when you first have the idea for a story, but you will certainly know in equally general terms who, where, and what happens.

From this first idea, the best approach is to

# develop all aspects in parallel

You may want to work on the world for a while, or develop the characters in more detail, but a character lives in a place, and you cannot develop a character without knowing where he lives. So you will always be working on all three aspects of your story – plot, character, and world – at the same time, even if one of them is momentarily more in the foreground.

**If you work on the world without considering plot and character at the same time, your story will lose its integrity.**

* * *

Note how plot and story are not the same. Plot is the structure of the events. Story is what the reader reads.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2018-09-09T17:11:12Z (about 6 years ago)
Original score: 6