Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

60%
+1 −0
Q&A Which should come first, building my story or building my world?

You need the broad strokes of the world filled out before you can really start to run characters through their paces. You can know what your characters are going to do long before you have a finish...

posted 6y ago by Ash‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T09:46:24Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/38790
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Ash‭ · 2019-12-08T09:46:24Z (about 5 years ago)
You need the broad strokes of the world filled out before you can really start to run characters through their paces. You can know what your characters are going to do long before you have a finished world but in order to have characters interact with the world as well as each other you need to know _something_ about that world.

I usually worldbuild first, probably more than I strictly have to because I used to build RPG worlds and players will always poke at the blank spaces on the map. The world can inform a lot about characters, or not, depending on your exact setting, genre considerations etc... but until you rough in the general outlines you just don't know how much you really need to tell your tale. I'd advise starting with a bit of the world at least, even if only the very broadest stokes.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2018-09-09T17:48:55Z (over 6 years ago)
Original score: 4