I am a fantasy writer with a deep love for worldbuilding and a strong desire to organize everything! On my channel I share my writing experience, drafting and revision vlogs, worldbuilding, and more.
Love your worldbuilding series ❤. After watching so many other Worldbuilding YT channels, yours is the only one that made my fantasy world come together 😊 tysm!!!
very interesting video, and aweseome to see that there are multiple parts! I have a map I've been working on for 10 years that I've always wanted to give the "realistic" treatment at least when it comes to climate. I have my landmasses and mountains etc already, but I want the deserts, warm regions etc to make sense! Maybe it won't totally make sense when you look at plate-tectonics etc, but in the end, it's made up anyways :) Cheers and thanks for making an awesome series of videos! Edit: Man will it ever be complicated to add all of this to an existing map xD ouch.
Thank you! And yes, I've retrofitted a number of maps to this system and it can definitely be tricky! If you can get the plate boundaries working for your various landforms you will be golden! If you want a quick tip, only worry about the boundaries on land since you already have your land masses and mountains and all that. Don't worry about making the entire globe work unless you want to. I think in the mapping section I list what features you'll have in different places. If you care about earthquakes, knowing where your transform boundaries are will help, otherwise you don't really need those. So you can add oceanic-continental convergent boundaries where you have mountains along coasts, continental-continental convergent boundaries where mountains are not at coasts, and divergent where you have land splitting apart. If you aren't wanting to change your landmasses, this is sufficient. And honestly, if you don't care about rocks/minerals/volcanos and don't want to tweak landmasses, you can probably skip this step entirely.
@@madelinejameswrites Thanks for a great and detailed reply! :D It would be fun to see you comment on people's maps in a video some time. Like a kinda "tips and tricks" type of video. Cheers!
Thank you so much for this video, I was finally able to create ocean currents with upwelling! I'm using this series to create my own fantasy map, and so far, it's going great 👍. Tysm😊
Historically, I think geographic determinism wasn’t up against “human choices,” it was put up against “racial determinism,” the even more problematic that peoples were “primitive” because they were genetically inferior. It was a response opposed to prevalent racism.
It's so cool and motivational to hear about your channel growth and feelings about the channel in general. I feel the same about my channel, especially about just being happy people are enjoying my stuff lol. I am also a 7 Days To Die enjoyer and I'm pretty excited to find some time for V1.0. Sorry to hear about your summer migraines and other injuries, but hopefully you start feeling better soon. ✌
I just wanna say I love your work and am looking forward to the E-book if that’s the route you decide. Your work has helped me tremendously, and I’m excited to see where you take this channel! You have a fan/follower as long as you put out content 🫡
Hi Madeline! I wanted to post about a great app I found for a lot of different real time maps for reference wind, weather, ocean currents and more. It’s called windy on the App Store and so far it’s been very helpful to me so I wanted to share the knowledge. Happy map making!
Great video. Always nice to see someone appreciate S&S. I’m also a fan of Robert McKee. I’ve been to a couple of his seminars and got my copy of Story autographed. I’m going to check out those fencing books. I find that Thibault cancels out Capoferro. Don’t you? :)
5:00 you mention exporting notes from kindle. There is a automated way to import individual notes from Kindle in obsidian. I heard in a later video you are considering what notes app to use, maybe it is useful to you :)
Thank you for all your time and effort in these video's and your website. They are an amazing source of information and inspiration! Have you or have you considered DM'ing a game in the world you are building or have built in the past? I am curious for your views :)
I have not DMed a game in one of my worlds before! My first world definitely could have been used for that, but the ones I have built lately are definitely focused around the specific story. It would be a lot of fun to reuse that first world though...
What an awesome idea! I did fencing for 2 years pretty consistently and thought it was so much fun. You are 100% right about how much of an advantage reach is. As a novice I always had trouble sparring taller opponents haha. I think it's cool that you're going through this much effort to improve and I'm interested to see how much it's developed!
I think there's a decent chance that at some point I'll get to the regional worldbuilding guide stuff which would definitely include coastal features, but I'm not sure if I'd do oceanic ones. If it came up in a story I was writing I would probably do it for my own sake. I will say there's some good videos about ocean regions and features by the channel AtlasPro (I think that's right) that I've really loved.
Yeah, search Atlas Pro Ocean Biogeography - not quite what you're talking about but I recommend it. Not sure if there's anything out there right now for super fine grained ocean features 🤔
Send a message on the contact me form on the website and I can send you the link! Trying not to post it publicly because it's very focused on worldbuilding stuff 😊 and I want to keep it within my audience
I've been watching your growth over the past few months - it's so exciting!! I'm so happy to hear you've connected with such a wonderful worldbuilding community and your process and hobby is benefitting from the incredible amount of work and care you put into your videos!! Seeing your passion for swords and fantasy and it all is so uplifting and delightful!! 🎉🥳
I am writing for a late bronze/early iron age setting, so this part of the guide is getting really exciting for me. Can’t wait to see what nuances you’ll explore in there early establishing eras of civilization!
@@madelinejameswrites Just finished the episode, lots of interesting considerations to take in. I always thought states formed out of the attractiveness of a stable lifestyle rather than as a form of subjugation that people were coerced into. Was this something that came up in later stages of civilization formation? I'm also curious about whether or not you'll be doing episodes on how to form "personalities" for your states, things like hierarchies and beliefs.
@@maxwellsimon4538 we'll get into it a bit in the next part, but states did get more attractive over time. There was still the issue of needing to keep the population in a state. And we'll be diving into cultural traits and beliefs more later! They will largely be from the perspective of ways societies can address challenges (both political and geographic).
The most awesome part about this biome mapping portion is that since it is about vegetation coverage, you can coordinate the colours to get an accurate satellite map!
I noticed you posting videos about a conlang/naming language. I am very interested in this topic atm, but I'm confused about the python scripting. Could you do an overview of your language without involving any computer programming?
Oh nice mic upgrade. Also loving the series. I think it's so interesting how much of human history was shaped by geography (so fantasy history would be too)
A few years ago i started creating a series of rules to simulate plate tectonics on a Dymaxion projection using DnD dice to randomize it. I'm excited to follow along your process and see if i can adapt your rules into mine.
Great Interview. On the topic of Dragon Romance.... I have a interspecies Bromance of sorts in my world. Really just a dragon book nerd and a travelling treahni (human) story collector, whom meet regularly to share stories.
16:13 I hate to be the bearer of bad news, although I would argue that this is good news: Getting into traditional publishing will definitely *not* prove that you're a decent writer, to you or anyone else. You have to keep working on your craft until you've convinced yourself that you're good or, at least, that you've done your job and taken the work seriously, which is all anybody can ask for. The "Am I Talented?" question is almost like the existence of God or an afterlife-you'll never truly know, and you can't do anything about it, so the best way forward is to live as best you can in acceptance of not knowing the answer. There are fantastic writers who never get published at all, and there are shitty ones who win awards and sell millions of copies, and even in the weird case where a really good author sells millions of copies, he or she is still going to be asking if it was all a fluke. Good writers tend to be people who question everything; this includes, at least on occasion, one's own talent. Traditional publishing can kill your confidence, say, if your first book doesn't sell and your agent drops you. And this is not a great time for epic fantasy in trade-a lot of authors are being smacked with word count limitations, because the industry has decided that epic fantasy is unfashionable (although there are plenty of readers who still want it.) On the same token, self-publishing is difficult and not everyone has the time and money to figure out how to do it well-and the rules are always changing, and the amount of power certain tech companies have is way too high. Ultimately, trad vs. self is a business decision and nothing more. Looking at both options, and see what's best with the resources and opportunities you have, and don't take it too personally either way. Whichever path you choose, I wish you the best!
Elfquest changed my perception of Fantasy. I found it by accident at a comic fair as a new teenager and loved it! Great discussion over publication and genre. Thank you for providing this interview.
@madelinejameswrites that's fair. Magic can be an equalizing force, depending on the system. If it slows technological progress due to magic dependence or facilitates the transmission of technological advances across the globe, for example.
@@Ratchet4647 in this case it eased agricultural pressures for awhile, allowing them to have a smaller part of the population focused on food production (plus during the same period, weather would have been less destructive). I'm sure there are some areas they'd be bound in still, but overall I don't think they'll be at a big disadvantage
"None of these are the full story" - Of course, they're 10-12K long there has got be be more. It's cool to support small and independent press like this.
ive been using this guide to create my own fantasy world and its been really helpful but i dont have any large landmasses under 35 degrees south and its made it a bit weird when mapping the ocean currents. Im planning on adding some underwater societies but should i add some decently sized islands so it doesnt look empty?
Thank you!!! If that's how your tectonics worked out that's perfectly fine! If you want to add some islands, consider adding some more continental crust on one of your plates or see if you have a convergent boundary to dot some islands along
There are VERY different styles to fantasy worldbuilding, I don't think most fantasy writers need to worry about this kind of thing, but I find it really interesting
I prefer magic systems that do not impact food production, energy and labor productivity, transportation and trade, or state defense. Otherwise, magic will supersede geography, which means you’ll have to redo the entire world building.
Even though the geographic determinism arguments are completely false, that doesn't mean your societies on your world won't use them to justify their own expansions. So they're still good to keep in mind.
Something I'd say is probably relatively minor but I often think about is how magic affects people's average lifespan. If there's some sort of healing magic that is accessible enough, I would guess average lifespan would go up, kinda like what medicine does right now but possibly even better. States and nations would probably be led by older people on average, the appropriate age to get married would probably also go up, infant mortality wouldn't be so high as it historically was, and probably many other things would change as well, like for instance maybe it's normal for monarchs to start their reign being 60 or 70 years old, and there would probably some sort of system that allows for their successors to wield power well before they become head of state since maybe they wouldn't want to wait so long to be relevant? Anyway, great video!
Something else I've pondered with regards to magic in a fantasy world is its impact on the technological _development._ Magic can either impede, accelerate or have no effect on the progression of technologies. It would depend on things like the kind of magic, the prevalence of said magic and the particular technologies involved. Places where magic is intricately woven into the mundane world could see their technological progress stifled because magic would fulfill this role too much for the people to have any need to develop the equivalent technology. On the other hand, magic could get around certain technological hurdles if used in a symbiotic manner, accelerating the development, just down a very different route. Place where there is very little access to magic would probably progress at a "normal" pace, whatever that is. I've contemplated a wild west era style world where magic exists, and I'm still trying to hammer out how magic affects it, as it is a massive web of technology that would be affected by the existence of magic.
Yes, absolutely! It is extremely complicated to think about, but all the ways it can affect innovations is definitely relevant. I imagine you'd really have to consider what base technologies magic might have made redundant in certain places, and then perhaps some things that developed from that base technology might be missing... And potentially also consider new problems magic could have caused and what technologies or innovations would have helped? There's just so much to consider!
How specific do you want? I'm using a Java SDK and my IDE is IntelliJ. I can put notes in the description of the video, but just want to make sure I know what details you want first
@@madelinejameswrites I'm more interested in the code itself. I've tried a couple methods for managing the process and content of the conlangs I've worked on but haven't really liked any of them. Your Java process is a very different approach that I'd like to give a try.
