Fantasy Writer Decides To Write Fantasy Story
First thing’s first, I decide to do the thing.
But how does it go from nothing to novel? There’s no magical spell or summoning of demons. Then how do I do it? How does it happen and when do I build that fantasy world? And when do I know when I’m done? Am I ever done with anything? (2025 finished drafts count: 18, self-published book: 1).
Before we get into the nitty-gritties, let me tell you something important, and also some things you need to know about me.
Important: My Process Might Not Work For You
Look me in the online eye and let me tell you something extremely important–we’re two different people with two different lives. Everything we do today is influenced by everything in the past including our upbringing and the relationships we have had.
So, what works for me might not work for you.
That’s totally fine.
If my process sucks for you, it would help you if you reflect on why, and then reach inside of yourself and figure out what you’re missing. Then it would do you good to go on the hunt again for other writing processes. You might not figure out what works for you right away. But if you love writing, telling stories to people, or making up fantastical worlds, I hope you’ll keep at it and little by little you will figure it out.
It took me a while to figure out what works for me. Trial and error. Don’t fret, fellow writer. You got this 😉
So, with that out of the way, let’s get into this article.
Things You Need To Know About Me
Before we jump into the creation of a fantasy story and world, I need to tell you about myself as a fantasy writer. I found out what kind of process works for me based on where I get inspiration and what kind of writer I am.
Varying Origins of Inspirations: The origins of my inspirations can vary from story to story. From my imagination, from a dream, from being inspired by mythology, or by a movie or a book, from real-world history or real-world people, from art and sometimes, from music. Sometimes I reread a little story I wrote ten years ago that I never finished, and then I get this idea, a flash of a lightbulb, a sense that this could be something more. A little somethin’-somethin’.
Writing Style is Pantser: You gotta know that I’m a pantser meaning a “discover-the-story-as-you-write-it” type of writer. I don’t outline chapters and barely plan anything before I write.
Some stories start with the main character and a tiny backstory. Some stories start with a character in a scene (e.g., a sorcerer boy being threatened expulsion from school, a charismatic gentleman walking alone in the rain and being at rock bottom for the first time in his life, a girl putting on a bracelet and being whisked away to another world). And there are stories that start with a kind of magick system (e.g. elemental magick enhanced by magical creatures from a cursed forest ).
After these initial ideas float around in my noggin, I then think up a basic beginning, middle, and end, and maybe a few other characters besides the main character (MC). Then I imagine where the MC is in Chapter 1. Then I write toward the end and let the story and characters take me on a ride.
With that out of the way, let me tell you about my world building stages when I draft a fantasy story for the first time. I’ll talk about the idea stage, the drafting stage, and the editing stage, and for each of those stages, I’ll talk about how I go about worldbuilding because I do it while writing.
Idea Then Aesthetics
I call myself a visual writer. So, after I get some idea for a story, I like to go and look for inspirational photos and art on Pinterest. If I’d already been inspired by a photo or art, I try to collect more stuff. Sometimes, however, I do this after I get the first chapter out of my system. I have a scene in mind I want to write, so I just go for it.
I pants the heck out of whatever is inside of me, and once the storm calms, I got off to Pinterest.
Note: Pinterest in the year 2025 has a lot of gen-AI garbage, but I weed through all that and find the real stuff as much as I can. Personally, I don’t want to give gen-AI the time of day. At all. Nope. I doubt my opinion will change 30 years from now if gen-AI is still slithering around on the web space.
Getting a visual of a fantastical place really helps description, and other fantasy writers have expressed the same. If you’ve never been to the place, never seen the thing, or never met a person like that, of course you’re going to struggle to describe stuff. I might not find the exact visual for the thing, place, or person, but I can find something close and go from there.
I often go back and forth between writing the story and finding aesthetics.
Worldbuilding While Writing
I realized this is “WWW”. Triple “wuh”.
I worldbuild while writing because I’m a pantser. Discovery writer, is another term, because I’m discovering the story, the world, and the characters as I write. So, how exactly do I do this? This often means I will actually stop writing a scene and research a thing for two hours until I find what I’m looking for, and then, somehow I’m able to still continue the writing flow.
Here’s what that actually looks like.
As I was writing a story about a bipedal blue feline trying to save her species from extinction, I came across a moment where the character needed to use the currency of the world and realized, hey, wait, I hadn’t thought of it yet. Since the entire world uses the same currency, I wanted a word that means “all” or “one” but that was in some other language. Maybe Latin, maybe Proto-Germanic (a lot of words in that world were already inspired by Proto-Germanic because I liked the looks and sound of it), or maybe I’ll go with a mix? I probably searched for almost two hours. I can be quite stubborn.
In the end, I did find something (to be honest, still not completely sold on it), and after all that searching, I was able to pick up where I left last.
Can you stop writing and search for something you need on the spot and then resume your writing flow?
I honestly don’t know how I do this. I’ve tried dissecting it, but I really have no idea. If I’m interrupted by other things like having to make a meal, I find it hard to get back into the flow unless I’m having a generally flowy day, or I’m super determined to finish writing a chapter or two or three. For some reason, researching a thing and in many cases ending up in a rabbit hole tangent, doesn’t break my flow.
Curiouser and curiouser.
I do a lot of my world building this way.
Worldbuilding Before Editing
After I’m done my first draft, before I get into editing to create the second draft, I start to organize and make sense of the lore I created. I make a note of characters in order of appearance (families are kept together), and their backstories, what they look like, and any powers they have or will discover. I make a note of the places that appeared in the story in order of appearance and make some notes about them (anything from what the characters did when they got there, or some lore I came up with, or something quirky about a town or city).
Then I make a list of species, and magick spells (if I have them) and what they do or who uses them, and any other notes about species-specific magick, or the magick system in general. I go back through the entire story for this.
After that, I touch upon the history of the world, and might even get into creating a timeline for it, but only if I feel this is necessary for the story. Of course, you could argue that I need this to look at the bigger picture, but for me, if I don’t need it for the story, I won’t bother now. I’ll bother later 😉
Most things are already in the story. I don’t have to come up too many new things. Anything new might be a little additional info that didn’t make the cut. Once, while organizing information, I remember I had a idea about a strange old temple in a topsy-turvy forest where a bunch of bipedal species used to visit to pray at. I liked that idea, so I made a note of it. Who knows? I might need it in a later draft or a complementary novel.
This part of the process is all about grabbing out information and making a sort of Wiki out of what I’ve got, and filling in tiny gaps, making the world feel more complete.
Worldbuilding During Editing
With all this worldbuilding organization going on after writing the first draft, sometimes I do wonder if I should figure out a more efficient way to go about writing, editing, and worldbuilding, but once I have a scene in my head, I have to write it. I gotta follow the flow and ignore the kinks until the end. Literally. Until I write “The End”, I do not touch those worldbuilding holes.
Oooo, so satisfying to write “The End” at the end 😊
Anyway, after I get all those in good order, I begin to edit. And during editing, I do more worldbuilding often to fill in plot holes and more lore gaps. For my bipedal blue feline story, I didn’t even consider that if my characters are living in a remote village and eating bread, that they probably have to grow grain, and if they are drinking milk with the bread, they must have a lot of goats if that’s what I’ve decided they have for cattle as opposed to cows.
Oh my gosh, I didn’t think about agriculture for my world at all (says me, Sept. 13, 2025, working on Draft 7 of my bipedal blue feline story). Gosh darn it.
And so, off I would go on themed worldbuilding escapades like “agriculture in places that have goats” or “agriculture in places that have apple groves” or “tribal people living in remote forests” or “what can you make bread from”. I’d be Indiana-Jones-ing myself into the caves of the inter webs to discover the golden egg of information to use as inspiration for awesome fantasy lore.
That’s a loaded sentence.
Creative Searching
Sometimes I come across writers who ask other writers for information to use as inspiration for their story before going on the inter webs themselves to find it.
Why won’t they do it themselves?
I think being a writer comes with being a sort of online sleuth. It comes with being cunning and clever to dig out oddly specific bits of information you need for your story.
Being able to find the right words to use to get said information efficiently is a skill. You need to try this word or that. This phrase or that. Trial and error. Even look up synonyms of words in order to ask questions with those words.
I might look for “agriculture in places that have goats”. But maybe that’s not specific enough. Maybe I should look up about goats on Wikipedia to figure out where they live natively and then looked up those countries and learn about their agriculture and environment. Then I can looked up “food from [insert country here]” and get inspiration for what the local culinary scene is like in that specific place where goats are native. If I feel like I need further visual information or want to actually see people cultivating the stuff, YouTube is a treasure trove.
You can find anything on YouTube. I once needed to know how people make soap in the wild for survival and guess what? Someone had uploaded a how-to-make-soap-in-the-wild tutorial using pine needles and charcoal (and other natural ingredients).
I didn’t end up using that info though. Now I have oddly specific knowledge in my pocketses (my precious!) That’s a writer for ya 😛
You can really find anything on YouTube. A minor channel with 10 subs that hasn’t uploaded in 10 years, or some very niche and obscure channel with 1 million subs that you’ve never stumbled across? Which is better? Both are good sources of information for me. All I need is the information and I’ll let the fantasy bit fill in the blanks if needed.
When Do I Stop Worldbuilding?
Fantasy Writer Decides To Write Fantasy Story, Idea Then Aesthetics, Worldbuilding While Writing, Worldbuilding Before Editing, Worldbuilding During Editing, and after all those moments of Creative Searching, now, now I’m done.
Or am I?
Sometimes, a story throws a gap at me, coming from left field that neither I nor my beta readers had caught before. Some little inconsistency that has to do with the lore. Or some odd thing that maybe I should consider changing. Or maybe I used a word that turned out to be discriminatory by mistake, and I need to change it ASAP.
Or maybe the world needs one more magical spark to it.
When do I stop worldbuilding then?
I think it’s when I’ve come to the near-final stages of editing. It’s when I’m making sure the sentences make sense or that they flow nicely. It’s the line editing stage. I’m editing out too many “just”s or “that”s or “looked over her shoulder”s.
Everything about the world sits where it’s supposed to. Nothing has gone unaddressed. No reader has brought up any odd bits.
Yes, I nod to myself, yes, this world is built.
Now, I can focus on making things flow and read nicely.
Phew! 😅
Conclusion
In conclusion, this was all really surface-level stuff.
I could say a lot more about all aspects of worldbuilding. I could talk about how I go about creating character names, magick systems, or a fictional historical timeline. I could get into how I come up with fantasy creatures. I could get into what I look for on Pinterest to find the non-gen-AI art for inspiration, and subsequently, how I get into making aesthetic boards for funsies.
This article, was, however, about how I, as a panster, create a fantasy novel. It’s about how I worldbuild while writing or editing. That is my process and what I figured out works for me.
As I said in the beginning, what works for me might not work for you. That’s totally fine. You might struggle, trying to figure out how abouts you can worldbuild. But when you get discouraged and feel like giving up, remember why you started writing fantasy in the first place. Wasn’t it because you love fantasy and you love thinking about the wonderful worlds?
I love writing fantasy because I get to explore fantastical worlds where I can make anything happen. I love all kinds of magick, and I like making up fantasy creatures. I have such fun doing the worldbuilding research and gathering fun tidbits and putting them in my pocketses.
In the end, if you read this and you’re like, “meh, that won’t work for me”, let me leave you with this: You got this, fellow writer. You’ll figure it out 😉
FOXWOOD FOREST 