Way With Worlds Book 1: Crafting Great Fictional Settings (The Way With Worlds Series)

This is a fantastic resource for writers from many different industries, but especially fiction. Savage breaks down some difficult topics into bite-sized chunks, which are easy to read and understand.As a writer, I'm always looking for new perspectives and ideas to help build settings and characters, and that's exactly what I found. Even though I read through the entire book from start to finish, I found myself revisiting sections relevant to projects I'm currently working on, generating new ideas in the process.Will this book work for everyone? Probably not, but in all aspects covered, but it does give writers like myself a lot to think about, and that can only inspire creativity.

This was a great book that taught me a tremendous amount about world building.The reason that it got 4 stars instead of 5 was because there were some chapters that gave me plenty of questions to ask for my own worldbuilding, while some didn't. I would have liked to have seen questions in every chapter.All in all though, and amazing book. If you have no (or little) experience with world building, this is a book that you should definitely get.

What Steven Savage does in this book goes beyond providing you with the tools to create the world for one game or one book. These principals and guidelines help you create living, breathing worlds, from how they came to be to what their cultures are like. He makes you rethink old fall-backs of lazy worldbuiling, especially those in fantasy and science fiction, so that you can make believable worlds that readers and players will get lost in, wanting to know all of its secrets.

I am truly surprised at the depth of content this book offers. It guided me to issues I never would have thought of myself. What this book offers is very valuable to me because it drives me to brainstorming sessions I never imagined possible. It guides me away from obvious mistakes many authors are prone to, yet don't consider. Great job Mr. Savage.

Book has a good amount of helpful information but there are moments where the grammar as well as sentence structures are bad.

Love, love, loved this book. I was struggling with the world behind my stories and this book just blew me away!I definitely recommend it to all my friends.

Great guidelines to follow when trying to construct new realities.

"Being a worldbuilder is a professional commitment. When you take on making a world when you are a writer/creator, that suggests there are certain things you're committed to that you deliver to your audience," the author insists. Coming from a science fiction background, Steven Savage (self-proclaimed "lifetime geek" and author of books like Fan To Pro: Leveling Up Your Career Through Your Hobbies) offers lots of thoughts on creating the ideal speculative universe. Savage tackles genre mashups, expectations of scifi or fantasy, the challenges of writing humans vs writing aliens, the costs of magic and technology, and so on. He addresses the essential difference between magic and tech, categorizes babble, considers Chosen One plots, and lists much more many readers won't have thought of. It's definitely thought-provoking for the beginning writer seeking world building tips or just inspiration.Within the text, he presents a genre like "Space Western," or an issue like economics, lists several popular examples, then presents a scenario for readers to address. As he goes through a scientist's view of the importance of ecology, all the detail is certain to spark something with readers. He later discusses the problems with fictional religions and more importantly, how to fix them. He even sets this section up as a humorous series of commandments.Most worldbuilding books cover marriage and rules for children, at least briefly. Savage's book goes further, insisting worldbuilders should consider questions of sex, instead of just thoughtlessly including it. Certainly, for aliens, elves, and so on, it's a more complex conundrum. Beyond alien biology, there are other questions and writing exercises, and Savage lists them all to provoke debate, or at least thought.The author gives advice in a light, friendly tone, emphasizing his own status as fan -- he loves reading books on fictional worlds, so your audience likely will too. Through it all, bullet points, short sections, and catchy titles keep the reader flipping through this easy-to-understand guide. A number of his questions focus on what effect the reader wants to achieve -- certainly a vital question for world building.At last the book flows, rather logically, into character creation. Savage suggests different techniques for this, from lists to imaginary conversations to the RPG angle, and so forth. The book ends with a detailed appendix on the best technology for world creation and more thoughts on why worldbuilding is a wonderful idea.So go out and create your own scifi-fantasy universe. But first pick up a copy!