Writing Wednesday - World Building revisited

I seem to be on a real world building kick again.  I'm having to redo some of my world building on Aleran, after some work on Only A Name revealed some inconsistencies...again.  I tend to find those from time to time when I forget what I've done with the world building.  I don't always have my notes up and can't always remember everything I've already decided.  I wanted to revamp some of my ideas anyhow, so I went looking for some help.

I found it.  The first website I found was linked by KD Sarge for a blog challenge she was contemplating doing.  30 Days of World Building was my first stop.  It's got some great ideas and challenges for world building.  My other stop, and one that's a little more in depth, was Fantasy World Building on the SFWA website.  I love the challenges of spending only fifteen minutes a day to work on world building that is demonstrated on 30 Days of World Building.  But I like how detailed the questions on the Fantasy World Building list are.  So I'm using a combination of the two to build up and finish fleshing out Aleran once and for all.

Personally, I don't think world building should be a static thing.  If you're writing a long running series or a multi-story arc...or even if you're writing a bunch of standalone novels (like me) that fit loosely together along a timeline, you're going to be changing and evolving your world.  As you do that, take copious notes and when you find inconsistencies make sure to resolve them.  Because I guarantee that at least one reader will recognize those inconsistencies and could lose interest in them because of it.