Worldbuilding: How to Create Realistic Fictional Cultures

YouTube Video: Cultural worldbuilding
This presentation was given live at the 2022 Virtual Writing Retreat.

Writing a fictional world means needing to create fictional cultures. You need to consider the people, what they want, what they believe, and what they value in life. It's the cultures that create depth to a story and to the world. It gives the readers a sense that the world exists outside the writing or outside the main characters.

Creating cultures breaks down into five main categories:

• Who are they?

• What do they believe?

• What structures exist in society?

• What is most important to them?

• What do they do with their time?

In our 2022 Virtual Writing Retreat, our host Leigh Hull talked about how to use these questions to create realistic cultures.

Additional Resources:

• Writing Roots Episodes

  • S1E6 - Worldbuilding: The World Around You

  • S19E4 - Creating a Holiday for Worldbuilding

  • S33E3 - Avoiding the Info Dump: Your World's Culture

• A Writer's Notebook for Worldbuilding Selfishly

• Brandon Sanderson Lecture Series