Diving into World Anvil's Rivers & Waterways Competition
In this post I share my step-by-step worldbuilding process for competitions, plus 26 worldbuilding prompts for rivers!
How I worldbuild for competitions
⏱️ TL;DR
World Anvil have kicked off their latest worldbuilding competition! It's all about Rivers & Waterways, and I want to write something I'm proud of before the deadline of May 28th, 2022 also there's a really cool participation prize from Kobold Press that I want.
In this post: I share my step-by-step worldbuilding process for answering this prompt, plus a big ol' brain dump of ideas and resources to inspire you.
😅 I'm actually worldbuilding as I'm writing this blog post, so you get to see my raw thought process as it emerges!
🔬 Dissecting the prompt
Before I begin worldbuilding, I always read through the competition page to break down the prompt and see what the creative constraints are.
Creative constraints:
- Time - deadline of the 28th May 2022
- Template - must use the Geography article template on World Anvil
- Wordcount - under 2500 words total
💭 Thought process
Now that I know what I'm working with, I like to do a big ol' brain dump (you can see mine at the bottom of this post).
How I do a brain dump:
- Open up the Rivers & Waterways competition page and read the extended prompts and inspiration provided there.
- Grab my note-taking methods of choice, and start writing down any keywords or questions that spring to mind
EVEN IF THEY'RE RUBBISH AND I WON'T USE THEM. - Start branching off from keywords to create a mindmap of connected ideas that lead to more keywords and areas of my world, Melior, that I want to explore.
- When I don't know about the topic or want to get more ideas, I start researching on reddit, youtube, and wikipedia (I've shared some links at the end of this post).
Why doing a brain dump is important for me:
- It's like taking an actual dump and I feel much better afterwards! 😅
- It's important to get all of the weak ideas noted down and out of the way to make room for the good ideas.
- Often, looking at the bad ideas sparks inspiration for something unique!
- When I've got a big page of ideas to draw from, the blank canvas of writing an article isn't daunting any more.
🏆 The competitive bit
The Rivers & Waterways competition on World Anvil has an awesome participation prize from Kobold Press and a grand prize for the winners, too.
With my goal now set, it's time to write! 🙌
Just write the damn thing
📚 Deciding what to write
First, I ask myself two questions:
- What small concepts or ideas do I have already in my world to expand upon?
- Do I want to make something completely new?
For this article I want a bit of both - a brand new concept connected to an existing area or thing in my world that needs a bit more fleshing out.
From my brain dump of keywords, something caught my attention with the idea of a floating market.
🧱 Expanding the ideas
That's it. That's all I have at this stage.
"Floating market".
Now what?
Glancing back at my creative constraints for this article, the wordcount is a maximum of 2500 words to work with (and I don't have to fill them all, either).
To help keep my momentum, I take my starting point and then ask The 6 Questions (who, what, where, why, when, how) and tailor them to the prompt I'm answering (which is primarily about the river, not the floating market).
Dividing the maximum wordcount limit of 2500 words between the 6 questions is just over 415 words each, which has broken down that broad limit into smaller (easier) chunks to fill out.
To make it even easier, I can then split each 400~ word part into 4 smaller questions of 100 words each.
⁉️ Making it memorable
Reflecting upon the meta page of Melior, my dark fantasy worldbiulding project, the tones for my world are: chaos, caution, a generous portion of dark humour and puns. Some articles will make you go "awww!" many will cause you to "oh no..."
To make my floating market concept memorable I thought about the following questions:
- What do people rarely talk about regarding rivers?
- What are the opposites to this concept?
- What would I least expect to see?
- How can I describe the senses?
I set a timer for 15mins and this was my thought process that lead to my final idea:
Sounds good to me! On to the article 🙌
✨ Presenting an article
I always start my articles with a summary paragraph, which acts a bit like a TL;DR but also serves as an intro hook for the article. (My secret is that I end up writing this last, once I've got some lore to reference!)
I then made headings for the major topics I'd be writing about: Geography, Flora, Fauna, Idura, Impact of the Rupture, River Industry, and The Floating Bones Market.
I pasted in my bullet point notes beneath each section and worked on expanding them further. The bones concept from earlier changed quite a lot, but I love how it turned out!
On my final read through and polishing stage I made sure that each section was being relevant to the original prompt about the river, and I made some more connections to other parts of my world to bring it all together.
Here's the final result! ✨
TJ Trewin
How would you answer this prompt? If you're already part of the wholesome World Anvil community check the competition page on how to participate. If you found this post helpful in any way and are interested in using World Anvil to create your world, please consider joining using my special referral link below!
Resources
🧠 Big ol' brain dump of ideas
waterways, ocean, bridges, technology, hydro-power, waterfall, climate (hot/cold?), plants & species (aquatic/non aquatic), pollution, sewage, water treatment, sanitation, transport, food, farming/agriculture, history, mythology/folklore, lost treasure, wreckage, political/country borders, war & conflict, water based military/guard, crime, smuggling, pirates, river mouth, delta, rapids, underground rivers, cave rivers, creek, canyon, gorge, levees, canal, locks, floating market, religious/cultural significance, current, tidal influence, glacier, mill, dam, sports, traditions, water colour, name, tributaries, source/spring, fjord, minerals, clay, ferry, metaphor, reservoir, lake, erosion, sediment, cartography, size, sluice gate, barge, gatehouse, floodgate, floodplain, fishing, settlements
🌎 Worldbuilding prompts for rivers
Who:
- Who lives on/along/near the river?
- Who uses the river?
- Who has a famous connection to the river?
- Who rules, guards, or claims to own the river?
What:
- What is the river called?
- What do people use the river for?
- What resources does the river provide?
- What species live in/along/near the river?
- What connections does it have to other bodies of water (such as tributaries, lakes, or oceans)?
- What dangers does the river hold?
Where:
- Where is the river located?
- Where is the river's source and mouth?
- Where does the river allow access to?
- Where does the river become impassable?
Why:
- Why do people use (or avoid) the river?
- Why were settlements, structures, or bridges placed at those locations relating to the river?
- Why is the river culturally significant?
- Why is (or was) the river religiously or spiritually significant?
When:
- When did people build and settle on or near the river?
- When was a significant settlement or structure built near the river?
- When do people use the river the most (times of day/seasons)?
How:
- How do people make use of the river's resources?
- How do you traverse the river?
- How is the river maintained, if at all?
- How was the river used historically?
- How often does it flood?
📝 External links
- Rivers & Waterways competition | World Anvil
- Worldbuilding rivers: why are they so important? | World Anvil Blog
- River | Wikipedia
- Body of water | Wikipedia
- Water pollution | Wikipedia
- How To River | Artifexian YouTube
- Water powered hammer (Monjolo) | Primitive Technology YouTube
- How exactly do I start making rivers? | /r/worldbuilding
- Advice for placing rivers? | /r/worldbuilding
- What are the major rivers of your world? | /r/worldbuilding
- What are the most important rivers in your world? | /r/goodworldbuilding
