The Worldbuilding Boogeyman: Organising Lore
It's time. Your dozens of scattered half-written notes from notebooks and phones need to be eliminated, because you now want one place to store everything and find everything. It's a mighty purpose... but how exactly do you achieve this goal? Let me show you how.
Contents
- What Tool To Use
- When To Use The Tool
- How To Use The Tool
- The Key Technique
- The Waiting List
- The Rule Of One
- Style
- Wonderful, Now Share Your World
What Tool To Use
This may seem like a difficult step. After all, you don't know what working with a certain platform will be like until you've tried it. But actually, it doesn't have to be a complex tool; the more function-specific it is, the more restrictive it will end up being. There are some popular tools, like Obsidian, WorldAnvil and OneNote. But for the reason above, I find a Word document is perfectly sufficient.
The main difference is whether everything is stored in one linear file or in a hierarchical system of files. But since you'll use layers, titles, and categories in a world bible, that's not really a difference either, because these things perform exactly the same function of sorting things.
Just choose something you're familiar with (or don't mind getting to know).
When To Use The Tool
This is the first and most important thing: above all, you need to write everything down. Everything. Because you're working with the ideas as you're developing them, so they stay fresh in your mind, they will fade after a few days, and you'll forget details. Which you don't want, because the whole point of a bible is that it holds information for you.
However, and this took me a while to learn, the database you use isn't the best place for the actual creative process. Most creative methods are much more productive in contexts such as a conversation or a mind map (or the efficient process I explain in this post). Instead of creating things straight into your document, just add anything new when you're done.
When you aren't sure about something later, your bible will serve as a clear and organised source of information.
How To Use The Tool
The Key Technique
Some worldbuilders like to keep everything in its proper place and perfectly organised, while others' documents look like a fourteen-year-old boy's room when his mom doesn't make him clean it for a week. If you're the latter, and feel like you can deal with the mess, don't mind this next section. That being said, an organised document is the heart and soul of a coherent, efficient lore bible.
I have already mentioned the first tool you can use for this purpose: layers and categories. If you divide your lore up into types and sections, everything will be easier to find. Here's one example of hierarchically organised titles from my world bible:
> Magic
> Chaos magic
> Artificial
> Spells
> Natural
> Astral magic > Astral links and bridges
In an organised bible, it's both easy to add and easy to locate details. In the example above, if I wanted to add another form of Astral magic, he'd simply have to jump to the very end and create another title at the same layer as > Astral Bonds and Bridges. And if he wanted to look up how Chaos magic works for creatures that inherently possess it, he could go to the Navigation Panel in Word and click the > Natural title to jump straight to it. Of course, the more developed your lore is, the more layers you'll want.
The Waiting List
While it's important to have a well-developed hierarchy, sometimes a worldbuilder just can't be bothered to format a new section or find the right place for a new detail. This is where this dynamically changing part comes in: a list at the start of your world bible, where you keep all those things you haven't fully developed yet, or were too lazy to format the right way.
It's ideal to keep this list as short as you can, but if your creative mind works like mine does, you'll end up with a lot of semi-ideas waiting to be sorted. Don't worry: everyone has a different preference, and you can experiment to find yours.
The Rule Of One
Because of how hierarchic files or titles work, it's important to remember that everything should only exist once. This is essential for a coherent world, because things will be both easier to find, and easier to change this way.
Although you shouldn't write something down again, you can refer to sections of your document. In my world, for example, there's a continent with three seasons: wet, dry, and rainy. Below the major title about this continent, Aver, the lengths and causes of these seasons are described. Further down the hierarchy, when the document gets to the different regions and biomes, each season's biome-specific effects are described: in the Portian Jungles, wet season means the forest floor is turned into a swamp, with many streams and ponds; also, tulip mambas migrate at the end of this season. But the length of the season, for example, is not described at this layer, because it has already been established when the bible first wrote about seasons.
Style
This one depends largely on preference, so I will simply point out a few facts or things to consider.
Firstly, there's no reason to write in complete sentences and paragraphs. The point of a document is that you understand it; you can achieve this with lists of bullet points and abbreviations, too. Bullet points also allow you a further hierarchic breaking down of lore, which is a large benefit. And abbreviations can shorten otherwise lengthy pieces of lore without any loss to meaning, which makes everything easier to find and manage. Just remember them, and maybe even list them at the start of your document.
Thirdly, sometimes mediums other than text can prove to be very useful. Most world maps prove this, but you can also draw insignia or unique weapons, or create tables to categorise the functions of a hard magic system. Hell, I record my own voice imitating animals in his world instead of describing them in text.
Wonderful, Now Share Your World
So you've got a working document for your own use. Great. But how do you share this thing? If you just need yourself because you're going on a trip for example, you can just upload files to any cloud or send it to yourself in e-mail. If you have a group of files though, you might want to compress it into a .zip file first.
Regarding the sharing of lore with others, there are many ways. I've made publicly accessible Google Docs before, with small snippets of lore. Or, you can simply make a temporary second document where you copy any relevant information, and delete it once you don't need it.
Organising lore is the foundation of long-term worldbuilding. Use the techniques written here, but also experiment, find out what suits your style best. And naturally, feel free to ask questions or request topics in the comments. I hope you found this lesson helpful.
See you next time!
Images from Pixabay