Worldbuilding That Works: Creating Vivid Settings Without Drowning in Details

Derek Murphy, is a mad book shaman who simplifies writing to inspire joy.

I once spent an entire weekend plotting out the trade routes of an imaginary empire—every caravan stop, every bandit hideout, every snippet of local gossip—before I’d written a single page of my novel. By Sunday night, I was ridiculously proud of my elaborate notes. On Monday morning, I stared at my blank manuscript and realized I had zero words of story. Just an absurdly detailed economy for a place that existed only in my head.

Welcome to the beautiful trap of worldbuilding.

It’s a rabbit hole so deep and enticing that you can easily lose weeks, months, or even years “preparing” a fictional universe that might never actually become a finished book. The desire to create a rich, believable setting is admirable; it’s also a fantastic way to procrastinate. So how do you build a world that’s immersive, original, and alive—and still get your novel written?

Worldbuilding is a dangerous game.

On one end, you have the excessive architect—the writer who spends years constructing an intricate, fully mapped-out, multi-generational universe… and then never actually writes the novel. They’re lost in their own labyrinth of trade routes, political alliances, and religious hierarchies, whispering “just one more detail” as their manuscript remains nothing but a blinking cursor on an untouched Scrivener document.

On the other end, you have the barebones minimalist, the writer who throws their protagonist into “a kingdom” (which is never actually described), gives their magic system a vague “because it’s cool” explanation, and acts surprised when their world feels like a cardboard cutout that collapses under the weight of even mild scrutiny.

Somewhere between obsession and neglect is the sweet spot: a world that feels immersive but doesn’t choke your story in exposition. So, how do you create a fictional world that feels lived-in, textured, and real—without drowning in endless lore?

This article is your crash course in weaving together story-first worldbuilding—enough to plunge readers into a vibrant setting without burying them under endless lore. Let’s explore the pitfalls, the best practices, and the sweet spot where your world not only looks good on paper but actually makes your story sing.

What Worldbuilding Actually Is (And What It Isn’t)

Worldbuilding is not about dumping as much lore as possible onto the page. It’s about creating an environment that supports and enhances the story you’re telling.

At its core, worldbuilding comes down to two things:

How the world works. (Rules, cultures, systems, physics.)
How the world feels. (Sensory details, lived experiences, atmosphere.)

Both matter. A world can be brilliantly designed, but if readers don’t feel it, it won’t stick.

Think about The Lord of the Rings. Yes, Tolkien created an entire mythology with languages, maps, and history—but what makes Middle-earth real isn’t the history books, it’s the way the characters interact with the world. It’s the way Frodo feels the weight of the Ring, the way the Shire feels safe and warm compared to the cold, dangerous wilds.

The First Rule of Worldbuilding: It’s Not About the World, It’s About the People

No one cares about your complex geopolitical structure unless it directly affects the characters. No one is memorizing the ten-thousand-year war timeline unless the consequences of that war still shape the story today.

Worldbuilding should always be character-driven. It's not just what exists—it’s how it shapes the people who live in it.

Think about it: In The Lord of the Rings, we learn about Middle-earth through the eyes of the hobbits. We see how massive the world is because they feel small in it. In Dune, Arrakis doesn’t feel like just another sci-fi planet because we experience how brutal it is to survive there—through thirst, through sandstorms, through whispered legends.

The world exists, but the story makes it matter.

Step 1: Start With What’s Different

If your setting is basically “our modern Earth, but with dragons,” that might be fine, but you still need to figure out how those dragons impact daily life. Do they serve as mail carriers? Are they revered as gods? Are they pests farmers try to keep from eating livestock?

Every fictional world needs a core distinguishing feature—something that makes it different from reality.

A single element, when deeply considered, can ripple outward and shape everything.

Ask yourself:

What’s impossible in the real world but normal here? (Flying cities, magic-infused blood, sentient forests, magic, steampunk robots, telepathic wildlife?)
What’s commonplace in our world but missing here? (Electricity, metal, spoken language? No internet? No concept of individual property?)
What shapes daily life for your characters? (A desert climate? A tyrannical AI? A caste system?)

Imagine your world has no natural water sources—it’s a desert planet where every drop of water has to be extracted from the air.

This one change instantly affects everything:

Culture: Water becomes currency. Wars are fought over it. Thieves siphon it.
Architecture: Cities are built with condensation-collecting domes.
Daily life: People wear moisture-capturing suits. Baths are unheard of.
Politics: Whoever controls water, controls power.

See how one foundational worldbuilding choice creates a cascade of logical consequences?

That’s how you make a world feel real. Not by overloading it with unnecessary details, but by letting a few well-thought-out choices dictate everything else.

If you get stuck, try this: The Power of Premise: How to Start with a Strong Story Idea.

Step 2: Make It Personal

It’s tempting to start with sweeping histories and genealogies. But readers experience your world through the eyes of characters. If your protagonist is a smuggler, we see the black markets and shady deals. If they’re a princess, we see courtly intrigue and a gilded cage of traditions.

Don’t just say, “This society punishes dissent.” Show a minor character’s life destroyed because they spoke out. Let us feel that fear creeping into your protagonist’s everyday actions.

Hint 1: information doesn't matter unless it triggers an emotional reaction from a sympathetic character.

Hint 2: information is the death of intrigue and suspense. You want to be raising story questions, not delivering answers.

Try This

Instead of a thousand years of your kingdom’s history, focus on how your protagonist’s immediate life is shaped by the current regime.
Rather than writing an essay on religious practices, show how your main character prays (or doesn’t), and how people react.
If your story starts in a sky city, let the opening lines reflect your character’s comfort or fear of heights, the daily wind patterns, the scramble to secure ropes and harnesses.

Your world isn’t just a setting. It’s an antagonist, a companion, a living thing that shapes the way people move and think.

So before you spend another hour fine-tuning your world’s trade routes, ask:

How does this world force my characters to change?
What are they forced to care about because of where they live?
What’s normal to them that would feel completely alien to an outsider?

If you can’t answer those questions, you don’t have a world. You have a list of facts that don’t matter.

For more on keeping your narrative focused, check out: Characters That Feel Real: The Art of Crafting Memorable Protagonists.

**Step 3: Forget “Unique.” Go for Specific.**

A lot of writers get stuck thinking originality is the key to great worldbuilding. They panic about their magic system being too similar to Mistborn, or their medieval fantasy kingdom feeling too Game of Thrones.

But here’s the thing: There are no truly original ideas. Only fresh ways of telling them. What makes a world feel real isn’t how different it is from everything else—it’s how specific it feels.

Think about:

The smell of the streets. Is it sweet with market spices or sour with sewage?
The superstitions people whisper. Do they throw salt over their left shoulder? Burn their fingernail clippings so no one can curse them?
The everyday inconveniences. How hard is it to get clean drinking water? How do people store food before it spoils?
The tiny luxuries. What do people crave when they’re celebrating? What’s expensive, rare, almost impossible to get?

These are the details that lodge in the reader’s brain—the ones that feel messy, human, lived-in.

And the best part? They don’t require long paragraphs of exposition. They slip into the story naturally, like details in passing.

Instead of:

"The kingdom had strict rules about hospitality, dating back to the war of the six kings. It was a law that any traveler who requested shelter must be given a meal and a place to sleep."

Write:

"The innkeeper sighed, already reaching for another bowl. ‘By law, I have to feed you, but don’t expect me to like it.’"

Same information, better delivery.

PS - this is basically, "show don't tell" or how to describe your scene or setting; there's an art to communicating the unique details in your world without it being a massive boring infodump.

For more tips on ensuring your narrative details serve the story, see How to Start Your Story: The Ordinary World, the Hook, and the Art of Making Readers Care.

Step 4: Watch Out for Info Dumps

Not every part of your world needs to be explained. Some things should just exist.

Tolkien could spend five pages describing a tree and make it work, but most of us don’t have that luxury. The key is picking the right details—the ones that spark curiosity, enrich the atmosphere, or reveal something about the characters.

What to include:

The cultural habits that shape behavior. (People in this city never call someone by their real name until they’ve shared a meal.)
The things characters take for granted. (She stepped over the threshold without knocking—only outsiders knocked first.)
The struggles that affect daily life. (He carried two extra canteens of water. Everyone did. No one wanted to die of thirst before noon.)

What to skip:

Long-winded political explanations unless they’re directly affecting the characters right now.
Extensive geography lessons unless the protagonist is actively getting lost.
Backstory dumps that read like history textbooks. If it’s not immediately relevant, the reader doesn’t need it yet.

Great worldbuilding isn’t about how much information you include. It’s about how naturally it slips into the reader’s mind. A good rule of thumb: if it’s not relevant to the protagonist’s immediate experience, the reader doesn’t need to know it yet.

Your World Isn’t Just a Place—It’s a Character

The best fictional worlds feel like they could keep existing even if the protagonist vanished. They’re more than backdrops—they’re forces of change, shaping the story as much as the characters do.

So instead of asking, What does my world look like? ask:

How does my world make life harder for my characters?
What’s normal in this world that would be shocking elsewhere?
What’s missing from this world? What’s been lost?

Step 5: Establish (and Respect) the Rules

Every world has rules. Even magic has rules. Especially magic.

The more powerful a force is in your world (magic, technology, gods), the more defined its limitations need to be. If magic can do everything, it loses all tension.

🔹 Brandon Sanderson’s First Law of Magic:
“The more you explain magic, the less magical it becomes.”

That doesn’t mean you can’t have a detailed system—just that the reader doesn’t need to understand all of it upfront. Show the effects of magic through how people use it, struggle with it, or fear it.

If your world has strict laws—physical, magical, or societal—make sure they actually matter. If breaking the rules never has consequences, readers stop caring. If you're writing a magic academy, try not to start with a classroom teacher explaining everything.

Earlier I talked about how to dish out information in a story... the first 25% is status quo and mystery and thrills and vibes. You're not explaining anything! You're curiosity-bating, with awesome stuff. When your characters have been shoved past their point of no return, now they can appeal for more information.

The fastest way to kill immersion? Stopping the story to explain the world.

Wrong: “The city of Eldrinthor was built in the year 807 by the last of the Fire Kings, following the Great War of Shattered Crowns, which ended in a fragile truce that would later…” (zzzz)

Right: “The scorched towers of Eldrinthor loomed ahead. No banners flew—none had since the Fire Kings fell. The city kept its wounds open.”

See the difference? One is an info dump. The other shows the world through atmosphere and detail.

One is an active narrator talking directly to readers, a voice in the sky.
The other is an active character experiencing their reality.

Writing Vivid Description

We need a whole article just on the art of writing description, but I don't have one handy, so let me interject with a few quick points:

When people say your characters or settings are flat or cliche, they are too vague or ordinary. To be unique, they need specific, unusual details.
Try to always skip a lame shorthand like "goons" or the "tall one and the fat one" or "it was a typical high-school classroom." Don't let readers do the work for you. Tell them it's a classroom and then show them how it's different, what is special or unusual about it, that's unexpected? Show them that and only that... they will fill in the pieces.
Characters aren't always looking around at everything. The first time they enter a new place, they might; but if they've been here many times, they won't give readers a little tour. Show the world by making them interact with it - but not in a talent show kind of way where they are remembering every detail of their childhood for no reason.
If it's a tense action scene or they are stressed, they won't notice as much around them unless something is different/out of place.

Writing Backstory

Backstory is important but most authors put it at the beginning, which is the wrong place. Backstory is the thing that makes it impossible to do the thing they need to do; the reason this challenge is impossible for them. It's important, because a good story is about a challenge so difficult it forces characters to change, so to make a good story you create a backstory that creates conflict, friction and chaos... that makes it hard.

But we don't need to see that until usually right in the middle of the final battle scene, when it actually matters most; when they finally face and overcome their personal limitations. So don't give it away too easily or too quickly. Remove all the storydump and worldbuilding from the beginning. Start with the story until readers A) like your character and B) care what happens. Then you can start explaining stuff.

The Myth of “More is Better” in Worldbuilding

Here’s the first thing you need to accept: you do not need to know everything about your world before you start writing.

No, seriously. You don’t.

I know it feels like you do. I know it’s fun to get lost in the weeds of designing fictional economies and crafting unique constellations with deep cultural significance. And maybe some of that will matter. But if your worldbuilding doesn’t actively serve your story, it’s just set dressing.

The goal of worldbuilding isn’t to create an encyclopedia. It’s to create a stage where your story can unfold naturally, where your characters can feel like real people interacting with real places.

Think about your favorite fictional worlds. Middle-earth, Hogwarts, Westeros, Arrakis. Yes, they all have deep lore—but what makes them feel real isn’t the depth of worldbuilding itself. It’s the way the characters interact with the world.

Hogwarts feels real not because we have an exhaustive history of wizarding wars (though, sure, Rowling wrote one), but because students actually live in it. They sneak to the kitchens for food. They complain about homework. They play sports.
Arrakis (Dune) is one of the most immersive settings in sci-fi, not because Herbert told us every intricate detail of the spice trade, but because the desert shapes every aspect of Fremen life—their culture, survival tactics, even their body language.
The Shire works because we feel it—not through an info-dump about Hobbit genealogy, but through the sheer comfort of Bilbo making tea and avoiding annoying relatives.

Your World Needs Myths, Gossip, and Bad History

Real history is messy. People misremember things. Folk tales warp over time. Ask ten different characters about a legendary hero and they should give you ten different answers—one reverent, one skeptical, one completely ridiculous.

If your world feels too clean, too neatly explained, it’s probably because you haven’t given it enough contradictions.

The official version of history says the war was about honor and betrayal. The old drunk in the tavern swears it was because of a stupid argument over a horse.
The priest tells people their god is merciful and kind. The exiled heretic knows otherwise.
The ruins outside the city? Some people say they’re haunted. Others say they’re cursed. A few believe there’s treasure buried underneath—but no one who’s gone looking has ever come back.

These little fractures in the narrative make the world feel bigger—like it existed long before the reader arrived.

Hot Tip: People don't random discuss the ancient origins of their kingdom or society for no reason; and they'll all assume everybody else already knows everything common. They'll only talk about things of interest, which are news; things that have changed recently or whispers of potential future changes; or policies that affect them or people they know directly.

We’ve all read (or written) that chapter where the author halts everything to detail the founding of the kingdom. It’s a momentum killer. Your reader only needs the info that’s immediately relevant to understand or feel the tension of the scene.

How to Avoid Overloading

Reveal in Chunks: Sprinkle details throughout dialogue, actions, or environmental clues.
Show, Don’t Tell: Instead of explaining how high-tech your city is, show the protagonist passing a row of levitating taxis or scanning a microchip to open a door.
Character Reactions: Let emotional responses reveal the world. A guard’s uneasy glances at a forbidden gate might speak volumes about the realm’s taboos.

Remember: a short, vivid description of a high-tech marketplace can be more immersive than a 10-page summary of the city’s historical development.

A Note on the “Endless Worldbuilding” Trap

The Appeal

It’s so much easier to design currencies, pantheons, or layered political systems than to face a blank document and craft a real scene. Worldbuilding feels productive, creative, and safe—no messy plot holes or character arcs to juggle.

The Reality

If your dream is to finish a novel or short story, you must eventually stop planning the world and start writing it. Endless worldbuilding can become procrastination. You might fear discovering you’re “not prepared enough,” or you might just enjoy the sandbox too much. Either way, no actual narrative emerges.

Solution:

Set a Bound: Decide how much you truly need before drafting your first chapter. Is it the geography, a basic magic system, and a sense of political tension? That might be enough to begin.
“Just-in-Time” Worldbuilding: Write a scene, realize you need more detail on local customs, take a short break to flesh that out, then get back to drafting. This approach ensures every detail you add has a purpose.
Accept Imperfection: No matter how thoroughly you plan, you’ll revise. So allow some open-endedness. You can always refine the lore in later drafts.

Your World is a Stage, Not the Story

Worldbuilding isn’t the point. It’s a tool that serves the story.

If your setting doesn’t affect the way your characters live, think, and make choices, then what’s the point?

Before you lose yourself in the rabbit hole of lore-building, ask:

✅ Does this world actively shape my protagonist’s experience?
✅ Can my story happen only in this world, or could it work anywhere?
✅ Am I building a setting, or just making a Wikipedia page?

Write the story. Build the world just enough to make it feel real. And don’t forget:

Your world isn’t the main event. The story is.

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