Week 1: Pledge Your Goal
The first step when preparing for a challenge like WorldEmber is to set a goal. After all, working towards a specific goal tends to be way more motivating than just writing aimlessly!
1. Set a word goal and your area of focus
How much do you want to write this month? The goal of WorldEmber is 10,000 words, but you can decide to aim higher if you feel up to the challenge! Download this pdf to pledge your goal:
2. Choose your area of focus
You know how much you'll write—now's time to decide what you'll write
about! Look at your world, and pick your area of focus. Here are some examples!
- Fauna and flora in your world
- Magic systems, items, and factions
- The traditions and history of a culture
- Expand on the worldbuilding from your NovelEmber project
- The setting of your upcoming campaign
To choose an area, you can consider the following:
- What are you excited about? If you feel excited about an area of your worldbuilding, follow your instincts! It’s easier to keep your motivation up if you write about a topic you enjoy.
- If you have an ongoing or planned story (novel or campaign), pick something that will be useful for it. This will give your worldbuilding a sense of purpose, motivating you throughout the challenge. Otherwise, make a list of directions you could go in. Look at your world map, read your meta document or world primer, and find an area that seems interesting to you.
- Or how about creating a whole new world? Starting from scratch means you can write about basically anything, which is great for a wordcount-based challenge like WorldEmber.
Once you have chosen your area of focus, take a moment to review any related articles! This will warm up your creative muscles and maybe even give you some inspiration for next month.
3. Create or update your meta
The meta document is all the information about your world that isn't
part of the world. It will help you stay on track, keep you motivated, and will prevent inconsistencies in your worldbuilding.
If you're starting a new world, create your meta now! And if you're writing in an existing world, review your meta and consider creating a specific mini-meta for the area you'll explore during this month. Here are a couple of resources to help you out:
To submit the homework, create a Generic Article with the pledge document and explain what your area of focus will be!
Week 2: Prepare Your World for New Readers
WorldEmber is a great moment to get new readers to your world, as you'll be writing a lot of new content (and probably sharing it too)! So let's take a week make sure your world is ready for new readers!
1. Review your homepage
The homepage is what most readers will see when they first open your world. So take a look at it now—make sure that it...
- ...has a clear but short explanation of what your world is about (aka an elevator pitch).
- ...sets the proper expectations for your readers (should they expect fun dino-taming adventures, or Cthulhu-style cosmic horror mysteries?)
- ...includes a clear user journey. Or, in other words, tells your reader what they should read next so they don't get overwhelmed by all your content.
- ...is easy to look at! First impressions are important, so double-check that everything is readable, without long paragraphs.
Check our
tips to make a great homepage!
2. Create or review your world primer
Also known as an introduction article, this is a page that has all the fundamental information your readers need to know about the world. Unlike the homepage, it's not about hooking your readers, but about teaching them all the basic concepts. Depending on the type of world you're writing, it could include:
- The most important factions or characters: who will your readers meet?
- Information on the magic system and technological level: is this well-known or kept as a mystery?
- Relevant differences compared to the real world: are there floating islands? Differences in gravity?
- What the current conflicts are—conflict is super important to make stories interesting!
If you have an existing world, you probably have a primer already. Still, double-check that it's up to date and that it isn't missing any new content! As primers touch on all important areas of the world, they can easily become outdated with time.
For more tips,
check how to create a player primer—you'll find it useful even if you don't have an RPG-focused world!
3. Set up your community tools
World Anvil has a bunch of tools to create a community around your world! Here are some ideas:
- Add a follow button to the most important articles. As a Guild member, you can also add them to a global content field so they appear in all articles!
- Set up self-assigned subscriber groups (Guild-only). Some Anvilites use them to show additional content (such as spoilers), while others use them to present different perspectives on the same content.
- Add links to your worldbuilding-related projects! Have you written a book or run a creative livestreams related to worldbuilding? Or maybe you have your own Discord server for your world? Add links to the world so your readers can find your stuff easily!
4. CSS wizardry
If you're a CSS wizard, it's time to cast your spell! CSS will only be a distraction in December, so now's a good time to do some spring cleaning and tweak the visual style of your world! Check that the style reflects the tone and mood of your world, and that everything is readable and has good contrast.
To submit this week's homework, update the article you submitted for week 1, adding how you approached these week 2 tasks!