The Five Ps of World Building
World Building is the process of establishing the rules of the universe you create for your story. Every genre uses world building to some extent from hardcore sword and sorcery fantasy novels to the small town detective novel to aliens in space. The amount changes depending on how similar or different the story universe is from our known world.
World Building is a topic I could spend days discussing, and I plan to talk about it much more in future posts. But for now, this is my down-and-dirty basic primer on world building. If you’ve never built a world for a story before, this is a good way to start the process. This basic level might be enough for someone writing a Earthbound, contemporary story, like a cozy mystery, romance, or thriller. For you spec fic peeps, there’s more work to be done, but we’ll get to that later.
Every World Needs the 5 Ps:
1.    People
2.    Place
3.    Problem
4.    Practices
5.    Peculiarities
These five Ps are required for the sixth P: PLOT.
Plot is a series of events that happen as your People with interesting Practices in a specific Place try to solve their Peculiar Problems.
As you brainstorm, the most important question is: Wouldn’t it be weird/cool if ... ? The most important part of world building is that you, the writer, are fascinated and excited to spend lots of time here. Still, there should be an internal logic to how all of these choices fit together to create your story.
The Five P Questions
These are just jumping off points to get the old brain a’stormin’.
People: Not just specific characters. The general demographics of the people in your story. Gender? Age? Races? Backgrounds? Top Professions? Education levels?
Place: City/town/village/planet? Geography? Weather? Resources available? Is there gravity? How do they get food?
Problem: What’s the problem facing this person or people in this town? Is it a vampire horde? Aliens? A murderer? A social issue? Impending climate apocalypse?
Practices: What is the culture of this place or people that might influence the story? What habits or details about the characters influence the story? Is it an inclusive culture or are they wary of anyone who looks different/is from a different place? Is there a major religious system that everyone ascribes to? Is it an agrarian, urban, suburban, or other society?
Peculiarities: These are the fun details. The twists on things we expect. These details will help your story stand out and give it your unique voice. What twist can you give to the familiar? What will make your world memorable to the reader? What will make it feel like a place that could be real? Is there a historic event that shaped the character of this place? Is the mayor a dog? Does a geyser go off in the town square every day at 2pm? Go wild.
Remember: Specificity creates authenticity. The more specific the details, the more believable the world.
All of these choices should affect the trajectory and outcome of your story. I heartily recommend doing a lot of this work before you sit down to write. Trying to backfill world building once you have a story creates forced world rules and details.
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