Worldbuilding: Icons & Big Ideas (What All Prominent Fiction Has in Common)

Worldbuilding is a process vital to the creation of good fiction.

Worldbuilding is something I’ve thought a lot about over the past couple of years, due to the process of building my sci-fi universe Esotera. I wanted to make a world that’s interesting, immediately recognizable, and logical.

Jeez, that’s a lot to ask for – and not an easy task. For me, at least, it started with a passion for reading and watching sci-fi and apocalyptic material over the years. I like Blade Runner and I like Mad Max, among other things. I thought, ‘wouldn’t it be cool to make something that’s like a mix of those two worlds?’

So, you see, I started out with a big problem.

I didn’t have anything immediately recognizable as its own entity, logical (the world just ‘is’ – there’s no understanding or logic as to how it became that way), or interesting (at least not inherently).