World Building
Tue, Feb 10
|Zoom
This talk explores three useful approaches to worldbuilding—bottom-up, top-down, and goal-oriented—and how each can help you build a setting with the right depth, tone, and focus. We’ll look at how these methods support different kinds of stories and how mixing them can open up new possibilities.
Time & Location
Feb 10, 2026, 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM EST
Zoom
Guests
About the event
This talk will examine the concept of worldbuilding and some pathways to approach it in a way that serves your story. While the focus will be on fantastical secondary worlds, these three approaches can help with any genre, as all stories benefit from a depth of setting and precision of tone. After all, that's what worldbuilding really boils down to. The three broad approaches this talk will explore are as follows:
Bottom-up (or "Ecological") Worldbuilding uses fundamental rules and systems to derive a societal setting from an ecological foundation. This approach benefits large-scale stories with long histories and a broad focus, such as The Lord of the Rings. Top-down (or "Cultural") worldbuilding relies on a certain culture, place, or time period for inspiration, letting the characters inform the world. This approach serves more precise stories with a rich present-day for characters to engage with, such as A Song of Ice…