LORE! We all love it, we all have it. It’s that cool secret sauce that makes sci-fi, fantasy, supernatural, or other speculative fiction so much fun to make theories about. How does this funky world you made up work? How do you keep it all consistent, and make it an interesting part of the story? Today we’re gonna talk about it!

How do you come up with the lore for your story?

You can find inspiration from different languages, like Krispy gathered a lot of ideas for locations, names, and religions and such from Greek translations.

When coming up with lore, you want to make sure you make sure it all makes sense and matches the tone you’re trying to get with your story.

Another form of inspiration is simply mashing up things that you love. Claire mashed up some of her favorites (water, blue, spooky, death) and built her world to include those concepts. Thane loves white hair and pointy ears and funky magic systems so had to develop a world all of those aspects could fit into.

Writing a prequel or flashbacks for your comic can force you to develop the lore of your story. Often this is most beneficial in developing lore that directly impacts the main characters.

Another route to take is to establish the rules of the world that are set in stone. From there, you’ll get to discover how your characters relate to that rule and how those rules affect the way society runs. It also helps to demonstrate things so readers can understand what is happening.

Now a lot of the time you want to figure out how all the lore affects things and connect, but it’s okay to embrace the Rule of Cool and just go with it because you want it there.

How do you keep track of the lore that appears in your comic, and make sure it all makes sense?

Krispy has lots of handy dandy notebooks! Make notes of everything and how it intertwines to try to avoid contradicting yourself. Set a few concrete rules that you will always follow. Keep track of questions you get regarding the lore so you can reference them later.

Clam lives on the edge and keeps most of it in her head, occasionally dropping in lore specific pages in between chapters. A lot of comics have their own wikis that make for a useful lore collector. Keep it limited and find a few things you go VERY deep on.

Thane is an archeological dig of lore that keeps building and covering over the old as the new comes to light. Google docs or other cloud based services make for good lore to allow for access from multiple devices so you can make a note when it comes to you. Often what is in the comic becomes the only concrete lore.

Delphie opts for less permanent note options and uses a lot of scrap paper. If a block of text is intimidating, document the lore in a different way, like designing a travel brochure, or graphical poster. Document the canon and leave the rest to be swirled around before it makes it into the comic.

Can you have too much lore?

This depends on the type of story, the length of the story, and what type of lore. Application of the lore matters. There’s no one size fits all.

If you’re intimidated by the world building and the amount of lore you have, don’t be afraid to tone it back or wait to establish it until its needed in the story.

Do you have any advice for creators about worldbuilding?

If you’re unable to keep something straight, find a way to document it so it can be easy for you to keep up with. Make a glossary if you need to.

Use words that are similar to known words. If you’re making up words completely, make sure you define it for your readers, and yourself.

Use your lore to build the story. Start simple and basic and build up to the complicated details.

Leave room for flexibility. Your story will often evolve as you go on and your lore may change with it.

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Episode Release Date: May 25, 2022

Episode Credits:

Kristen Lee (@feathernotes) - she/they, ghostjunksickness.com lunarblight.com

Renie Jesanis (@renieplayerone) - she/they, kateblast.com

Christina Major (@delphina2k) - she/her, sombulus.com

Ally Rom Colthoff (@varethane) - she/they, chirault.sevensmith.net wychwoodcomic.com

Claire Niebergall (@phantomarine) - she/her, phantomarine.com

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The Intro "DO IT (feat. Shia LaBeouf)", and the Outro "It's Good To See You Again!!", both by Adrianwave, have been used and modified in good faith under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Licensed. Edits include: Fade IN/OUT, and a repeat added to the beginning of "It's Good To See You Again!!". For more information on this creative commons use, please reference https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.