Where do you start when creating a new world for your webcomic? How do you keep your OCs from floating in space and actually pull them into a story?

Making a unique and grounded world is a powerful way to make your story immersive, memorable and enjoyable.  Whether it’s downtown sunny Toronto or a fictional place, noting its unique gestures, food, fashion, terms, currency, and modes of transportation can be small and powerful considerations to show your reader where they are and what it’s like, and attain a distinct yet memorable aesthetic.

Five stepping stones to get you started:

1. Ground your characters in your world. Choose an aesthetic and think of ways to match the designs of your characters, world inhabitants, objects, and buildings to that aesthetic in a way that makes sense to your story. Work to make everything be cohesive to the setting and plot (unless deliberate contrast is a plot point).
2. ‘Explore beyond the city limits’. What is the world like? What era are you working with? What are the social norms that people follow? (religion/sports/government/military/etc)
3. Draw a map! Indicate your character’s journey on a map, and illustrate the different areas that they visit. This also helps with keeping scenes and locations cohesive.
4. Research different cultures. When you make a new ‘race’/‘planet’/‘city’, put effort into understanding why its culture is noteworthy.   Research is your best friend in all aspects of world building, be it fantasy or non-fiction, and can help find what makes your setting worth noting.
5. Provide yourself context now for easier decisions later. Even if the work you do to compile these facts won’t be shown to its

   full extent, having the context for you as a writer helps with adding

   small details more efficiently and creates a more ‘lived in’ world.

   
   

Remember,

world-building is not solely a ‘fantasy’ genre tool.

World-building exists in all stories, and is a powerful tool to make writing easier for yourself and more engaging for your readers!