Welcome to Tailoring Worlds!

Hello, my dear tailor. This is a place where you — and me — will learn and practice worldbuilding.

I'm JohannFowl and I'll (try to) help you on this amazing journey named worldbuilding.
Take your time to understand what is this place, what you will find here and how it will work.

Table of contents

About this blog

• What is Tailoring Worlds?
• How exactly will Tailoring Worlds help me?
• How are things organized here?
• Can the community participate?

About me

• Why did you create this blog?
• Do you worldbuild too?
• Is that all?

ABOUT THE BLOG

What is Tailoring Worlds?

Tailoring World is a blog-like world where I will share some (not so extensive right now) knowledge about worldbuilding. My main intent is to write articles with relevant information that will help you and me to create better, more credible words.
I admit that I don't know everything, and I'm surely far from that; BUT I am willing to learn a lot and teach you many, many things that may, one way or another, help you on the great journey of tailoring a new world.

How exactly will Tailoring Worlds help me?

A very important part of worldbuilding is making your world credible, what means that your world needs to feel "real", something that could really happen or have happened (even if it needed some magic or divine intervention here and there). Human imagination is surely a powerful tool, but tools have always wrong and correct ways to be used.
To make something that seems real, you need to check out the real thing. Even if you are going to break the rules, with new physics, magic or technology, it's nice to know the rules first. And that, basically, is what I'll do. I will teach you how things work in the real world and then incite you to use your creativity and build something yours from that.

An example

Starting with a practical example, let's say you want to create a desert for your world. But...
What makes a desert be a desert? Why can't I consider a forest as a desert?
Why is it so hot and dry, after all?Is it the desert's fault or is there something else involved?
What kind of plants, animals and people live there? Why aren't there polar bears in deserts?
And where should you place it? Is it okay to place such a dry and desolate place just beside a luxuriant tropical rainforest full of life?

Know the rules...

To answer questions like that, we have to take a look into the deserts we know better: Earth's. There are many and many factors that influence deserts in all of its aspects; knowing them will lead you to a good understanding on this subject, thus making your creation much more credible.
And, as said before, this is the main purpose of Tailoring Worlds: to give you a lot of relevant info about our world, so you can work with it and create your own setting. The blog will have several articles covering many aspects of Earth, from nature to people to society and so on, showing you how this tiny blue planet works, and, if your world is similar to it, how it may work too.

...use them...

Having all this info is cool, but it won't help you create your desert if you don't properly work on it. So, I will always try to bring some extra tips and exercises to help you practice what you just learned. Even simple exercises help you to retain information, and, with time, you will have a database in your brain on how worlds work.
For those who don't want to study too much, don't worry: you will find tutorials to guide you, allowing a rapid creation of anything you want. And the articles will always be available to you anytime, so you can get deeper information of something in case you need it.

...or break them!

Of course, I don't think you want to re-create Earth. I mean, you don't need to create Sahara again. Think about something to make your desert unique! Floating mountains? Giant cacti? Insanity-inducing sand? Camels that talk? Anything is possible when you use your imagination.
Tailoring Worlds is here to help you to create a new world, with the amazing things that roam the depths of your mind and just need a friendly hand to see the sunlight. So, I will also give you advice on how to bend the rules and give birth to things that may be unusual, but not impossible in your world.

How are things organized here?

Sections, categories and topics

If everything goes well, Tailoring Worlds will have a ton of content. And to organize that, we will divide things into sections, categories and topics. Currently, the main sections of Tailoring Worlds are:
Building, with the categories Worldbuilding Basics, Tools and Resources;
Nature, with the categories Geography, Vegetation and Animals;
Civilization, with many categories like People, Technology, Settlements, Politics and Culture.

Each category has its own topics: for example, the category Geography, in the section Nature, has the topics Earth, Climate and Maps.
You will be able to find everything easily, thanks to the Category Tree in the world's main page.

Article pages

The article pages also have their own structure.
The body of the article contains the main content. Basically all the text goes here. In the bottom of the page there will be the footnotes, where I will post an erratum, edit warnings and... well, notes, when in case these are needed. (It's also there where I'll ask you to consider visiting my Patreon and Ko-Fi pages.
The sidebar has some more stuff:

• over panel: there's a TL;DR for you hasty guys;
• panel top: here is the homework, with some exercises for you;
• panel bottom: there's a list of interesting resources and complementary material;
• under panel: there are two tables, one with all the articles in the current topic and one with all the topics in the current category;

Can the community participate?

Of course yes! In my articles, I will try to bring the word of one or two worldbuilders regarding the current subject. That way you can check how differently the builders work and get inspiration, and also check the result in their worlds. If you want to appear here, send me a message and we'll talk about it.
Besides that, anyone can participate in any article by commenting, giving me tips, suggestions or even correcting if I'm wrong.

ABOUT ME

Why did you create this blog?

I love Fantasy and Science Fiction, besides writing and drawing. I think the spreading of this genres—be it in books, games, animations, movies or any other way—can help people in many aspects, for example with reading, writing, learning new subjects, discovering new points of view and developing new ways to think. And, of course, it's all an amazing entertainment.
Being a Brazilian, I really feel a lack of works of Fantasy and Sci-Fi from my country—I am not saying that our literature is bad, because it's insanely rich—although many of us love this genres and also RPG.
So I thought: can I help my country? Can I help to spread these amazing worlds and incite people to create theirs? My answer was: it will be very hard, but it would be amazing to contribute, even if just a bit.
And then I created Tecendo Mundos (Weaving Worlds), a blog in Portuguese about worlbuilding, even before knowing World Anvil. Sadly, I was not very focused and it died just some weeks after its birth.
Now, I still want a blog in Portuguese, but I will start here; here there are lots of people who are just like me, writing and creating, and that can help me in infinite ways. And that's why I gave birth to Tailoring Worlds.

Do you worldbuild too?

Of course I do! I have a world named Erde that is the setting for most of my stories. It's mainly fantasy, but a person aware of the behind-the-scenes may call it sci-fi. I still have to organize it to be neat and polished(as everyone in this site, I suppose).
I have a lot of ideas for stories in different times and places, sometimes isolated and sometimes with links between them. My main goal with Erde is to publish these stories someday.
And talking about Erde, I am currently working in a parallel project that involves fiction writing and worldbuilding. My main goal is to release a monthly story with 6000 to 10000 words, along with some articles related to that story. You will find more in Erde's Tales category.

And is that all?

Well, for now... yes. But soon, and I mean in a matter of weeks, I'll release my Patreon page. I know a have A LOT to improve, but I really want to make a living writing fiction and worldbuilding. So, I'm taking a little risk and... let's see what happens.
Patrons, of course, will have some benefits, like access to the article writing list, the power of choosing the next set of articles, and also some space to promote your worldbuilding-related works (such as worlds, blogs, etc) here in Tailoring Worlds. And, if everything goes well, I'll bring some good surprises in the future.
For now, that's it, I hope you enjoy reading my articles and learn something. If you have any question, tip, suggestion or joke, please send them to me via comments. Thanks!
See ya later, I hope :D

P.S.: Since we are in WorldEmber and the start of this world is relatively easier to write about, I'll write more articles this month than I plan to do in the future. My plans for January and so on are 4 or 5 articles each month in Tailoring Worlds (plus my worldbuilding articles and stories chapters in Erde).
P.S.2:I know we are just starting, but if you want to give me a hand, consider giving me a coffee! The link is in the bottom of this article.
Of course, you can always help me in other ways. Don't be shy to talk with me about it!

TL;DR

• Tailoring Worlds is a blog-like world themed on worldbuilding;
• The main focus of TW is teaching how about our world works, so you can apply this info to your setting;
• Tailoring Worlds will also have exercises for practicing what you've learned;
• This blog is organized into sections, subsections and topics;
• The sidebar presents: TL;DR, Homework, Complementary Material and a list of related articles and topics;
• Erde is my world, where I post articles and stories.

HOMEWORK

Name all the features of...
Just kidding. This is our first class, you are free of homework today ; )

Complementary Material

I have no clue on what to put here for this first article. Maybe my first blog, in Portuguese?
Here we go, Tecendo Mundos.
Never forget your roots, but... I'm so ashamed of this.

Articles in this topic (Introduction)

• Welcome to Tailoring Worlds!
• What is worldbuilding and why to worldbuild?

Topics in this category (Worldbuilding Basics)

• Introduction
• Starting your world
• Tools
• Resources