Fleeting Moments?

Don't Miss Chances for Worldbuilding

From the 14th century Codex Manesse

Worldbuilding is what draws me to new stories. In exploring a world, I want to be all in when it comes to immersion — to see what care and attention the worldbuilder has put into the world and the story. What makes this place unique?

Depth, uniqueness, and immersion often are best accomplished through a multitude of smaller instances by which the reader discovers the larger world. A phrase or sentence here, a paragraph there. Keep those plodding lore dumps to a minimum.

Let’s parse the following sentence for some worldbuilding opportunities. Take the sentence as is; no additional context other than it’s a generic medieval or medieval fantasy setting.

Maybe this sentence is from a first draft of a story. While a simple beginning, it offers opportunities for expansion.

The knight in shining armor carrying a banner of blue and red departed the castle.

How would you add to this scene? Other than visual descriptions, what other sensory descriptions would you add?

As context, I found the image above after writing this article. It has similarities to the prompt which drove me to select this image rather than the other way around. Don’t be constrained by the image in this worldbuilding exercise as to how you would expand the scene from the prompt.

Maybe this unnamed knight is riding something other than a horse?

There’s a chance to describe the knight’s armor. Perhaps the armor is typical for the late medieval ages, but how about a phrase or sentence or two about the armor’s ornamentation? Consider pauldrons shaped as leaping dolphins or the helmet stylized like a grinning fiend from the infernal abyss.

I think some of the best worldbuilding is done in these concise pops of description. Keep the story moving but enrich the scene.

One of my favorite parts of worldbuilding is imagining new heraldry and flags.

Let’s take the blue-red banner. One way to kick it up a notch is to add a lion, a dragon, or a triumphant hero holding up the head of a slain gorgon, but let’s keep the simplicity of the banner and give it a different twist.

While the prior examples have been primarily in the descriptive realm, let’s tie in some deeper worldbuilding elements.

The knight’s standard of blue and red towered as a rare mark of simplicity among the flourished and festooned banners of the other great houses. One of the oldest and most enduring symbols in the land, it arose from the humble origins of necessity and defiance.

The knight’s ancient forebearer had led the desperate defense of an ambushed caravan. Snatching broad bolts of blue and red silk from a merchant’s cart, he improvised a signal to loft above the makeshift wagon-fort with the hope of calling friends to their aid. While a relief force arrived, it was not until after those fighting beneath the banner already had driven off the raiders. Then a landless warrior, the forebearer took the colors as his own as well as rich rewards from the grateful merchants. In the following centuries, the flag’s original design remained unchanged.

The passage hopefully conveys a sense of tradition and restraint. What other meanings or clues about the world do you take away from the expanded passage?

Don’t miss those worldbuilding moments. Within two paragraphs, we learn about the rise to prominence of the knight’s family and also about their values by using the banner to link past and present.

As another thread to explore: are simplicity and practicality still virtues embraced by this knight or by his family? Or is the flag just a relic from a distant time?

Worldbuilding elements can enrich mundane moments.

I also think it’s important to get those crucial worldbuilding pieces established well in advance of dramatic moments.

If this knight is meeting with another noble who is very luxurious and decadent in appearance and accoutrement, better that the origin story of the flag be told long before so as to not be blatant in drawing an overt contrast between the two characters. Guide the reader to make that distinction by the descriptions and worldbuilding notes along the way.

Leave a comment with how you would develop this worldbuilding prompt.

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