Lit bros, I know you think ‘world building’ is a dirty phrase, it’s one I dislike too (and I’m a sci-fi writer!), but you’re hypocrites about it with all the mythologizing you do of New York City. The coffee joint with the perfect bagel (made from a multi-generational family of immigrant bakers) that no tourist knows of, where The Incitement™ happens? Might as well be the Green Dragon Inn hidden in Tolkien’s Shire.

I recently did a workshop with Haly, the Moonlight Bard ✒️ on world building, and it changed how I think about setting and environment. Just because you are a contemporary writer, don’t think for a moment that what you’ve been doing in every story isn’t world building; you’ve just got a shorthand for culture that most readers don’t need explaining.

Congrats on being lazy?

Whatever you’ve intuited about the geography of the setting, Haly can break it down and show you how to do it better. ‘Wolrd building’ is a communication skill. The in-jokes your characters share about the subway, the cultural norms of coffee in the morning, the aspirations of the barista who can’t find another job. It doesn’t have to be Tolkien-esque, but it does have to be done right—and Haly can open that for you.