Specific Cultural References

For eons, people have wondered if it's all right to use terms such as "Romanesque" in their fantasy settings. This will continue till we agree to a convention. "Roundy" means Romanesque and "Pointy" means Gothic. Agreed?

Addendum

If they even put themselves out that much instead of calling him "Big Lord" or some such. You might not even know they're talking about a god if they start up a conversation about it. Ridiculous.

Pantheonizing

Here we are, always trying to come up with a hot new name for the god of fire, and meanwhile real cultures would squirt out "Blazing Fire God" and go on with their day, except in a different language so it sounds all exotic. Yeesh.

Happy Fourth of July

And always remember that if you put a country like the United States of America in your fantasy or science fiction novel, people would say it's unrealistic. People to whom you should not listen. They don't want your story to be interesting.

Don't Forget This in Your Fantasy Setting!

Are centaurs scared of elephants? How about camels? The ramifications are staggering.

Vital Worldbuilding Concern

The paramount consideration when crafting your new property must be this: "How many Magic: The Gathering cards can be made out of this?" That's where the real money is.

The First Thing to Do When Creating Your Fantasy Setting

Determine how many workers at the gold and the trees are optimal. Your readers will notice deviations from the meta in the starting minutes, which can contribute to characterization.

Official Positions

When a fantasy country has an official archmage, lord high wizard, conjurer supreme, archon thaumaturge, etc., what are the chances he's actually good at it, and what are the chances he's the best? That's what you have to consider. The default is probably that his skills are decent but not extraordinary whereas his ancestors were extraordinary but far from decent.

Fantasy Technology Reminder

I know you've been worried about it, but I'm confident it doesn't take all that much to invent and manufacture steel guitars, so fill your setting with them without stint. Or, if I'm wrong, consult the previous entry.

It's Time to Get Excited About Not Justifying Your FTL Travel Method Again

That's the reminder to adopt a philosophy which eschews self-consciousness with regard to the fantastical elements of the story. Stop watching videos about worldbuilding and start putting in stuff you think is keen, regardless of how nonsensical or depraved it may be and ideally is. What must be maintained is not plausibility but the aesthetic you have chosen.

Approaching Science Fiction Scale

First question: Is a space knight a fighter pilot, a ship officer, a ship captain, a squadron captain, or a fleet captain? Mechs are of course fighters, but as for the equivalency for space dragons or other space monsters, that's the second question.

Addendum

Now, with the help of AI, you can enrich your story with portraits of people who don't appear. Consider your avant garded.

Author Biographies

Stop doing those. Put in biographies of the story's characters instead, or better yet, biographies of people only mentioned, or, best of all, biographies of characters not even mentioned, such as the fifth king of a place that is brought up in one conversation.

Addendum

The ideal fantasy plot: A guy gets into 3-5 fights. He loses either the first or second.

Fantasy Struggles

Is the hardest part of writing fantasy pretending that dancing is cool? Or is it paring down your ideas to match the complexity of those employed by the multimillionaires of KISS? Probably the dancing. Most of us, if we're honest, will admit that The Elder sounded a little too complicated.

Compelling Fantasy Mythology

The main problem with crafting detailed mythologies for your setting is that you could have just set the story in those instead. That's why you should include a brief conversation along the following lines:

"'This reminds me of that possibly legendary story.'
'I know just the one you mean, and of course there is no need to elaborate.' He looked at the camera and winked."

On Vanity

If a kingdom minted coins that have a picture of a dragon on them, does that make dragons more or less likely to want them? Or no change? This is the principle question the writer must ask when deciding the nature of dragons in the setting.

Genre Family Sizes

We all know fantasy families are too small because it's a pain to come up with names for a bunch of siblings, cousins, etc., but surely science fiction should be dominated by the only child or single sibling absent cloning, right? Look at contemporary fertility. But wait! If you're writing about future people, they must have had future parents and so on down the line, which is to say, they'll belong to cultures which keep those birthrates up. Again, cloning excluded.

Important Fantasy Worldbuilding Considerations

If we go with an arcane/divine distinction, and please remember that there isn't much reason to do so unless we're writing Dungeons and Dragons fanfiction, and if also we decide our fantasy setting can go ahead and have a magical internet, a defensible decision, I bet the clerics would have it, or if they both do, theirs would be better. Wizards would keep sending each other faxes.

The Next Wave

All these years of making cookbooks based on novels have brought us at last to the point of making novels based on cookbooks. Think of the worldbuilding.