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So, you want to do what we do and create big, large worlds and stories for fun. You're in luck! I know many ways to do this! :D
Paracosm:
"A paracosm is a detailed imaginary world thought generally to originate in childhood. The creator of a paracosm has a complex and deeply felt relationship with this subjective universe, which may incorporate real-world or imaginary characters and conventions. Commonly having its own geography, history, and language, it is an experience that is often developed during childhood and continues over a long period of time, months or even years, as a sophisticated reality that can last into adulthood." -Wikipedia page on Paracosms
This definiton is about right! Though, one can be made at any age! :D
Character:
"In fiction, a character is a person or other being in a narrative (such as a novel, play, radio or television series, music, film, or video game). The character may be entirely fictional or based on a real-life person, in which case the distinction of a "fictional" versus "real" character may be made." -Wikipedia page on Characters
Most paracosms use original, fictional characters, though I can imagine real people being used and I've seen pre-existing characters in some people's paracosms! (My favorite is someone's daydream paracosm starring SpongeBob SquarePants! ^^ If you see this, HII!!!!)
Worldbuilding:
"Worldbuilding is the process of constructing an imaginary world or setting, sometimes associated with a fictional universe. Developing the world with coherent qualities such as a history, geography, culture and ecology is a key task for many science fiction or fantasy writers. Worldbuilding often involves the creation of geography, a backstory, flora, fauna, inhabitants, technology, and often if writing speculative fiction, different peoples. This may include social customs as well as invented languages (often called conlangs) for the world.
The world could encompass different planets spanning vast distances of space or be limited in scope to a single small village. Worldbuilding exists in novels, tabletop role-playing games, and visual media such as films, video games, and comics.
...
Some authors of fiction set multiple works in the same world. This is known as a fictional universe. For example, science fiction writer Jack Vance set a number of his novels in the Gaean Reach, a fictional region of space. A fictional universe with works by multiple authors is known as a shared world. One notable example of such is the Star Wars Expanded Universe." -Wikipedia page on Worldbuilding
Sorry for the long definiton! It felt important. /lighthearted But this should cover it!
So, to start, you would need to create a world. So here's a few ideas on how to start:
So, there will be a whole section for this, so feel free to scroll down. But I'll explain how to create a paracosm this way in my usual method.
First of all, come up with a character! Can be anything! Can begin with a personality, a species, a name, anything!
Then, make another character. Do the same you did with the first, though what type of idea you use can be different if you want!
Then make a story with them. Can start with a plot idea or something you already had in mind.
As you write, daydream, art, etc, you think of the world. Create other characters, flesh out the world as you go, make things make sense!
Make sure your first two characters can mix well! I suggest making them opppsite, so conflicts are easy to write!
Remember: every good story has a conflict! Can be simple, like "oh no! I lost my favorite plushie!" or something big and important, like "oh my god! The evil villain guy is gonna destory the world! We gotta stop them!" Can be anything!
If I'm honest, I'm terrible at this one. XD
Do you have an idea for a world already? Perfect! Work with that, think of questions to answer (more on that in a bit!).
Don't have an idea? Look around you for ideas! Look to your characters and species. How would their world be like? Like something from a story you like? Take it and combine it with other ideas!
Questions to Help you Come Up With Ideas:
- How much is it like our Earth?
- Is it set on a planet? A galaxy? A universe? A multiverse? Something else entirely?
- What is the species of the world? Is there a species like humans? Multiple?
- What countries, nations, etc are there?
- What is the culture of your world like? Does it vary by country or species?
Have a story you're working on? What if you turn that into a paracosm?
I don't think it's always a good idea to make a story you plan to publish a paracosm; it can be hard to find a start and there would be too many characters. But I won't stop you if you do! But if you aren't planning to publish them, maybe work on making it a larger world!
Maybe you have an idea for a story or want to retell a story you like or something! Flesh that out! Add your own characters and add to the world itself too! Have fun with it! :D
That's all you need to get started, actually! :D Just a world and some characters!
Wait, what? You need help with characters too? You're in luck! I know a lot of ways to make characters! It's my favorite part!
I got several methods on how to create a character!
Have no ideas no matter what you try? Just use a random generator or two! Like one for personality traits, one for interests, one for name(s), etc! You can even use a generator to come up with a design if that is hard for you or you'd like the challenge!
You don't have to do every. single. answer you get. You can just pick and choose what you think works! But if you want, you can choose all the traits you generate too!
Here's a collection of them to start with to get inspiration:
A simple one: take an idea from something you like! Like a personality, hobby, detail, etc of a character you like and mash them with other ideas you have or two!
Try not to steal too much! There's a thing called copying, you know! It's okay to take inspiration, but it's theft when it's everything about a character!
Like to design charaters? Do you collect designs from adopt makers? This might be the method for you!
I think this is just the other steps but with a bit added, so combine this one with another method you like!
But look at the design. What do you think the character is like? That's how you do it! Come up with anything, perhaps write them down in a list and decide based on what you like the most or makes the most sense for your world.
I like to take characters from games I like and make characters from that! So perhaps you can do the same?
I bet you play video games! If you do, you can try this!
Instead of playing games as yourself, play games as characters you create on the fly! Maybe you might play a game where you can create characters and watch them do stuff!
As you play, try to take notes (either on paper, on your phone, in your head, etc) about the character you play as. Who are they? What's their backstory? What's their interests? Personality?
You can do this for as many characters as you like! As long as you can handle it!
A list of games you can create characters in:
- Terraria
- Stardew Valley
- Pokemon
- Miitopia
- Tomodachi Life/Collection
- The Sims
- Oxygen Not Included (warning: all duplicants (characters you watch over) all have a random set design, act really stupid)
- Neopets
- Flight Rising
- Goatlings
- PokeFarm Q
A simple one! Create characters and draw them!
As you draw or design them, think about them. Who are they? What is their personality? Any quirks or interests or hobbies?
Yeah, that's about it. It's one of my favorites to do, though!
Finally, a guide on paracosming itself instead of the stupid character and world making! Totally not important. /joke
There's many ways to paracosm! But here's a few ways to!
Ah yes, the classic one. /sily
Just find a nice place to relax or pace, play a story out in your head! Simple as that!
You can even do this to sleep if that helps you!
This is called immersive daydreaming! There's a whole subreddit for it if you want a community!
Does daydreaming interfere with your daily life or cause problems? That's maladaptive daydreaming and there's another subreddit just for that too!
Another simple one! Just draw! Draw your characters, scenes, the world, abstract art, etc!
Flesh it out as you go!
Pretty simple.
If you want to get started with drawing, there's a million tutorials and websites to help you get started! Or you can just start drawing with a piece of paper and a pencil/pen or MS Paint and start from there!
Remember: You started to draw! That's better than a lot of people who don't even try. Be proud of that! Be proud of your work and keep going! Practice makes perfect, as they say!
Write your paracosm! It's fun!
Just think of a scene or story you want to write and write it! You can look up resources to help you write better too or roleplay for practice!
You can look up prompt generators for ideas! Here's a few to get started with:
This one is one of my favorites!
It can be hard to find roleplayers who will play in your world. That's just a fact of life. So perhaps go with a world-agonstic or fandom roleplay to start with? And perhaps in the future, you can set roleplays in your world if your partner is up to it! Up to you, though! Or maybe even create a paracosm/world with them too!
It's just writing collaboratively! So if you can write, you can roleplay!
Another simple one! Just worldbuild and develop your world!
Ask questions about your paracosm's world, and answer those questions!
Here's a place to help you answer questions about your world!
A simple one! Just look for a place to talk about your worldbuilding and have others ask questions!
Discord is perfect for this! So is Reddit!
Share things with people! Have fun! Don't be afraid to ask questions about other people's worlds, characters and paracosms too!
My favorite Discord is The Paracosmist Collective! Tell us this guide sent you! :D
One of the harder methods, since you would need to do a lot of things! But this one is hecca fun!
If you found this one through NekoWeb or a webring and you own a website of your own, why not make a section for your paracosm and develop it that way?
Or if you don't have an idea for your website, why not make it about your paracosm?
You can also use a place like Toyhouse to publically share your characters! :D
You can do so much with websites! The sky's the limit! Games, generators, art, showcases!
Probably the hardest one on here. "Yeah just create a webcomic. Super easy." /sarcasm /lighthearted But you might enjoy doing it!
There's a million guides for webcomics, games, comics, novels, music, etc! Just pick what you enjoy doing the most and do them!
I said this might not be the best thing if you plan to be too serious; too many characters might make things confusing, it might be hard to find a good starting point, it can be hard to follow a story structure if you didn't account for that when making your paracosm, but if it doesn't matter to you, then do it! Follow your dreams! :D
That's it! That should cover most things! :D
Oh, and join us in The Paracosmist Collective, if you'd like! You'll find a bunch of people who would love to hear about your paracosm, characters, world, so on! :D