Classes are the elemental means you set up your articles on World Anvil—however they’re a lot greater than that! Combining a strong class tree with good content material within the class pages themselves will make your world a lot simpler to navigate for readers (and for your self). We’ve collected some examples from the group on this publish so you’ll be able to be taught out of your fellow Anvilites. Let’s have a look!
Utilizing classes as content material pages
Classes aren’t simply tables of contents, they’re additionally totally fledged pages that may maintain simply as a lot worldbuilding content material as an article! Some Anvilites use them as “mini homepages”: overviews of the content material you could find inside that class. For instance, Catoblepon, writer of Shattered, used the Fauna class to elucidate how fauna is outlined inside the context of their world. Equally, Dimitris, writer of Solspire Chronicles, introduces the fundamentals of engineering within the Engineering class:
Embed content material blocks & interactive components
Since class pages have full formatting help, you may also use interactive options—like a household tree for a household’s class, or a diplomacy internet for the factions class. Blue Fairy 74, creator of Elaqitan, consists of an in-world quote and a map on this class:
Take a look at Elaqitan, a portal fantasy world the place impending doom threatens the true world too.
Create your individual navigation format
By default, class pages embrace a desk of contents and different navigation options. However you’ll be able to take away all of them and create your individual construction too! For instance, nnie, writer of Solaris, highlights the core articles within the class on the prime after which manually embeds horizontal tables of contents for every sub-category for extra exact management over the class’s feel and appear:
Take a look at Solaris, a sci-fi setting that reimagines our photo voltaic system stuffed with alien civilizations!
Modifying classes is as simple as modifying articles: choose a class within the Articles & World Supervisor, and begin writing! Verify the Information to Classes for extra details about the characteristic and the best way to customise class layouts for assist with creating superior layouts.
The best way to construction your class tree
Classes are primarily a corporation technique, so let’s rapidly have a look at the 2 major methods you’ll be able to construction your tree.
Location-based bushes
In these class bushes, the top-level classes are geographical places, every of them full of sub-categories for particular matters. This technique works nice when your world’s places are comparatively remoted or very distinct from one another. For instance, in lots of sci-fi universes, every planet is usually its personal self-contained world, even when there’s inter-planetary journey. In fantasy, planes of existence are a really clear instance of this, though you could possibly additionally use it for continents and different massive areas of the world with their very own identification.
In Those2Nerds’ Talos Sector (aka. wow that’s loads of stars), most top-level classes are location-based: one for every cluster. After which, inside every cluster class, there are extra location-based classes for every planet within the cluster. This makes the huge geographical scope of a sci-fi setting a lot simpler to digest for a first-time reader! On this case, there’s even this very helpful panel within the homepage that permits you to rapidly soar to the planet you need to go to:
Take a look at the Talos Sector, a post-post-apocalyptic sci-fi setting the place tensions are rising excessive.
Matter-based class bushes
One other frequent approach to set up your classes is by basic subject (e.g. Characters, Locations, Factions, Species, and so forth), which might then change into extra particular (e.g. Characters might be subdivided into their position within the story, their job, their rank, and so forth). The quantity of top-level classes you employ, in addition to what they’re about, will rely on what you need to deal with when writing, in addition to your private choice. For instance, these two class bushes are fairly comparable, however the one on the proper has separate top-level classes for individuals, cultures, and organizations:
In-world classes
You can even get a bit inventive with how you employ your classes! For instance in Hatwolf’s world of After Silence, classes are introduced as in-world books about particular matters. Though it loses some readability, this makes the world tree instantly immersive!
Take a look at Hatwolf’s darkish fantasy world of After Silence!
Take a look at our tricks to create an incredible class tree for extra particulars.
Meta classes & different makes use of
As you develop your world, you’ll in all probability find yourself with a group of articles that aren’t worldbuilding however you continue to need as a part of your world. Right here’s a fast run-down of some examples!
- Bilingual worlds: If you wish to write your world in two completely different languages, the simplest means to take action is having two separate class buildings, one for every language. For instance, Blue Fairy 74’s world Elaquitan has all of its worldbuilding in German beneath a “German” class.
- RPG guidelines: In case your world has its personal RPG system, or should you use a third-party system however need to create particular participant choices, you’ll be able to have all of this beneath a particular class. That is what RiverFang and Shiftrex do for his or her customized Storybook System of their world Isekai.
- World Anvil challenges: Some challenges organized by World Anvil require the submission of meta articles (reminiscent of WorldEmber prep). Having a particular class for this can be a nice approach to set up them! Verify the Meta class in Alana, Tillerz’ fantasy world.
How do you set up your world? Tell us within the feedback!
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