How much worldbuilding do you do before starting the story?

[reiver33]

Often I try and get by on the 'claustrophobia' of 1st person; immediate detail only, with events and influences coming from 'off camera' treated as commonplace and thus don't have to be justified. The longer the story the more the surrounding reality has to be accounted for, if only on a functional level.

 

[marcmizz]

Not much experience to go by, since I've yet to release my first novel (not much longer now though!), but the way I started was by creating the world's map. I find that it's much easier to give life to the rest of the world once you have something tangible to look at, and it also helps with the story. You can easily create a map by following this short tutorial (all you need is a very basic knowledge of Photoshop):

How to Make a Fantasy Map in Photoshop

How to Make a Fantasy Map in Photoshop: This is a tutorial to make a random continent map that you can use for anything that you want! This tutorial will help create nice looking maps that can range from all over the world!

www.instructables.com