What is the thing that makes the built details worth caring about? Is there a single big novel concept or a bunch of interesting stories, or just anything worth sinking into?
Pages upon pages of how a magic system works is like disconnected rambling if it isn’t in service of something interesting.
I much prefer broad stroke worldbuilding that initially starts by creating a theme or an atmosphere, touches on details in passing as they come up to be of interest, and only after establishing these broad foundations gets into the nitty gritty, and even then only if going into the ultra micro detail level is needed to be explained for some other purpose.
The hook.
What is the thing that makes the built details worth caring about? Is there a single big novel concept or a bunch of interesting stories, or just anything worth sinking into?
Pages upon pages of how a magic system works is like disconnected rambling if it isn’t in service of something interesting.
I much prefer broad stroke worldbuilding that initially starts by creating a theme or an atmosphere, touches on details in passing as they come up to be of interest, and only after establishing these broad foundations gets into the nitty gritty, and even then only if going into the ultra micro detail level is needed to be explained for some other purpose.