Faster Worldbuilding?! Queue the obligatory harder, better, faster, stronger! We all love worldbuilding, but making sure that we’re using our time effectively means that most of us long for faster worldbuilding workflows, and quicker worldbuilding practices!
Well, look no further! These five features on World Anvil (the premiere platform for worldbuilding, novel writing and RPG campaign management) will have you worldbuilding like a speeding bullet in the butt of a bat out of hell!
- The Mentions System & Fast embed
- The Purple Button: Quick Article Creation and more
- The Blue Button: Quick Image uploader
- In-article reference – World Search & Preview
- Autosave, focus mode, and a sleek, new design
The Mentions System & Fast embed
Worlds are interconnected, and the Mentions system allows you to do just that! You can easily link your articles together in mere seconds, then keep on worldbuilding! Just like on social media, typing @ followed by 3 letters will bring up a dropdown of articles. The text will automatically be the title of your article, but you can change that too.
You can also use the Fast Embed to quickly embed elements into your articles in seconds! These elements include:
- Images
- Maps
- Secrets
- Categories
- Historical events
And it’s so easy. An open square bracket ([) followed by 3 letters will bring up a dropdown of elements you can embed. That’s faster worldbuilding articles made easy!
You can read all about the Mentions system and the Fast Embed in this article, or watch the quick guide video tutorial here.
The Purple Button: Quick Article Creation and more!
I have my best ideas when I start worldbuilding. I’ll be trying to come up with one thing, and then get 6 more ideas of things connected to it. For example, if I’m writing about a sword, I’ll get ideas for the magical metal it’s made from, the blacksmith who forged it, famous heroes who’ve wielded it, the spells imbued in it, and the myths that surround it….
And that’s what the purple button is for! The purple button allows you to quickly worldbuild articles, even when you’re writing another article! It’s perfect for those moments when you want to link an article you haven’t created yet, and to note down your ideas for it! Click the purple button, then just fill in the form and link in the name! You’ll never lose an idea again, and your worldbuilding flow will be quicker too!
Now that‘s fast worldbuilding!
P.S. Guild members can create even more using the purple button, for an even faster worldbuilding flow, like categories, secrets, todo list items and historical events!
You can read all about the purple button in this article, or watch the quick guide video tutorial here.
The Blue Button: Quick Image uploader
An image is worth a thousand words (except in NaNoWriMo). So getting images into your article quickly is super important! The blue button – our quick image uploader – allows you to upload images to World Anvil in seconds. You can also mass-upload images! That bundle of character images or flavour location pics will be the work of a moment to add to your World Anvil. Make sure you use the Fast Embed bracket to embed them in seconds!
Read more about the quick image uploader button here.
In-article reference – World Search & Preview
It’s hard to keep your whole novel world or campaign setting in your head. After all, that’s why you need something like World Anvil in the first place, to store your series bible and campaign world! So when you’re worldbuilding something new and need to check a detail? That’s when the in-article reference comes in.
AS you write your article, you can pop down and search your world, and display an article, without leaving the article edit screen! No more multiple tabs and distractions. This is perfect for those moments where you want to double-check a detail about your world as you create!
The quick article reference in action (click the gif to enlarge!)
In the article edit interface:
- Click “Open Advanced Tools & Options” beneath the publishing tools (top right)
- Type a search term into the “World Search & Preview”
- Click the search term to view your article
- Close the article with the “x close” button to continue editing your article
Faster worldbuilding – here we come!
Dat Sleek Worldbuilding interface
World Anvil is made with love, and we always listen to the community! So we heard your feedback that our article edit interface was cluttered, and now it’s sleek as heck!
The worldbuilding prompts and advanced options are now hidden behind buttons, making the interface even leaner and simpler. That means you can focus on the quickest worldbuilding imaginable. And if you want to see them, just expand the options with a single click!
And speaking of focus, for the fastest worldbuilding, we’ve introduced a cleaner Focus mode! Now you can see only the main section of your article, without anything else from the interface. Just plain, beautiful and ultra-quick worldbuilding!
Even better (another long time request from the community), we now have AUTOSAVE! Yes, it’s here! No more pausing to save your work – just type like your life depends upon it, and the interface saves for you! Guild members can also see their word count! WHOOP!
If you’re not using World Anvil, it’s free to get started and the very best place to organize your series bible, novel world or campaign setting! Our award-winning platform is used by best-selling authors, world-renowned video game studios and some of the biggest names in the tabletop RPG world! Hop on down to World Anvil to get started.
Trackbacks/Pingbacks