It’s time for the very first WorldEmber Homework Challenge 2020! Buckle your seat belts and get ready to be inspired by your own work!

What is the WorldEmber homework challenge?

So, as many of you will know, we trialed a Summer Camp prep series this year in June, the month before the main event. For those interested, we covered topics such as worldbuilding meta, curated inspiration boards, choosing your active worldbuilding area, and worldbuilding/ player primers.

We got such an incredible response from you guys, and such great feedback, that we thought we’d try it again! So let’s go through today’s homework, and get you, and your world, ready for WorldEmber 2020!

WorldEmber Homework Challenge Week 1 – gain inspiration from… YOURSELF!

WorldEmber 2020 logo

WORLDEMBER is coming…

If you’re not sure what you’re going to be worldbuilding this WorldEmber, then this homework challenge is for you! 

This week’s aim is to get you started thinking about what you’ll be working on during WorldEmber 2020. There’s nothing scarier than staring at a blank page, and knowing that you have to write 333 words about SOMETHING…. but having no idea what that something might be!

Start by reading through your world on World Anvil. You might focus on your most-viewed or most-liked articles – things other people have enjoyed about your world. Or you could focus on your own favorite parts of your world. If you’ve been thinking about opening up a new active worldbuilding area, then read around the places where you mention this area (use the dashboard for this!). What do you already know about it?

But here’s the trick. As you’re reading, keep an eye out for concepts that you’d like to expand into an article of their own. Usually, that’s going to be aspects and concepts in your world which excite you. After all, that’s what you’re going to want to include in a D&D campaign or a novel later on!

Another trick will be to read your meta (and fill it out, if you haven’t already)! That’s a GREAT way to get inspiration from your own world about what to build next.

Create your WorldEmber 2020 Pledge Document

Once you have these shiny ideas, put them all together into a Generic Article. This is your control document, your mission statement for WorldEmber 2020. We’ll call it your “WorldEmber 2020 Pledge Document”, but you can call it something else if you like!

There are a few ways you can format your WorldEmber 2020 Pledge Document. It might be a list of titles with short descriptions and a template type. It can be stub-articles (i.e. articles under 50 words) or even placeholders – remember to use the mentions system! You could even present the list as a table… or even a roll table! That will add an extra ability for you to randomize what you’re working on. If you get stuck during December, just let a random roll decide what you should write next!

How many ideas will you need for your WorldEmber 2020 Pledge Document?

The base goal for WorldEmber is 10,000 words, which works out at about 333 words a day. If you tend to write short articles (say, around 300 words each), aim for about 20-30 ideas. Remember that as you write each article, you’ll already come up with related, spin-off articles you’ll want to add to your world. You can add those to your WorldEmber 2020 Pledge document during the event. But some of the articles won’t inspire you in the moment (that always happens!) so it’s good to have a few extra.

If your articles tend to be very long (around 1000 words, or 5 standard paragraphs), you’ll probably only need 8-12 ideas in your list. If in doubt, a few extra won’t hurt, though!

N.B. REMEMBER to keep ALL stub articles under 50 words! Stubs can have their creation date reset, which means that you’ll be able to use them during WorldEmber for your word count. Longer articles cannot have their start date reset, which means that they WILL NOT be added to your word count during December. You can find the word count of your article by expanding “Open advanced tools & options” on the right hand of the edit interface, and clicking Metadata, or in the articles and categories list. 

What if you’re starting a brand new world for WorldEmber 2020?

If you’re going into WorldEmber with the goal to create a whole new worldbuilding project from scratch, then make SURE you fill out the meta page for that world! That will already spin-off a wealth of new articles, particularly the sections about the geography, the past and the peoples!

WorldEmber Mug 2020

Remember you can pick up WorldEmber notebooks, hoodies, Tshirts and mugs from our store!

How to complete WEEK 1 of the WorldEmber Homework Challenge

  1. Read through your world, your current to-do list, and your world meta
  2. Pinpoint the areas or aspects of your world you’d like to expand
  3. To create your WorldEmber 2020 Pledge Document, make a generic article. Then, just list the articles, concepts and topics you pledge to work on during WorldEmber! We recommend at least 12-20 items in this, depending on how long your articles tend to be.
  4. Once you’re done, simply write a comment at the bottom of this blog post, and copy the URL of your WorldEmber 2020 Pledge Document into the comment! You can add something else too, if you like. For example, it’s always great to know how you found the challenge – was it helpful? Was it easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy? 🙂

 

The next WorldEmber Homework Challenge will be released on Saturday 14th November live on stream! Make sure you’re following the World Anvil Youtube and Twitch channels so you don’t miss it!