In the World Anvil Worldbuilding Awards, we celebrate your amazing creativity and skill by selecting the best worldbuilding! If you want to take part, here are some tips and guidance to ensure your submissions are the best they can be.

What are the World Anvil Worldbuilding Awards (aka WAWA)?

We celebrate this event every year, and we encourage everyone to submit to various categories. The winners get a digital winner’s rosette, a physical trophy, and a spot on the World Anvil Showcase page. To see a list of all categories, as well as the full rules, check the 7th Worldbuilding Awards page!

The Essentials

Let’s start with the most important aspects of crafting a great submission!

1. Read and follow the rules

This is an obvious one: breaking the rules carries an automatic disqualification… so don’t break them! Make sure you read the general rules and any rules specific to the categories you’re entering. For example, a new category in 2027 is Flash Fiction—and that category has a word count limit! Even if you’ve entered in previous years, make sure you double check and read the rules. So don’t risk it and read the rules!

2. Adhere to the prompt

Article categories have a specific prompt that you should try to adhere to—for example, Rise of Nations is about “the history of civilizations and peoples”. We know that in this community there’s a culture of twisting the prompt, which we encourage because it shows your creativity and free spirit! But in these Awards, sticking to the prompt is important. This ensures that all entries are judged on a level playing field, which will make the event much fairer for everyone. Plus, the prompts are wide enough to cover most worldbuilding out there!

Additionally, ensure that all your article submissions are actual worldbuilding articles. Short stories (outside of the Flash Fiction category), RPG mechanics, articles describing a real-world thing, and meta articles are not worldbuilding articles!

3. World category submissions should be representative

Some worlds are really big, so we can’t possibly ask the judges to read every single page in them. This is why, for world-level categories, we ask that you submit the homepage plus four additional pages. You have complete freedom to choose which pages you submit… but with great freedom comes great responsibility! The additional pages should provide a crystal-clear understanding of what the world is about to someone who has never even heard of it before. World maps, primers, and articles about major locations or factions are great supporting articles, while articles about pieces of clothing, magic items, or random villages will probably work against you. To select the right pages, ask yourself: “which pages does someone need to read to understand what this world is about?”.

Similarly, for single-article submissions, make sure the articles can be properly followed without reading the rest of the world. If the judges can’t understand how the article fits into the broader context of the world, you’ll have a lower chance at being selected. Avoid overwhelming the reader with names and references to other parts of the world; limit those to the essential ones.

4. Use a spellchecker

This is another easy win: run your submission through a spellchecker, and it will automatically become much more polished and easier to read! While having typos isn’t necessarily a reflection of how good the worldbuilding is, it is a reflection of how much effort you put in the article. And judges will often favor articles that are clearly the product of a good amount of effort. Modern browsers include spell checkers, and many extensions offer free grammar checking too. All of these tools are compatible with World Anvil—check the guide to learn more.

5. Hook your readers

Especially in the nominee adjudication phase, judges will have to read hundreds of articles in a very short amount of time—so if you want to win, standing out is your priority. Hook the reader immediately by crafting the opening 1-2 sentences carefully, and ensure the article has a detailed but concise introduction paragraph. For map, timeline, or chronicle submissions, make sure your entry is visually appealing and has a good amount of pins or events (without being overwhelming). Finally, for world submissions, you should pay attention to the homepage! Check our tips for a great homepage.

Article writing tips

Past the essential tips, here’s some additional advice. What makes a piece of art or worldbuilding good is highly contextual, so you’ll have to decide if this advice is applicable to your world. Part of being successful in the Awards is knowing what your world needs to shine!

6. Don’t overexplain

Most of the time, long articles—just like long novel drafts—can be significantly improved by making them shorter. Long articles often fall into the trap of explaining the same thing multiple times, or even having descriptions that try to convey a certain tone but become diluted and don’t clearly communicate information. Conveying tone is important, but the worldbuilding information is just as important!

It’s easy to feel like every single word in an article matters, but learning to identify the important parts and cut down the rest is an essential skill in writing. As we writers often say, don’t be afraid to “kill your darlings” by cutting your article in half: if something can be described in one sentence, don’t use five sentences instead.

7. Use the right writing style

“What’s the right writing style?”, you ask? Well, it depends on the world! Some might need an encyclopedic style, while others will need a highly descriptive one. Regardless, make sure it’s consistent throughout your submission… and switch it up if your article includes quotations from a character or excerpts from an in-world book. Words are the colors with which you paint your worldbuilding, so be very deliberate with them. Your personal touch here is not only helpful, but crucial.

And here’s an extra thought: we live in an age where it can be hard to know if there’s an actual person at the other side of the screen. Embrace your own style rather than trying to copy someone else’s, and don’t be afraid to give your writing as much personality as you can. It doesn’t even have to be your personality—many Anvilites write their worldbuilding from a character’s point of view.

Article Styling & Layout

Of course, writing isn’t the only skill tested in the Worldbuilding Awards. With the exception of the Best Flash Fiction category, which is entirely about writing, you should aim for articles with layouts that make them easier to read.

8. Avoid text walls!

This is the most important layout tip. Worldbuilding can be quite dense, and if it’s presented in a single massive paragraph, your readers—and judges—will struggle to follow along. Break the article into paragraphs, and avoid having more than 300 words in each section. If one gets too long, use subheadings to break it down, or just cut down on the word count. Also, use columns, the sidebar, and strategically positioned images to vary the layout, which makes the text friendlier to approach. A good layout gives the reader a chance to pause regularly and take a breath before they continue reading.

9. Include quick data and world links

The right side panel is a great place to include quick data about the article. Use it! With quick data, you’re giving your readers immediate context about your worldbuilding, which will make them more likely to keep reading. It’s also an ideal place to include article block links to the most important related articles, and to provide quick explanations about related concepts. While articles will be judged by themselves, showing that there’s more to the world will work in your favor.

10. Be very careful with CSS

CSS, the Guild-only feature that lets you customize almost every single thing in your world, is a great way to give your worlds a unique identity through visual elements. However, CSS can become your undoing if you make any of the following faux pas:

  • Text contrast: Yellow text on a white background, a shade of grey on a different shade of grey, red on a different shade of red… This all makes the text very hard to read.
  • Color combinations: Some colors can make text hard to read even if they technically have enough contrast, such as very saturated colors or backgrounds with a busy texture.
  • Fancy fonts: Use them in moderation! Changing the font is a great way to represent in-world writing, but avoid using cursive, handwritten, or even some small-caps fonts for large blocks of text. If a font deviates too much from regular print-style lettering, don’t use it excessively.
  • Mobile-friendliness: The default view mode for articles is mobile-friendly. If you heavily customize your article with CSS, test your articles on a phone screen to ensure it will be readable in all screen sizes.

These are only some tips, but the general rule is that readability should be your number one priority. After all, it doesn’t matter how pretty or thematic an article’s CSS is if the judges can’t read it! Check the guide to CSS for more information.

Extra tip: join the community!

If you haven’t joined yet, join our Discord community! You’ll find many other Anvilites who are also taking part in the Awards, including veterans from previous years. In our community you’ll be able to get tips and tricks straight from past winners and nominees, and share your own work for constructive critique if you want to. Join our community today!

Do you have any other tips about what makes a great article? Add them in the comments!