What’s the goal of the Worldbuilding Pledge Document?

The Worldbuilding Pledge Document is all about making Summer Camp work for you! It’ll help you figure out which world or worlds you’ll work on. Now is also a great time to decide about how much of our worldbuilding summer camp you’re hoping to complete!

Q1. Which project are your worldbuilding efforts tied to?

First things, first – let’s make sure Summer Camp is helping you achieve your goals! Are you writing a novel, or short stories, in your world setting? Are you preparing for an RPG campaign? The summer camp prompts are a great chance to expand details around an RPG campaign setting or novel setting. Deciding which project you’re supplementing will help you get the most out of Summer Camp. It’ll also help you answer the following questions about where and what you’ll be working on in your world!

If you’re a “pure worldbuilder” – i.e. someone who builds for the fun of it, rather than for a specific project – then you can skip this question.

Q2. Which world are you working on?

Now you know what project you’re working on, you can write down which world you’ll be working on! This will help you focus and stop you from getting overwhelmed. According to the rules of the challenge, you can work on as many worlds as you like for your Summer Camp articles. But we recommend working on one or two worlds maximum during Summer Camp. Focussing your efforts will help you get the max out of the challenge.

Q3. Which area of the world(s) are you working on?

You can’t build everything at once! Limiting the scope of your active worldbuilding area is a great way to make sure you don’t get overwhelmed by your whole world setting/narrative universe/multiverse! Choosing a smaller area or areas to work on – for example the region of a planet, or a single planet in a solar system, is a great way to build detail and depth. It will prevent you spreading your worldbuidling efforts

If your RPG campaign or novel already has an active worldbuildng area, then this might be easy! But you might choose to work on a smaller location within the scope of your project. For example, you might choose to work on something the size of The Shire and Elrond’s Court, rather than the whole of Middle Earth. Or for a Star Wars example, you might choose to develop Tatooine and the surrounding solar system, rather than the whole galaxy!

Q4. How much are you aiming to complete?

Sure, some of you might be Diamond or die trying, but if 31 prompts is just too many for your lifestyle, how many would you like to commit to doing?

In Summer Camp, you can already win a Copper Achievement badge just by completing 10 prompts. Then next, 20 prompts for the silver badge, and 30 for the Gold Badge. Finally, we’ll be releasing a 31st prompt on the last day, for a chance to win the coveted (and very shiny) diamond badge!

Some of you already know you’re going to be busy with kids/work/dinosaur herding/holidays over July. So how many prompts (minimum 300 words each) can you complete? By setting a reasonable goal now, you’ll prevent stress and heartache later when you find out you just can’t squeeze in enough writing time!

All the Summer Camp 2021 badges in their glory! Will you aim for 10, 20, 30 or all 31 prompts this year?

Q5. When will you write?

Now you know how much you plan to complete, it’s time to figure out how much time you’ll need to put aside in July to make that happen!

Check out this post from our WorldEmber 2020 prep materials about planning for success. It goes through how you can figure out how fast you type, and how long you’ll take to write your words. Then, you can take that information and figure out how many hours you’ll need to set aside to complete Summer Camp to your chosen badge level!

I strongly suggest you schedule your writing blocks in your calendar or diary. Basically, wherever you keep yourself organised, they should be right in front of you! In your pledge document, write the blocks of time you’re dedicating to writing, to hold yourself accountable.

Q6. Who is your support network?

Worldbuilding and writing is more fun with others! List people and communities that are helpful for you. They might be individuals you enjoy bouncing ideas off, or communities that have engaging conversations (like our Discord!). Include podcasts and live streams (or drop into the World Anvil ones!) that you find inspiring or helpful, too.

This list will be waiting for you on those days you’re feeling uninspired. It’ll help you keep going in those shceduled hours, even when you can’t think of what to write. (And don’t forget to fill in the inspiration list on your World Meta too! That’s a super important componant that you should always revisit for inspiration.)

The Homework Assignment

  1. Create a generic article, and title it “My Summer Camp 2021 Worldbuilding Pledge Document”. You can use the offiical header in the Digital Participation Pack too, if you want to!
  2. Create the following headers and answer the questions.
    1. Which project are your worldbuilding efforts tied to?
    2. What world are you working on?
    3. Which area of the world(s) are you working on?
    4. How much are you aiming to complete?
    5. When will you write?
    6. Who is your support network?
  3. Submit the URL into the comments of this blog. We’ll review a selection of answers on our next Summer Camp Prep livestream, on June 19th 2021 at 11am Pacific, 7pm UK time. Go follow us there to be notified when we go live!

 

Want to fly the Summer Camp flag?

You can download our Digital Participation Pack and our Streaming Pack here! You’ll find WA article headers, participation stickers, banners and more, plus holding screens for your own streams too.

Just a big shout out to our amazing sponsors, Kobold Press, Eldritch Foundry and Norse Foundry, who make it possible to offer so many prizes in our streams and prize draw! GO check them out and give them some love!

 

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