Hello, friends!
Today, we’ll talk about world building in futuristic settings. I cannot divide this type of world building into reality and fantasy settings, because, well - we don't know the future. We can only imagine it - and turn it into stories.
Click here to access a similar post on world building in past setting, or here to read about real location existing in present.
There are four main routes you can go when setting your story in the future:
POSITIVE
NEUTRAL
NEGATIVE
GALACTIC
(this is my personal way to divide it, you can find different ones when researching this topic)
POSITIVE
The society developed new technologies, there are flying cars, super realistic video games, we successfully cured some of the most dangerous illnesses.
What to include in your story:
→ HOW did society reach such successes? What was the price for it?
→ what are some of the newest inventions? How do they make life easier? Are there any negatives to them?
→ how did humans change because of the changing Earth?
→ what are the current societal and economic problems?
NEUTRAL
The world as we know it didn't significantly change, there are some differences but nothing like settings 1 and 3. It could be set just a few years ahead of the time of you writing the story.
What to include in your story:
→ HOW did the world change in those few years and why?
→ have any ongoing conflicts been resolved? Are there any new ones?
→ how did the people fight the Earth’s problems from the past (our present)?
→ what are you trying to show/tell by setting your story in this specific time?
NEGATIVE
Often post-apocalyptic, describes the fall of society, future wars, conflicts, problems rooting from economic crises, illnesses.
What to include in your story:
→ what happened to society and the world?
→ what kind of situations did people find themselves in? How do they cope?
→ describe the devastated cities
→ what things did society have to find substitutes to?
GALACTIC
The Earth is no longer inhabited / was destroyed, humans had to find a different place to live.
What to include in your story:
→ what happened to Earth?
→ did everyone manage to escape? What did it depend on?
→ how different is the character's life because of where they currently live compared to before?
→ are there any hopes for Earth? What are the survival plans?
Of course you can take a step more, and create different civilizations that the characters get to meet. Remember to describe their culture, philosophies, differences and the things they have in common.
They can become allies or turn against each other.
You can also create new species or mutations of animals.
You can also completely abandon the idea of Earth, and write your story in futuristic settings on a completely unknown planet or a whole galaxy…
Setting your story in the future doesn't mean the way the world turned out to be has to be the main focus. Just like with other stories, you can describe love, hatred, despair, anxiety.
You can show that some things don't change with time - and that sometimes, time changes all things.
When talking about writing about the future, I can't not mention time traveling. Although it's quite a popular and liked trope, I have to warn you - it's very tricky and very easy to mess it up! You have to be super careful and think everything through. Before you start writing about it, answer those questions:
• How accessible is time traveling? How many people can time travel? Why? What's the price?
• Who could possibly time travel and what would be their motivations to do so? Why is the character so interested in it? Or why aren't they?
• If you control the time traveling - who from the other characters could want to take the power for themselves? What lengths would they go for it? What would they do with it?
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