When I set my stories in fantasy places that don't actually exist, typically I begin with a basic idea of the place and its culture. For example, in my most recent work of fantasy, I knew from the start that I wanted an Island kingdom off the coast of Europe, and that the culture of the kingdom and its people was Slavic, but really the rest of it came as the story was being written, I wrote more detail about the landscape, the people, the kingdom, its government and its relationships with the rest of the world as these were necessitated by the plot.
I worldbuild as my story demands. Right now the plotting out of my fantasy (which, to be really honest, I haven't taken seriously until just last week for reasons I won't disclose here) demands that I expand on the way magic, the government, and religion works. Of course, as @jannert pointed out, it would be kind of stupid if everyone had the same concept of government/magic/religion/what have you. So I'm gonna have to make sure to mix in some variety on which culture believes what, etc. I'll even make sure to add multiple biomes for my characters to live in.
I spend so much time worldbuilding it becomes a story all its own half the time. I get so deep in the construction of societies, customs, religion and mythology that I forget I'm supposed to be writing a story and just create these incredible worlds I never do anything with - or if I do, the story never sees the majority of my work. It's a massive waste of time and energy. I suggest nobody fall into the same trap. My worlds are works in progress with multiple stories I start and never finish, spanning years. The world I'm currently working on, I first started developing for an exercise in co-writing which has ended up going absolutely nowhere. I mean I wrote 5 novels each spanning around 100,000 words but none of them can be published due to a falling-out with my co-writer. So... don't co-write unless you have a business contract written up going into it. BUT, the world remains my own, and so I can use it and develop it for further works. Those 500,000 words were not wasted.
I'm, historically, not a planner but recently I finally admitted to myself the importance of proper planning if you actually want to at least finish a book. I've only ever written one story that involved an imaginary world and I did put some effort into building that world. I'm quiet a visual person, so, I actually drew myself a basic map of the district.
Worldbuilding is a complex task that ultimately represents stability and depth to a persistent world. The longer and more complex the story, the more of a need to flesh things out, but remember that the vast majority of readers will not care about the fictional history. Worldbuilding is something D&D masters do to set the stage for a new campaign, let it run loose and your story will never get written. So unless you are an experienced writer penning epics for market or your own enjoyment, minimal worldbuilding is needed. It is far better to take notes as you write and develop your world to the necessary extent to prevent loose ends. Do not box yourself into a chronological corner either.
Uhhh. I'm sort've an outlier in this respect I think. I been world building for my main set of novels for- seven years I think? Probably longer, and I'm only a fraction of the way done.
If I let myself, I can spend waaaaaay too long worldbuiding and not enough time actually writing. Worldbuilding is one of my favorite things. I've spent months dreaming up the world that the piece I'm working on now takes place in. Sometimes, when I can't get a satisfactory idea of what a certain area might look like, I'll build it in Minecraft!
I personally build the world as I write the story. I find it captures my attention and imagination, especially if I don't know how the world will turn out. Also, it doesn't bog me down. I started writing, what I call my epic, around 7 years ago. (and still writing it). This was a story where I tried to build the world before writing. It evolved into such a monumental place that the actual act of writing the story became cumbersome and a little daunting. So my first book I actually finished, I wrote start to finish in a month. No world building, but let myself become immersed in it as the story came alive on the pages. I think that is how I will write all my others as well. Certainly seems to be working for my next book. Wish you all good luck out there! Regards Mike
I personally like to get started with the story, and then build the world bit by bit as I progress through that. Once the story is done I will go back and edit and adjust things as they need to be. I always bear in mind that the world you build can have any rules as well, as long as they are stuck to!
I have three worlds / "verses" (one is fantasy, one is sci-fi and the other one, the one I mainly write in, is very variable between fantasy and... all sorts of non-fantasy stuff), and all of them have complete timelines. The verse mentioned last in the brackets, my major "main verse", actually has a timeline that spans events occurring over nearly three million years. I just like to have a neat and clean canon to place all my stories in, even if said stories are insignificant to the overall canon of any given world - it just gives me a sense of security, and it keeps things orderly and clean, which helps in avoiding timeline errors and inconsistencies. And it allows me to very easily pick points on the timeline where I wish to place stories, places where they fit in perfectly... and then I can "check ahead" for any possible changes to future events. I do of course leave myself a bit of room to maybe change some events in some ways, or the order they occur in. ... well, at least as long as it doesn't screw with any other parts of the canon, of course. Greets, AniGa
Personally, I can be obsessive with world-building, to the point where I forget to write the actual story. So, I make myself get down the absolute minimum necessary and stop. Then, I make things up on the fly, doing research where needed. But, I fo make sure to keep track of everything in a story bible, to avoid screwups.
My world-building, (so far as fantasy is concerned, at least) has been bound up with my characters- one character travels a lot more than others, and interacts with various people from different cultures more than the others- so more world development has occurred in figuring out his story. Others are effected by world events- but I usually made the events make sense after figuring them into the story, so pure world-building: very off-and-on.
Well only really as long as necessary for an interesting plot and setting to develop. Meh, who am I kidding? World building takes forever. Now, I'm not saying its some kind of chore, but I keep coming up with new ideas that contradict old ones. I have rewritten vampires and dead gods several times already. I just redid the history (its important in my world) again just now. Also, I get too excited about locations. I love making up fictional cities or taking ones that exist and turning them into something else.
In my opinion it really depends on how different your world is, and how much detail you want in your story. I've built worlds in an hour, with basics, which I later tweaked while I was writing. Or... I've built a world over eight years... from how the world was created, to the development of civilizations, to language and environment and religion... so on so forth. In the end, if you have an idea you go with the idea and see what grows around/ from it. The good thing about writing is it can take as long as you want or as fast as you want.
Count me in the pro-spending a long time world-building category, but more because I just enjoy it than because I think a lot of world-building is necessary prior to starting the "real" story. Although I have this problem where the worlds I try to build are always just extrapolations of the world I live in, so my "world-building" ends up being less imaginative and more just researching stuff I'm interested in. E.g, I was coming up with a physical map of the fantasy world I'm trying to build but realized that so many of the locations I had thought of were based on real locations from history, that I may as well just use an actual world map, and make my "fantasy" more of just a far-out alternate history. Finally, I know anyone writing sci-fi probably knows about this site, but absolutely essential for building (hard!) sci-fi worlds is Atomic Rockets. Sometimes I read it just for fun, it's so good.
Pfft, oh my. So many of my projects have stopped short because I over-focused on world building, I just find so much fun in doing it. Thankfully I met my fiancee whose very character-focused, so our stories tend to balance out really well.
Honestly? I don't dedicate ANY time to it. The world builds itself as I write my story, and I make it exactly how it needs to be for my plot and characters to reach their goals.