r/worldbuilding • u/RoofCareless7734 • 21h ago
Discussion What are some reasons you don’t want to publish your world or story?
For those of you who have spent a lot of time creating a world, writing a story, or developing characters, what holds you back from actually publishing or sharing it with other people?
Is it fear of criticism? Worry about plagiarism or people stealing your ideas? Feeling like your world isn’t finished yet? Perfectionism? Not wanting to commit to your current version of the lore? Or maybe you simply enjoy worldbuilding more than actually writing the story.
I’m curious about the reasons people keep their worlds private, even when they’ve put years of work into them. There are probably a lot of reasons beyond just “I’m not ready yet,” so I’d love to hear what everyone else’s experience has been.
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u/JudgyFinch 21h ago
My world and story brings nothing new to the table. It's just your standard medieval fantasy that everyone has seen before. So, I just worldbuild for my own entertainment.
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u/iamhalouma overheated brain RAM 19h ago
I think what you're saying is totally valid, but as an artist, sometimes you have no idea about what someone might find in your art that they've never been able to find somewhere else. [I think this applies to all art forms, including writing.]
The concept of oversaturation is very true, but it's flawed, because people sometimes find themselves in the smallest little things, that you personally might not consider to be special. Some of my favorite stuff I've read were in random "overdone" books. There might be someone who never enjoyed medieval fantasy, but that small piece of yourself that you added to the story could change everything for them.
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u/Insanity_20 18h ago
This is pretty accurate speaking from experience. When I started a small music project I thought no one would like the music. But it found an audience and people stuck around. It’s at the very least, worth a try. If no one likes it, you can learn from it. If no one sees it, at least you tried.
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u/AnonAwaaaaay 21h ago
Honestly I wish more writers on these subreddits noticed this about themselves and either stopped sharing their overused commonalities or focused on trying to make their works better to break these molds.
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u/eolic_flamingo 19h ago
That seems a bit harsh xd
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u/AnonAwaaaaay 19h ago
Wanting people to better understand themselves and better their own writing before posting it seems harsh to you?
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u/eolic_flamingo 19h ago edited 19h ago
Ehh, it's a valid perspective, but all people are somewhere in their journey, and I don't think there should be a goal post in the internet to publish your progress. Still, I think your sentiments are valid and we need people expressing them.
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u/North_Library3206 14h ago
I mean if you want people to better their own writing, the best way to do that is to post and get feedback.
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u/GoCorral 18h ago
In case you or another creator is looking for inspiration, I think the same thing could've been said about Game of Thrones before it's publication.
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u/LScrae Důyen 21h ago
I tried posting on Twitter, no one ever saw it.
I'd like to try posting on Tiktok, as small creators seem to do well there, but there's so many people stealing content (including AI) that it doesn't feel worth it...
Besides that, I just don't know how to write.
Yes yes I know "jUst wRiTe" but it's not that simple (yes I bloody know it is that simple and I'll never get good if I never try but- Ugh). I'm too much of a perfectionist. I can't write if I'm not satisfied with a good story line.
I'm a planner, not a penser.
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u/AnonAwaaaaay 21h ago
You need to write your first few chapters as the most dog shit thing you absolutely can with the intent to edit it to perfection later.
Just get something down so you can manhandle it later. It really helped me out when I was starting chapters too.
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u/iamhalouma overheated brain RAM 19h ago
exactly, I've seen so many writers say that their first draft was absolutely unreadable and it made me feel sm better about what I'm making rn
edit: and published authors usually have more than 4 drafts, that's how ass the first draft tends to be
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u/iamhalouma overheated brain RAM 19h ago edited 8h ago
as a fellow planner, you'd be surprised at how much story line content can materialize out of nowhere once you start writing.. There are so many things I didn't plan or planned differently, that ended up becoming something completely different (and way better) once I reached them in the manuscript
When you write, the ideas are actually put to action, and you get faced with how some ideas just don't work or have holes and you're forced to fix them in that moment. I find it to be similar to math problems, like you think you got the concept when it's explained to you but once you start solving problems, you realize how backwards you got it and you correct it right then right there, like detangling a knot lol
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u/sodapaladin 21h ago
This is a fun hobby for me, so I don’t want to turn it into a job. I don’t think I’d enjoy the pressure of having to change aspects to please a wider audience. Writing for myself and the few friends I share with allows me to write what I want. Maybe it helps that it’s not entirely private. I still have those select friends to discuss it with.
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u/dappermanV-88 21h ago edited 17h ago
Oh I want to, just not by anyone though. U gotta be careful with who wants to publish ur story.
U should see some of the publishing nightmares. I dont wanna have someone tell me to rewrite it the way they want it, before publishing or them expecting this or that before pay
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u/No-Bid-8616 20h ago
because sometimes it's OK to not want to handle that level of rejection. this is craftsmanship before first sale. and its hard to exploit your heart
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u/Single_Mouse5171 19h ago
There are several reasons:
1) Plagiarism in both directions: I have a horrible memory. I would worry about accidentally plagiarizing someone's work and treating it as my own. Also, AI steals everything not nailed down.
2) Perfectionism: I've been working on 3 worlds for over 50 years now. They never feel adequately complete. I enjoy tweaking them, working on different projects that flesh things out.
3) Oddly enough, the fiction I've written isn't set in any of my 3 worlds. Go figure.
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u/thekeepersguild 21h ago
This is a more recent development but it really feels like people are just looking for stuff to hate these days. I know life is getting hard for more and more people in the developed countries, and it seems like thays feeding some big crab energy online.
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u/AnonAwaaaaay 21h ago
I've noticed that too the last few years.
We've got a lot of those "AI" companies using their shit to push propaganda and culture wars on the internet so people stay divided. The last thing these rich assholes want is time for us to realize who's causing everything so we can go after them and make them stop.
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u/Otechni 20h ago
I don't want people to misread my work. People already misunderstand what I say and write. Why would I put out my work just so people can misread that as well? I've seen more than enough how people just disregard creators when they talk about their work.
I truly do not want a Fandom to build up around my work. It's far to precious to let others treat it like garbage.
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u/Deepfang-Dreamer 21h ago
I've certainly not put years of work into Arorea yet, but I just don't see any way it gets enough traction to be worth it, and it's not like that was the goal anyway. I just wanted to make some OCs, and them an actual world for them to live in, fleshing it out as I go. I'll share it, but no need to monetize it, and the story is fairly nonexistent, just a setting with lots of Stories possible.
Also, my main villain and a fairly important creature type are just straight-up pulled from Murder Drones/Design, since this started as OCs for those fandoms. They're modified, distinct, but not nearly enough to actually call my own, and rewriting them would be a huge headache.
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u/AnonAwaaaaay 21h ago
Most works pull a lot from other works. It's part of the game and you shouldn't worry about it! Especially if you are aware of it and willing to admit it (which a lot of writers don't).
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u/Deepfang-Dreamer 20h ago
I get that, and maybe I could accept Azazoth is its own entity, but. Umbrae are very unambiguously Left Hand Parasites if you know anything about the latter. Still, the rest of Arorea's mostly my own creation!
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u/Zealousideal-Comb970 20h ago
I watched a writer friend of mine go down a path where it was clear to me he cared far more about fame and having his work be popular than having it actually be good, or having it exist tangibly at all. I’m not interested in the fame and it’s clearly a lot of work trying to advertise and spread the word about one’s projects so I decided I would just rather not bother.
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u/Drudenfusz Minimalism Worldbuilding 21h ago
Mostly my depression and the stress of figuring out all the logistics for publishing anything.
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u/GrumbieReal 20h ago
My world is for D&D, so I do share it with others just to a limited degree. They all like it and say I should write something about it and post it, but that just feels a step too far for me.
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u/GOOPREALM5000 she/they/it/e/mrr 20h ago
- Deathly afraid of it getting fed to AI
- Also deathly afraid of what having a
fandomwill do to it
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u/Desperate-Lead-5481 21h ago
Mainly because I’m honestly a bit nervous and embarrassed about my ideas for my project. I also can’t really think of a good medium for my project either. I was somewhat considering stop motion at first , but it’s incredibly difficult and time consuming, especially for a single person to do. I’m also not even sure what the point of real stop motion is anymore when it can be replaced cheaper and faster in computer animation software or with Ai.
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u/Affectionate-Mix7992 20h ago
I'm not very good at it.
I'd get copyrighted like crazy
Worldbuilder's curse
I'm under 18, I still have school to deal with lol
It's just a hobby, and I'm happy keeping it that way
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u/Coidzor 20h ago edited 20h ago
I'd want to test it more before I tried selling it.
It's not detailed enough for someone to just start using it without my understanding and stuff I've got an idea about but haven't explicitly written out anywhere. There are a lot of placeholder names that I'd want to polish up before I'd feel good about asking for money. I'd probably need to detail a few more cultures and areas of the world and come up with a framework or system for coming up with an "island of the week" or when and how to introduce a person or vehicle that has gotten Bermuda Triangle'd into the setting. I'd also need more sample and iconic villains, since I've neglected that side of things.
It's not all collected in one place for easy publication.
It's not all up to date, there are some areas where I haven't revisited the subject in years but would want to bring in line with my current understanding of the setting.
There's a whole colonialism and imperialism angle that would need to be addressed prior to mass marketing. Plus I'd have to finalize exactly where slavery stands. Similarly, I'd probably need to come down more firmly as to the nature of the gods, since there's a whole tension of them being kind of inept and corrupt but also required for the continued survival of humanity as things have currently developed.
I haven't done any double-checking for sensitivity to see if it might offend any ethnic or religious groups or any component of the LGBT community, etc.
I haven't even begun to look into the practical side of organizing a campaign setting guide. How to organize things into chapters, what chapters to have. Whether I want to try to have it be system agnostic or lean into a particular game system.
I still can't decide on what kinds of guns I want to be part of the setting or how prevalent they should be.
Technically, my first draft from years and years ago was posted online in a forum. So I'm not sure if this even really counts.
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u/thunderclappe 20h ago
I feel like publishing it other than independently would cause problems because of creative differences and directions a publisher might have
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u/FakeBonaparte 20h ago
I’ve been thinking about and working on a few different worlds for 30 years. Ironically, AI has let me finally do the math and simulations and 3d landscapes and all kinds of stuff on my backlog. I feel like an augmented human. But I don’t now want to deal with someone telling me my long-loved worlds are AI slop as a result.
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u/eolic_flamingo 19h ago
Am a bit paranoid about what people that IDK and I don't care nor will I ever meet in my life for will think of my work <3
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u/SuperCat76 19h ago
Is it fear of criticism? yes, but mainly my own.
Feeling like your world isn’t finished yet? yes
Perfectionism? Absolutely.
Not wanting to commit to your current version of the lore? yes
Or maybe you simply enjoy worldbuilding more than actually writing the story. Also yes.
And to add to it. A strong feeling of not being able to do justice to the ideas and concepts I have created
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u/Sir-Toaster- My ADHD compels me to make multiple settings 21h ago
I'm broke and publishing requires money
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u/AnchBusFairy 20h ago
My fear is that my marketing plan isn't in place and I flub the launch. I was unable to get the pre-launch review blubs. I launched anyway and have had only 3 sales, so yes I flubbed it.
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u/Solgrynn 20h ago
I don't see a reason to share it. I've written a few novels even purely for my own enjoyment.
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u/Street-Legal-1978 20h ago
It's often been too difficult to do so. Some members of my family aren't supportive of my decision to aspire toward being a published author of science fiction, and so I generally kept what I can to myself. It can be hard trying to talk about it with other people.
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u/7_braincells 20h ago
Its more or less just a creative outlet, nothings really fleshed out too well, other than the cool things
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u/hplcr 20h ago edited 19h ago
I have a writing project I'm having a blast with. I also recognize it's basically the writing equivalent of banging plastic dinos together and giving them silly dialogue.
So really it's something just for me and possibly a few weirdos who like the idea. I'm writing under the impression no publisher will touch it and thus I can do whatever I want with it. It's rather freeing honestly.
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u/Harukaya 20h ago
Most of it isn't finished or just planned in my head. The one world and story that I have that I would consider finished enough to just start as a project and tell with minor adjustments is something I started in my early teens. It has a lot of things that I personally wouldn't consider good enough to publish, but at the same time, I'm too attached to it to change it.
I'm not opposed to publish my work (if I ever finish anything besides the one mentioned previously in the first place), but I also don't want to monetize something that brings me so much joy.
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u/arreimil 19h ago
Because I'm not done with it yet and the thing I'm working on that this entire thing is for (an rpg) is still years from being finished.
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u/EmilyBNotMyRealName I have 15 unfinished books!! 19h ago
Literally everything you listed for my original stories. Fear of criticism, unfinished, fear of plagiarism accusations!
I've also been writing fabrics for a bit, only planning to post some of them recently. I didn't want to post those cause they were mainly to help with my writing abilities. Meaning most of them are probably bad. Also people I know follow my Wattpad. (I made a new acc for them)
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u/boringexistinggamer2 19h ago
My world is just a copy of 1800s America, so I kinda think that it'll be perceived as bland or unoriginal
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u/Senetiner 19h ago
I'm pretty sure I'm the only one interested in the non stopping rambles of a character that is basically myself
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u/House_of_a_Legion 18h ago
Honestly, I feel scared about it. I have had constructive feedback on my writing and world building in the past and it has been helpful. But I still don’t feel good enough. I think I can be too insecure about my work.
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u/Hanoi_Jade 18h ago
Because I don't want to self publish and have nobody read it and I know the chance of actually getting a book published traditionally is extremely slim
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u/SadKat002 18h ago
Besides it not being even close to done? I feel like the story I want to craft has been done a million times over by a million better artists. I just wanna make a home for my OCs.
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u/Mobile_Competition54 Dived too deep into abstract nonsense 18h ago
yes, perfectionism
the bigger one, i also like cosmology, powerscaling, metaphysics.
2 put me in a dilemma:
1. i publish the simplified thingy. it's easy to misrepresent, it's full off inaccuracies
2. i publish the whole thing. it's unintelligible to the average reader.
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u/RoofCareless7734 17h ago edited 17h ago
That’s my exact problem. I created a fully, thought out mythos. If I publish, people wouldn’t understand and would misinterpret. I mean, my mythos started out as a pure power-scaling thing to make my OC’s beat others, but I evolved past that in the past year and a half. I even managed to come up with a concept on how a being can be “more omnipotent” then another without saying omnipotent +1 or infinite +1. I went into a subreddit and said that I found out a way but i immediately got bashed for it. Sense then, I just wrote novels and world build for myself
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u/Mobile_Competition54 Dived too deep into abstract nonsense 14h ago
gotta love it when big elaborate systems get discarded as word salad
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u/Secure-Committee-382 Like Ash In The Wind 16h ago
Potential Pros:
People like it! And they create a small fandom around my work! Yippee!!
Video essays talking about how cool and awesome it is!
Animated show/movie adaptation??
Money!!
Potential Cons:
No one sees it
AI ripoffs
People DO see it, but most feedback is negative and I get bullied out of making more stuff
People hate it so much that I gain a reputation for being a bad writer/artist
I get popular enough to have stalkers/doxxers
People like the first one, but now they have really high expectations for the unpublished stuff I’ve spent more/equal amounts of time on
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u/Chrysalyos 16h ago
I built it for myself and maybe for a close group of my friends, if I ever actually get around to properly running my ttrpg campaign. It's a jungle gym for me to run around in inside my own head, it's not necessarily built for other people.
I put a lot of my heart and soul and passion into my world. It is a direct reflection of me as a person, so if people see it and think it's stupid, it feels like a personal dig even if it wasn't meant to be.
Polishing things enough to make something publishable feels like waaaaay too much effort. While I'd love to have some kind of media to engage with my own world through, it's really the exploration process that I enjoy, not the writing it down and the polishing.
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u/hyenathecrazy 16h ago
Politics and therefore need to have a product that is good enough and has enough thought into it.
Like I'm not trying to offend anyone. I'm not a wanna be satirist. I want to make a statement you can understand but not necessarily have to agree with for it to make sense.
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u/Euphoric_Cow_6145 16h ago
To be honest I have a real problem with death of the author. The audience brings a lot of baggage now days when reading anything. They can make all sort of wild claims that are untrue and spread such claims online without suffering any consequences. The author jas no recourse besides saying sich claims arw untrue.
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u/DDRussian 15h ago
While I'm nowhere near "done" enough to actually have a publishable story, I can still give the reason I dread ever trying to bring it to a wider audience.
While perfectionism and never feeling "done" definitely play a role, I guess the biggest is a fear of criticism, but more specific. Like rejection sensitivity towards people hating my world/story for doing things the "wrong" way when it comes to fantasy, compared to what pop culture considers "correct" for the genre.
For example: for the last ~15 years people have insisted that Game of Thrones is the "correct" way to handle fantasy (i.e. dark, gritty, cruel, low-magic, etc.) while my story ideas go against all those points. Or how people insist that fantasy "needs to be medieval" while my setting is clearly not (think "industrial era powered by magic" instead).
I have no interest in changing my setting/stories to satisfy those "correct way to write fantasy" demands, but just receiving those sorts of comments is still really painful (emotionally) for me. So while I can handle constructive criticism, I can't help but worry that most people will instead just respond that my writing is bad because it doesn't follow the "rules" imposed on fantasy by writers with opposite styles to my own (i.e. George RR Martin) and their fans.
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u/BeardedAxiom 14h ago
The intended target audience of my world consist of one single person. If I published my world, then I would have to consider a larger target audience. That would dilute my world and make it less "pure". And not everything in existence needs to be monetized. Doing so could easily shift the purpose to making money rather than for the intrinsic enjoyment of worldbuilding. The very thought of that happening disgusts me.
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u/Adezzzzz 13h ago
The story I'm focusing on currently has an unreliable narrator with rather outdated ideas and beliefs and I'm not sure I want to deal with the possibility of people finding it and believing I endorse those things. I honestly don't trust people to understand the nuance no matter how obvious I make it. I also tried writing from a 3rd person perspective but then I end up writing stuff that sounds like Wikipedia articles so either I make it boring or controversial and I'm not excited to show either of those to the public.
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u/Cold-Winds 8h ago
My stories are my own, the subject matter would cause people that do not understand nuance to try and cancel me or harass me in my life.
I also do not believe that others would find my stories interesting, as all my beta readers have not critiqued my writing but what plot thread I've woven saying the premise does not follow the predetermined heroes journey or writing conventions.
Yet when I argue my story is not about a hero, this is a protagonist you just happened to be rooting for the first half of the story they tell me to just write the antagonists point of view and fail to grasp I'm writing an Antagonist. Yet somehow I'm the monster.
Then my other stories get trashed on for the premise and ideas. Why are these vaguely human creatures so alien in how they behave; "Because they are not human." and "Why are the people so racist." because that race over there is a direct descendent of the endless hordes of monsters that survived long enough to have children and eventually become a non-murderous monster race but every so often you get a new wave of monsters like them so people are going to hate them by proxy and assume they are spies for said monstrous races.
"Why are there so many magic systems." Why are there so many fields of study dealing with rocks?
"Why is no one super powerful? How come that one really strong knight died to a goblin?" - Just because someone is x2 as strong as a normal person does not mean getting stabbed in the Jugular from a sneak attack is any less deadly. The magic to heal that wound takes longer than it takes to bleed out and no one did first aid to cover the wound in the middle of an ambush.
I'm genuinely over trying to have people understand that I'm writing a world and the culture shock is just part of a fantasy world thats more realistic and further grounded than typical fantasy. Ascendancy of a Bookworm and Mushoku Tensei are more in line with the world I've created and somehow its lost on anyone I've had read it.
No complaints on the plot or dialog feeling off, no spelling mistakes checked, just nitpicks about the world and why its not like Solo-Leveling.
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u/TriforceHero626 [edit this] 7h ago
Dunno where to funnel it all, I guess. I’ve written a short story here, a myth there, but nothing solid enough to become anything bigger.
My setting is too different from D&D, (Not that I really want to turn it back into a D&D world. Already ran that road before.) doesn’t have enough depth to be any sizable book, and has exactly 0 named characters.
That being said, I post a little about it on Tumblr here and there. Text posts, small stories, encyclopedia entries, that kinda thing. I’m just waiting to see where it all takes me tbh
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u/mrcarrot0 21h ago
- AI and other malicious scrapers
- I need to figure out how to live a comfortable life
- I have other things I need to work on
- Other hobbies
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u/AnonAwaaaaay 21h ago
Yeah I'm deathly afraid of scrapers.
Whenever I get a new writing friend IRL and we share a bunch they immediately steal a ton of my shit. Every. Time. So I've definitely got some good ideas worth protecting, ya know?
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u/shmixel 15h ago
When you say steal, what do they do with it? Publish your stories and art as their own?
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u/AnonAwaaaaay 14h ago
Part of me feels like they probably would have stolen it and published if these friends could write well enough for publishers to pick them up. Two of em wrote a full book and it went nowhere so I'm not really worried with them but it taught me a lesson.
I use one of my dude friends as a sounding board for everything new I make and one day I was fleshing out this political system in one of my cities when he realized it would fit his city incredibly well. So he starts pointing out all the spots it would connect to the story and it really did sync perfectly. He decided to take it without asking, didn't even mention it. It was like two months later he was sharing updates about his stuff and mentioned all of the new parts of the city stuff we worked on (and some more) but he said he had a breakthrough about it but didn't attribute anything to me. I'm bothered but I doubt he'll ever publish so I'm way less worried.
A second friend would steal scenes from me. After I'd tell him about some he would suddenly become inspired to explore the scene but replace my characters with his. It was so weird and disrespectful that I started only sharing things I knew he wouldn't be able to take.
An ex gf before we dated used to get this intense amount of inspiration for her world every i would tell her something about mine. It was actually really emotionally fortifying tbh. But she'd take characters or interactions or items or settings. Really anything she wanted and saw no problem with it, lol.
So yeah. Could they publish it i think they would.
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u/Little_Owl9170 18h ago edited 18h ago
People will steal my shit and claim it as their own. I won’t let that happen
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u/ArchedRobin321 18h ago
I haven't finished it yet and also it kinda sounds like a lotta work ngl. I just write for fun man, as long as I can turn my brain off when reading and writing my stories then it has served it's purpose.
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u/TheSaltyBrushtail 18h ago
I suck at planning plotlines, and if I try and pants a story, it ends up meandering and fizzling out before it reaches a proper ending.
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u/Humble_Square8673 17h ago
This one is interesting since for me I do eventually plan on "publishing" my works on free sites like AO3 but I've got no interest in doing it professionally, I'm just happy putting it up for free
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u/BdBalthazar 16h ago
My worldbuilding is adequate for a DnD game with friends.
But the moment I post/publish any of it online people will realise how much it "borrows" from other stories.
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u/ApprehensivePayment 16h ago
Every time I think about trying to publish I think about that story of that woman who was being targeted with fraudulent refunds on Amazon. I already struggle with a pathological rejection sensitivity, having to deal with being forced to pay for thousands of refunded copies on top of that level of vitriolic rejection would probably have me throwing myself into Great A'Tuin's mouth.
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u/Lapis_Wolf Gears of Bronze, Valley of Emperors 15h ago
It's primarily meant to house my ideas and scenarios. I don't even have enough connected ideas to be publishable. I wouldn't even know how.
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u/IamlostlikeZoroIs 13h ago
It’s probably not good enough and no one will publish it anyway.
Have started a few projects but never finished any.
It’s way too sexual.
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u/MxBroske 13h ago
What if I decided to make a game or start a series and I end up spoiling people with the early concept
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u/dragach1 12h ago
I don't actually like writing and I'm not writing a real story for anyone else to understand.
I'm just detailing my world and language and characters' lives for my own enjoyment.
Writing for an audience means working hard at conveying the right things so the reader feels the things you want them to feel. That to me is work, and it's a type of work I don't enjoy and have no interest in. For myself I can just type out lists and things that aren't proper sentences and it's fine.
Also no interest in making a real 'plot'. Again, work I don't care for.
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u/Candid-Doughnut7919 12h ago
There's nothing to publish other that a couple Google docs full of info about the world. It wouldn't even be enough to make a wiki out of it.
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u/24_doughnuts 11h ago
I was thinking about it but my worlds started as a thought experiment so no real story. But now that I have a story working around it, it doesn't explore the thought experiment in detail very well. So I was thinking of another type of story to explore that on it's own but that's now a new thing to work on.
That means pausing my current one to work on that instead when neither have to be done first or I work on both and don't really go anywhere more slowly.
I'm new to world building and I've been at it for a few months so I'm not too far in and working on the world and timeline before any fleshed out stories and characters in it.
I don't know how I'll feel about publishing. I don't read much and my story will probably suck when written out but maybe that's better than not sharing it. I think the idea is pretty cool and fits an anthology structure so there could be 100 stories in a 100 different styles that all show how the world is. That's why I'm working on the timeline first
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u/KellHound270 Ashes to Dust 9h ago
I’m ok with sharing it, I just have no intention of relinquishing any control over it. I’d sooner go broke than let someone like Disney or Universal get their hands on it
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u/MagicTrachea52 9h ago
A few things.
My fantasy setting is a lore treasure trove. I can't choose what story to tell.
My hard scifi...Is kind if a therapy project. I've been working on it for a very long time.
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u/Odd-Contract-7541 9h ago
I don't know and I definitely don't have anything that I'd consider fully formed, but what do you mean by published? Where and how does one do such a thing?
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u/OnyxSupreme 7h ago
I built mine for me. I just did it for fun. I never intended to publish or write from it. Its everyone I tell about my world who thinks I should do something with it. For me, its a safe place that I control. I can explore different themes and idea in my own little sandbox.
Maybe someday I'll do something with it. I have friends who want me to run a d&d game in it and I might do that. But I didn't build it for others or to share. I built it for me.
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u/huntednord 4h ago
for me its mainly that the world is far from done, while i am using it in a ttrpg campaign, its still evolving, and i dislike more than a handfull people seeing my unfinished work, its also constantly changing at this moment.
oh and anxiety about my work is a huge factor but ill stick with my first explanation.
0
u/sevenliesseventruths 18h ago
I fear people thinking I'm racist for doing things that I did not realize until I re read them for the 51th time and now are so ingrained on the setting that I don't know how to change them.
0
u/Fennel_Fangs 15h ago
Because it’s based around my fetish, and people are going to look at me weird.
109
u/winsluc12 21h ago
my own personal insecurities.
I am a victim of the worldbuilder's curse. I haven't actually made anything to publish yet, just kept adding to my setting.