Worldbuilding doesn't have to be something that just the pros do. You can get in on the cool create-your-own universe action any time you want, and fast. Just follow our five simple rules for whipping up a universe in your spare time.

-[The Rules and Quick and Dirty Worldbuilding via io9]

The TechnoGuild community has strong roots in "role playing", which is the changing of one's behavior to fulfill a social role, particularly done in brief sessions over a forum or messaging system. Why role playing? Well, we feel that it is one of the most effective ways to expand on characters and ideas. One is able to take on the character they are developing and act them out with other people's characters in a given situation. This allows you to get a more tangible feel of the character and expand on its personality and behavior. Likewise, it is excellent practice for improvisation and creative thinking, which in turn lends to improvements in creative writing skill.

One of the issues with developing characters for role play is being able to quickly familiarize your character with other people in the session. Without at least a basic understanding of what you are dealing with, role play sessions can go down the drain rather quickly. Players can make up significant aspects about a character on the spot to gain an advantage, remove vulnerabilities to change a situation, or even bring in completely random and difficult to understand aspects or additional characters that halt the progression of a RP session.

Robots are funny things to write into fiction. How do people view them, in the setting? Are they tools or full-fledged characters? What are the physical and "mental" differences between robots and humans (or aliens, or even anthropomorphic animals)? And how come they keep deciding that humans are "obsolete," and trying to take over the world?

Here are three things that make it hard for me to suspend my disbelief when I'm reading about robots. They aren't mistakes in the strictest sense of the word, because a lot of people use them and get away with them. At best, though, they're cliches, because a lot of people use them. Want to make your robots stand out from the crowd? Then consider the following things that most people do, and take them into account. I'll also provide some examples of what I consider to be good portrayals of robots, afterwards.

So you're telling a sci-fi / fantasy / anime story, and you need a world to set your story in. So you get out your notebook and start filling the pages with notes, but after awhile you realize that it all seems flat ... you have some idea of what it looks like, but you can't imagine anyone living there. And when you try to describe it, it's just this flat picture in your mind, like a matte painting used as a backdrop.

Your crystal cities are crystal, alright, but what kind of crystal? What color are they? What's it like living inside of one? Where are the chemical scents of the growth medium, the light refractions spilled out on the sidewalk, the warmth of the living gems beneath their smooth surfaces? Who made something like this, and why? Research can answer your questions, but sometimes you find out that your original idea was so out of line with reality that it takes a lot of explaining to make it seem real again.

Don't fret. Here are three ways to get so many ideas, your worlds will start building themselves!