Worldbuilding: The Writer’s Favourite Distraction

You’ve drawn three maps, drafted a seven-page document on trade and commerce, created a thirteen-month calendar with twin moon cycles, and spent an entire weekend deciding what your Dwarves call bread – changing your mind twice.

And somehow, your story’s first chapter is still a blinking cursor on a blank page.

It’s not that you’re lazy, far from it. You’re working tirelessly, obsessively even. You’re just working on everything except the actual story.

This is the fantasy writer’s paradox: worldbuilding feels like writing. It feels productive. It scratches the same creative itch. It’s rich, immersive, and intoxicatingly fun. And, most importantly, it’s safe. Writing the story, well, that’s the vulnerable part.

So worldbuilding becomes the perfect hiding place. It’s procrastination dressed up as progress.  Nowhere is this more obvious than in the obsession with creating elaborate fantasy languages before writing a single scene.

Let’s talk about it – not to shame worldbuilders, but to be honest about what’s really happening beneath the surface and why Tolkien isn’t the defence we think he is. Let’s learn how to reclaim worldbuilding as a creative tool rather than a sophisticated form of avoidance.

1. Procrastination: An Ancient Problem Wearing Modern Clothes.
2. Is Language Creation Important for Worldbuilding?
3. The Tolkien Defence.
4. Why Worldbuilding Feels so Comforting, and Why It’s a Trap
5. Let Worldbuilding Be Creation, Not Escape.
6. Breaking the Worldbuilding-as-Procrastination Cycle.
7. Bringing It All Together: Story First, Worldbuilding Second.
8. Get Sketches & Storytelling Delivered to Your Inbox.

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Procrastination: An Ancient Problem Wearing Modern Clothes.

Before we dive into worldbuilding as a distraction, it’s helpful to understand procrastination itself. We often think of it as a modern problem born from smartphones – endless notifications, funny cat videos and a thousand other digital distractions. But procrastination is older than all of that. 

Much older.

In fact, you know something’s old when there’s a Latin root to the word…

Pro crastinus = ‘for tomorrow’.

It literally identifies the habit we know all too well: putting it off until tomorrow. It’s a problem for future me, who will be wiser, stronger, and have more motivation and clarity than I do right now.

If only.

Modern psychology offers a clear explanation of procrastination: it isn’t a time management problem, it’s a mood management problem. 

It has little to nothing to do with laziness or lack of discipline. We put off tasks that trigger discomfort, uncertainty, self-doubt, or fear of failure. Writing stories is emotionally loaded, so we pivot toward anything that feels productive without carrying the same emotional risk – like rearranging bookshelves.

And writers have been mood-managing for millennia. 

All the way back in 800 BCE, Hesiod delivered one of humanity’s earliest documented warnings against procrastination:

“Do not put your work off until tomorrow and the day after… A man who puts off work is always at hand-grips with ruin.”

Hesiod may not have had the TikTok algorithm to distract him, but he did have human nature, and it hasn’t changed much since then.

The only difference now? We’ve invented more elaborate ways to dignify our avoidance. In our case, we can make avoidance look beautifully productive. You’re not doomscrolling, you’re creating a magic system, researching ancient languages, drawing floor plans for the Temple District… and feeling wonderfully busy.

But as Hesiod reminds us, avoidance is still avoidance. And for storytellers, worldbuilding can easily become the most seductive version of that ancient habit.

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Is Language Creation Important for Worldbuilding?

This question is quietly radical because the fantasy community has built a mythology around the importance of constructed languages (conlangs). So let’s frame it this way:

If you were to rewrite Homer’s Odyssey in your own style, would you start by learning ancient Greek? Nah, probably not. You’d start with the Story Keystone, the characters, the journey, and the conflict – the heart.

Language creation is the sub-hobby where procrastination becomes performative. Writers convince themselves that inventing a language is the ultimate sign of commitment – the mark of the serious fantasy worldbuilder.

But is that the case? Or are you sinking hours into something that contributes very little to the story?

Made-up words don’t make a story unforgettable. The essential elements of storytelling do. Whilst a conlang can enhance the flavour of your world, it’s not the story, and it’s not the reason a reader will fall in love with your work.

Readers fall in love with:

• Characters who feel real and relatable
• Conflicts that matter and have genuine consequences
• A plot with momentum
• A message and themes that resonate

Even Tolkien’s readers didn’t fall in love with Quenya or Sindarin before falling in love with Frodo’s courage, Sam’s loyalty, and the quiet gleam of hope against an overwhelming darkness.

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The Tolkien Defence.

Whenever someone points out that spending months inventing a language might be overkill, the same defence emerges: “But Tolkien did it.”

Yes. He did. But let’s look at the part that is conventionally left out of the equation. 

JRR Tolkien, the father of modern fantasy, wasn’t a novelist who decided to dabble in linguistics – he was a philologist who chose to write novels. 

He was a literal scholar of language history, phonology, grammar, and etymology. He studied how languages evolved and changed over centuries. Tolkien didn’t invent Quenya and Sindarin by simply swapping out English words for cool-sounding Elvish ones. He built languages the way architects designed cathedrals – from foundations to spires. And he did this long before Galadriel, Gandalf, or Frodo ever walked Middle-earth. 

Tolkien’s languages had internal logic. Proto-languages. Dialectical drift. Cultural and historical context. In other words… they had rules.

Understandably, most modern writers aren’t doing that. This means that the odds are your invented language doesn’t have the depth of a real language. It’s aesthetic seasoning. Which is fine, but here’s where the problem lies:

Most writers aren’t creating languages to deepen the story – they’re creating languages to avoid telling the story.

The trap isn’t language creation – it’s the way we use it to avoid writing the story.

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Why Worldbuilding Feels so Comforting, and Why It’s a Trap

It’s no revelation to say that writing stories is hard. It’s uncertain, emotional, and exposed. You can’t always control where it goes. Your characters surprise you, your themes shift under pressure, your dialogue falls flat, and your first draft almost certainly won’t live up to the vision you had when you started.

But when you’re worldbuilding… you’re God. 

You get to decide how everything works. Everything obeys. Everything makes sense because you’re designing it to. It all feels so productive.

And that’s because it is. It’s just not story productive.

It’s creative comfort food. Delicious, satisfying, and easy to binge on. It also provides fast, frequent dopamine hits.

Solve a societal system? Dopamine. Invent a holiday? Dopamine. Name your magic stones? Dopamine. Draw a map and work out the on-foot travel time from point A to point B? Triple dopamine with whipped cream and marshmallows.

You might be feeding your imagination, but you’re starving your story. It’s progress sideways rather than forward.

Meanwhile, writing the story gives you:

• Delayed gratification
• Emotional discomfort
• Slow progress
• The ever-looming possibility of failure
• A future of edits and rewrites

So of course, your brain says: “Let’s figure out the ancient burial customs instead”. Not because it matters for the story, but because it protects you from writing it.

This is what psychologists refer to as avoidance coping. It’s not about productivity; it’s about soothing the emotional discomfort of writing by doing something that feels productive.

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Let Worldbuilding Be Creation, Not Escape.

It’s important to remember that worldbuilding in itself isn’t bad. It’s a crucial aspect of speculative fiction. A believable world adds richness, texture and meaning to a story. It gives readers a sense of place, culture, history and context.

But it was never meant to replace storytelling. That’s just avoidance. 

The difference between creation and avoidance lies in intent.

• Creation: Worldbuilding that supports the story
• Avoidance: Worldbuilding that delays the story

If your world exists without characters to live in it and conflicts to resolve, what you have isn’t a story – it’s a setting. It may be beautiful, but it’s also lifeless. It’s like a painter who spends years mixing colours but never puts a brush to canvas. At some point, you have to stop perfecting your palette and start creating art.

So, if you find yourself endlessly adjusting maps, crafting languages or building lore you’ll never need to use, pause for a moment and gently ask yourself:

“Am I creating, or avoiding? Is this worldbuilding helping me write the story, or is it helping me avoid writing the story?”

If it’s the former, brilliant, keep it going. If it’s the latter, your map is just a beautifully drawn distraction.

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Breaking the Worldbuilding-as-Procrastination Cycle.

You don’t need to abandon your worldbuilding. You don’t need to feel guilty for loving it. You just need to put it back in its rightful place: supporting the story instead of shielding you from it.

So how do you keep worldbuilding as fuel rather than fog?

Build Only What the Story Needs Next.

You don’t need to design an entire economic system before writing Chapter Two; you need just enough to confidently write the next scene. Once you have your foundation in place, let worldbuilding grow alongside the story, not ahead of it. 

Treat Worldbuilding as a Reward, Not a Requirement.

Written 500 words? Great! Now invent that ancient flower that cures hex poisoning. Let worldbuilding become the fun after-dinner treat, not the junk food that fills you up before the main course.

Ask the One Question That Cuts Through ALL Avoidance.

Every time you’re about to dive into a new lore rabbit hole, pause and ask:

“Does my story actually need this right now?”

If the answer is no, save it for later.

Trust That You Can Fix the Lore Later.

Your first draft is allowed to be messy. Your lore can be inconsistent. You don’t need a fully functioning astrologer or three variations for the Elvish word for soup. Draft first, refine later. Lore can be edited – an empty page cannot.

Don’t Confuse ‘Ready’ with ‘Right’.

You will never feel ready. No world ever feels finished enough. 

That’s because writing the story is how you discover what the world needs.

Stop waiting for readiness and start writing for clarity.

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Bringing It All Together: Story First, Worldbuilding Second.

Worldbuilding is a beautiful craft, but it’s not the craft. 

The map is not the journey. The language is not the tale. And no amount of calendar systems or rounds of animal, mineral or vegetable will compensate for a story that never gets written.

Your world is the soil – it’s rich, nourishing, and full of potential. But without characters, conflict, choices, and change, nothing grows. 

Readers don’t fall in love with a spreadsheet of verb forms or elaborate moon cycle calendars. They fall in love with:

• Characters who make difficult decisions
• Relationships that evolve and grow
• Themes that resonate
• Stories that move them

Readers fall in love with the story, not the backdrop. So the next time you’re tempted to bury yourself in worldbuilding instead of writing your story, remind yourself:

“The world doesn’t exist to delay your story; it exists to serve your story.”

Instead of using worldbuilding as a distraction, do this:

1. Sit down.
2. Write the first sentence.
3. Then the next.
4. Keep going.

Worlds are built in notepads and sketchbooks. Stories are built in motion.