When creating your own universe and planet for a book, what's the first thing you do for worldbuilding?

[Guest]

And what are other things you think are necessary to know?

[Reece]

I dig out my old role playing game books for Traveller and roll dice for the planetary attributes.

[Bran]

I had a though the other day. My stories are character driven and often have a small cast, and so do not take up alot of space, but what if I pictured the setting before the characters. How big of a territory am I working in, how many people live there etc...

I am not well versed enough to speak as an authority in this regard, but my thought was this. Imagine the land mass that your story takes place in first, however big. Define it, explore it, and then wonder it to find your most interesting characters.

Then watch the stories unfold.

[Tom]

I'd say the tech level, as this would determine a lot of other things like the type of economy, standard of living, family structure. Or maybe the biological makeup of the dominant species is more fundamental. Either way, I think the principle is to look at what factors have the greatest impact on other factors.

[Jim]

Decide the biggest difference between the imaginary world and the real one. Then the next biggest, then the next. And so on.