Hi. I am a seasoned writer with over a decade of experience. All this time I was mostly busy with one particular world. And boy is my world a mess! No, in my books it is congruent and plausible, but apart from that... Countless post-its, whiteboards, Miro account fro timelines, number of documents all over hard drives and even on old laptops that I have to dig out time to time just to recall a single detail from a lore of a particular culture in a particular period. I have had WA account for quite some time now, but I never got to buy "master" or "grandmaster" it because I was pushed back by subscription model. But even if I do it, I am completely overwhelmed by the fact that there is no way I can transfer all my stuff to a single place... I have 3 novels and 5 short stories... The explications and side-materials are immense! The second "stop" for me is D&D... I am not a D&D player and I solely write stuff and all I need is a wiki-like place of reference with hyperlinks and a feature to "hide" parts of the text from outside readers for the sake of not spoiling twists of my stories. Basically I need a double wiki - public and hidden. And the major question is language. I write in Russian and symbols there are Cyrillic, not Latin. Will all hyperlinks work? Will search work? And backup? Can I backup all my info? What if something happens to servers of WA? What if guys that do it decide to quit and close the project? Sorry if my questions are dumb.
Incredible content, as always, Chris. Never heard of World Anvil, though. Now I can't wait to get my new novel's details in there and start messing around.
HOLY MOLY! This is absolutely awesome, and it was such a lovely surprise to come across the AMAZING Chris Fox liking our platform! I'm literally fan-girl squeaking right now! I'm happy to answer any questions you guys have about World Anvil - you can find a quick tutorial for getting started here too: ua-cam.com/video/uSVWI9TBq_I/v-deo.html ! :) -- Janet
@@3mediajunkies Yes! You can share short stories, novels etc via the Manuscripts feature, and view other people's articles, if tehy choose to make them public. CHeck out the BROWSE dropdown menu at the top of the interface (to the right of the search bar) to find cool new things!
Thanks for the video, Chris. I’m a journeyman at World Anvil for a month or two and I really like how the character sheets help me formulate characters. I am so NON-tech that I am certain I am dog paddling on the surface of my world there, but it is a fun place. I would love to see more from you on this topic.
I particularly like that they're trying to help people monetise their worlds. It'd be great to be able to worldbuild in this and then do the RPG based off your world and let people access a version of the background through World Anvil. All sorts of possibilities with this. :)
I am writing a historical fiction book that is set in Lafourche Parish, Louisiana in 1828. My question is...Is there a way for me to create a small map image of the property of a sugar plantation owner with the outlying area around the plantation house. My heroine character will be escaping the plantation to go to Nacogdoches, TX. I would like to create the traveling map as well, but I need to find out where the instructions are to do this. I am 54, but still feel young, so I need to figure this out. If you could share a link, or tell me how to get there, I would really appreciate it. Thank you for reading my post. 😁
I had made a world anvil account for the story I’m working on, but I didn’t really understand how to use it. I think this video is going to encourage me to start using it
This interests me. I'm not ready to start showing off everything, but I'm looking for a worldbuilding tool to collate my ideas. Can I just use this for myself and not publish it for others to read?
I typically will leave the items that I don't want people to see as drafts. Then only I can access them. Allows me to create them and then come back for editing. That would be a simply way of doing it. But I'll tell you be a paid member. I'm a grandmaster. The perks and things they do for us is amazing. Plus you get access to the Discord and that is priceless!
A couple friends and I stumbled across World Anvil a while back - it's pretty sweet :) And I like how you could, e.g., extend your world into an RPG, if you wanted.
That's cool. Trying to put a timeline on a document is difficult and confusing. I'm currently working on a military science fiction series too, and I'm trying to manage the current timeline with the timeline outside the bubble of time around our solar system.
Awesome video! I started using World Anvil for my books. Currently I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to link several book series in the same story universe. Any tips or videos would be great.
@chris Hello, Chris. Nick the Texas teacher here. I am creating a visual story dice learning game/boardgame. Can I upload the pictures copyright freeI am promoting my product/in future on kickstarter via youtube, then phase 2, ebook/game publishing. Can I use their images in print publishing. World Anvil images. Online? rushing to get to work otherwise I would make my questions clearer, more concise. Thank you!
I like world Anvil it's useful for worldbuilding. I have everything there to build and expand my world for my YA fantasy magical girl Novel series Colorcons
Ever since I watched one of your previous videos where you mentioned you built a site to present your world building, I was fascinated with the idea, but wondered how you deal with spoilers? I assume your books reveal information about your world over time and readers love that. But, if you put your entire world and history, etc on Anvil, won't you be ruining the journey for your readers?
They would "love" it a lot more if the site was even a little bit user friendly. World Anvil is the most complicated piece of record keeping software ever created.
I've been using world anvil for a couple weeks, and I adore the layouts and customizability. I despise its pricing plans. And holy shit is it buggy. Still gonna use it. But be warned
I have a qucik question on World Anvil, anytime I write something it does not save, and I've lost some work because of this, do you know any fix for this problem?
Ouch, that sucks, man. I hit save often out of paranoia. Because World Anvil is a web app it suffers from certain limitations, and if a session times out before an auto-save loss work definitely happens =/
@@ChrisFoxWrites Thank you for the reply. I had got it in my head that there is a certain way to approach creating on world anvil and got confused... Is there such a thing as going about it the wrong way?
@@Ni-boo Not at all! Just make stuff. Over time you'll get familiar with the interface, and will learn how to put it all together. I might start doing tutorial videos.
Scrivener is an awesome 1 time purchase that goes on sale regularly. Works great for organization, but can't be shared. If you're after free, then doing your own site and learning some basic coding is definitely worth the investment. My first "wiki" was just hand coding all the pages and linking them to each other. =)
.. world anvil kinda sucks. Something as simple as inserting an imagine into a word document in a gigantic pain in the ass. You have to upload the image to world anvil then you can insert it into a document using the ID, and every after those extra steps it still doesn't work. Is it the fucking adds all over your work when you show your work ... I don't know.
Honestly world anvil is overrated. I hate the subscription model and even though it's a little more time consuming i can literally do everything world anvil offers with ms word and wonderdraft
@@ChrisFoxWrites while world anvil seems like a a wiki page, sharing your un-copyrighted ideas . . Campfire is almost more customizable; perhaps it's better for writers, as you can even create characters and link then to other characters using different colored "connections" based off fried or for or lover or w/e else you can think of regardless of the programs, your video is still good and informative, and worth checking out
@@ffxiarcadius You can do all of that on World Anvil. I have complete characters, stat blocks, spells, lore, maps, pages that are password protected, and others that aren't even visible if you haven' read the right book. There are familial connections, plot managers for my campaign, and a nice timeline. I didn't know about most of this stuff when I put out this video, but I've used it a ton in the last two years. I don't want to short change Campfire though, because lots of people love it. If it does anything cool I haven't listed, or if you can point me to a good video that would rock. Also thank you for your service.
Sorry, it looks like a canned Wordpress site. I use Github for my private world building, and Hugo / Github / Google for my website. Feels a bit like product placement.
You're welcome to your opinion, but expecting your average author to manage version control seems a little reductive to me. Not everyone is a programmer. I don't get any kickbacks for talking about stuff I find useful, and I make videos because I want to. If the content isn't useful, hey, that's your call. I'm going to keep making it.
It actually has way more for world building than he delved into. Its free so you can poke it if you want. It also have gaming features for table top style rps and stuff. Its hard finding anything with decent timeline and map features though (edit: outside wa i mean), i've been loving it at any rate :p
I just discovered World Anvil two days ago. I'm loving it already.
I would love to know more about the language-building platform.
Hi. I am a seasoned writer with over a decade of experience. All this time I was mostly busy with one particular world. And boy is my world a mess! No, in my books it is congruent and plausible, but apart from that... Countless post-its, whiteboards, Miro account fro timelines, number of documents all over hard drives and even on old laptops that I have to dig out time to time just to recall a single detail from a lore of a particular culture in a particular period. I have had WA account for quite some time now, but I never got to buy "master" or "grandmaster" it because I was pushed back by subscription model. But even if I do it, I am completely overwhelmed by the fact that there is no way I can transfer all my stuff to a single place... I have 3 novels and 5 short stories... The explications and side-materials are immense! The second "stop" for me is D&D... I am not a D&D player and I solely write stuff and all I need is a wiki-like place of reference with hyperlinks and a feature to "hide" parts of the text from outside readers for the sake of not spoiling twists of my stories. Basically I need a double wiki - public and hidden. And the major question is language. I write in Russian and symbols there are Cyrillic, not Latin. Will all hyperlinks work? Will search work?
And backup? Can I backup all my info? What if something happens to servers of WA? What if guys that do it decide to quit and close the project?
Sorry if my questions are dumb.
I'd love to see more of your process on WorldAnvil, Chris. I knew of this tool before, but never realized there was so much depth to it.
I'll add a couple videos once I get my legs under me. I'm already finding some really cool features.
Incredible content, as always, Chris. Never heard of World Anvil, though. Now I can't wait to get my new novel's details in there and start messing around.
I'm too paranoid about people stealing to use World Anvil.
I have been using World Anvil for awhile now, and I have thoroughly enjoyed it. It is fantastic.
HOLY MOLY! This is absolutely awesome, and it was such a lovely surprise to come across the AMAZING Chris Fox liking our platform! I'm literally fan-girl squeaking right now! I'm happy to answer any questions you guys have about World Anvil - you can find a quick tutorial for getting started here too: ua-cam.com/video/uSVWI9TBq_I/v-deo.html ! :)
-- Janet
I'm adding articles every day. I love your site so much =)
Is there a side of World Anvil like social media where other users can read your stories and articles?
@@3mediajunkies Yes! You can share short stories, novels etc via the Manuscripts feature, and view other people's articles, if tehy choose to make them public. CHeck out the BROWSE dropdown menu at the top of the interface (to the right of the search bar) to find cool new things!
I am so glad to see that you found out about World Anvil!!!
I love world anvil as an author. Been using it for a while now. :D
Thanks for the video, Chris. I’m a journeyman at World Anvil for a month or two and I really like how the character sheets help me formulate characters. I am so NON-tech that I am certain I am dog paddling on the surface of my world there, but it is a fun place. I would love to see more from you on this topic.
Holy crap! Yes! Thank you for showing off this! (Also the Discord Community is amazing!)
They have a discord full of helpful people too
Yes, and their community is second to none. I've been using WA for a little over a month and have upgraded 3 times already, LOL.
I’d love to see more with World Anvil. I’m actually thinking of using it for my upcoming children’s book series.
I have enjoyed many of the World Anvil UA-cam videos. Very informative information.
Wow!! This is amazing! Thank you for making this video! Please do make more videos about this
Most definitely do more. Your videos on apps that can make writing easier are top notch.
I particularly like that they're trying to help people monetise their worlds. It'd be great to be able to worldbuild in this and then do the RPG based off your world and let people access a version of the background through World Anvil. All sorts of possibilities with this. :)
Possibilities I am currently exploring haha.
Just signed up for this service and this video gave me a good preview of what's inside. Thanks, Chris.
I am writing a historical fiction book that is set in Lafourche Parish, Louisiana in 1828. My question is...Is there a way for me to create a small map image of the property of a sugar plantation owner with the outlying area around the plantation house. My heroine character will be escaping the plantation to go to Nacogdoches, TX. I would like to create the traveling map as well, but I need to find out where the instructions are to do this. I am 54, but still feel young, so I need to figure this out. If you could share a link, or tell me how to get there, I would really appreciate it. Thank you for reading my post. 😁
amazing. looked all around for something like this and never found it. thanks for sharing
Yours is my favorite channel on UA-cam.
Thank you so much for all the effort and time you put into sharing. Much appreciated.
Thanks, man. You made my day =)
Thanks for the recommendation Chris! I like these types of videos with tips like these. I'll have to check it out!
I had made a world anvil account for the story I’m working on, but I didn’t really understand how to use it. I think this video is going to encourage me to start using it
This interests me. I'm not ready to start showing off everything, but I'm looking for a worldbuilding tool to collate my ideas. Can I just use this for myself and not publish it for others to read?
You have to pay for private worlds, but in my opinion, the prices are extremely reasonable.
I typically will leave the items that I don't want people to see as drafts. Then only I can access them. Allows me to create them and then come back for editing. That would be a simply way of doing it.
But I'll tell you be a paid member. I'm a grandmaster. The perks and things they do for us is amazing. Plus you get access to the Discord and that is priceless!
A couple friends and I stumbled across World Anvil a while back - it's pretty sweet :) And I like how you could, e.g., extend your world into an RPG, if you wanted.
Thanks Chris. Personally i really want to hear more from you about Anvil.
I have introduced my brother whose my dm to world anivil i cant wait i have a drow sorcerer but like i think its pretty cool
Wow what a coincidence, just started using world anvil about a week ago. Haven't been able to really try it out yet.
I'd be interested in seeing more, specifically around the maps.
Wowowowow, I didn't know a website such as this even existed!
I started using it for my fantasy world, so... thank you for making me discover it!
That looks fun!
So awesome thanks will check this platform out!
Great recommendation.
This looks amazing :)
That's cool. Trying to put a timeline on a document is difficult and confusing. I'm currently working on a military science fiction series too, and I'm trying to manage the current timeline with the timeline outside the bubble of time around our solar system.
Do you need an entire separate website or something?
Oh dear, I'm forseeing a rabbit hole I may be about to fall down... :D
Very cool! Thanks for sharing. Do you think it's useful as an organization tool just for personal use, not for sharing with others?
Absolutely! Even if you set it to private and never show anyone.
Thank you so much, this helped a lot!
Awesome video! I started using World Anvil for my books. Currently I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to link several book series in the same story universe. Any tips or videos would be great.
@chris Hello, Chris. Nick the Texas teacher here. I am creating a visual story dice learning game/boardgame. Can I upload the pictures copyright freeI am promoting my product/in future on kickstarter via youtube, then phase 2, ebook/game publishing. Can I use their images in print publishing. World Anvil images. Online? rushing to get to work otherwise I would make my questions clearer, more concise. Thank you!
I like world Anvil it's useful for worldbuilding. I have everything there to build and expand my world for my YA fantasy magical girl Novel series Colorcons
It looks too good to be true. Do authors need to be careful how much info they put onto World Builder?
Just make your world private and add as much or as little as you desire.
Can we produce KDP books by using world anvil?
Ever since I watched one of your previous videos where you mentioned you built a site to present your world building, I was fascinated with the idea, but wondered how you deal with spoilers?
I assume your books reveal information about your world over time and readers love that. But, if you put your entire world and history, etc on Anvil, won't you be ruining the journey for your readers?
You can choose to put spoiler warnings in certain areas, or to not share all pages with the public. I keep private stuff visible only to me =)
Looks great - will have to check it out. Did you put together the artwork for the galaxy map yourself? It looks awesome.
I'm not even an author, I just like daydreaming and writing about stuff for fun, this website is awesome :)
They would "love" it a lot more if the site was even a little bit user friendly. World Anvil is the most complicated piece of record keeping software ever created.
are you still using it? on the discord?
I've been using world anvil for a couple weeks, and I adore the layouts and customizability. I despise its pricing plans. And holy shit is it buggy.
Still gonna use it. But be warned
Do more!
Interesting. Might get a year subscription after taxes.
Great video! Where did you get the star map?
I had Tom Edwards make it =)
I have a qucik question on World Anvil, anytime I write something it does not save, and I've lost some work because of this, do you know any fix for this problem?
Ouch, that sucks, man. I hit save often out of paranoia. Because World Anvil is a web app it suffers from certain limitations, and if a session times out before an auto-save loss work definitely happens =/
@@ChrisFoxWrites Yeah, it's annoying.
thanks for the reccomendation :o
Finally got into world anvil and don't know where to start...
Make some. A character. An article. An item. Hit the plus sign and make one thing =)
@@ChrisFoxWrites Thank you for the reply.
I had got it in my head that there is a certain way to approach creating on world anvil and got confused... Is there such a thing as going about it the wrong way?
@@Ni-boo Not at all! Just make stuff. Over time you'll get familiar with the interface, and will learn how to put it all together. I might start doing tutorial videos.
@@ChrisFoxWrites I hope so! World Building is fascinating.
If you do have the chance to make tutorials, please do! 🙏
Look up World Anvil's youtube channel! They post videos on some ways to go about worldbuilding, as well as updates on new features!
Lol at first I thought it said "the word Anvil" and I was really confused
I like world anvil, but I cant afford it
Scrivener is an awesome 1 time purchase that goes on sale regularly. Works great for organization, but can't be shared.
If you're after free, then doing your own site and learning some basic coding is definitely worth the investment. My first "wiki" was just hand coding all the pages and linking them to each other. =)
I'm in your video!!! Well at least my little face is :-)
.. world anvil kinda sucks. Something as simple as inserting an imagine into a word document in a gigantic pain in the ass. You have to upload the image to world anvil then you can insert it into a document using the ID, and every after those extra steps it still doesn't work. Is it the fucking adds all over your work when you show your work ... I don't know.
And then I can't change the size of the image.
@@erispapps9929 have you checked with the discord community to see if someone can help you formatting the images?
The species creator includes too many details imo
Honestly world anvil is overrated. I hate the subscription model and even though it's a little more time consuming i can literally do everything world anvil offers with ms word and wonderdraft
This video is five years old. I wouldn't recommend World Anvil today. I love the owners, but its gotten too convoluted.
campfire is better
How? I'm listening.
@@ChrisFoxWrites while world anvil seems like a a wiki page, sharing your un-copyrighted ideas . .
Campfire is almost more customizable; perhaps it's better for writers, as you can even create characters and link then to other characters using different colored "connections" based off fried or for or lover or w/e else you can think of
regardless of the programs, your video is still good and informative, and worth checking out
@@ffxiarcadius You can do all of that on World Anvil. I have complete characters, stat blocks, spells, lore, maps, pages that are password protected, and others that aren't even visible if you haven' read the right book. There are familial connections, plot managers for my campaign, and a nice timeline. I didn't know about most of this stuff when I put out this video, but I've used it a ton in the last two years.
I don't want to short change Campfire though, because lots of people love it. If it does anything cool I haven't listed, or if you can point me to a good video that would rock. Also thank you for your service.
Sorry, it looks like a canned Wordpress site. I use Github for my private world building, and Hugo / Github / Google for my website. Feels a bit like product placement.
You're welcome to your opinion, but expecting your average author to manage version control seems a little reductive to me. Not everyone is a programmer. I don't get any kickbacks for talking about stuff I find useful, and I make videos because I want to. If the content isn't useful, hey, that's your call. I'm going to keep making it.
It actually has way more for world building than he delved into. Its free so you can poke it if you want. It also have gaming features for table top style rps and stuff.
Its hard finding anything with decent timeline and map features though (edit: outside wa i mean), i've been loving it at any rate :p
Ugh. Was unsubbed from your channel. I hate UA-cam.