Best World Building Websites for Authors

No worldbuilding tool does everything I want. It's too expensive, too busy, too minimalist. Argh! How to find something that lets me do everything in the same place but also doesn't make my head explode?

Spoiler: No such solution exists (yet). I was forced to get creative. My solution has been to try absolutely everything and keep only what works.

Below, I've cobbled together a list of world building websites that mostly meet my needs without exploding my budget. I use all of them periodically.

1. Google Docs

The easiest way to throw stuff on a page. No login hassle since I'm always logged into Chrome. I can just hop in, type, figure out the formatting later.

Downside is, it's a pain in the booty to organize. I kind of get around this by adding a linked table of contents (super easy in Docs). After 100 pages, the scrolling becomes unbearable.

Still awesome for shorter drafts and random ideas.

2. Legendkeeper

Best interface on a world building website. Connect maps with a snap. Wiki is built-in. Commands are so smooth, I copied the idea to the text-editor I'm building for writing my own litRPG. Little features, like auto-internal linking, speak to my soul.

Price: The actual subscription is cheap, about $9 a month. Probably too much for an author who barely uses it, a steal for heavy users.

Downside is, I get so absorbed in world building and placing pins on maps, I often forget to write the actual novel! Also, I'm the kind of guy to make a million worlds as I write. It's not easy to find which one I need at any given moment -- I end up clicking through a dozen to find the right wiki. Not good, since a lot of what I type is fleeting and built upon momentum.

Still an absolute steal of a deal for worldbuilders. I think the trial is free, no credit card required.

Try LegendKeeper for free

3. Google Sheets

Sometimes, the world calls for numbers. For crunch. For, yes, math. Insanity, I know. But for litRPG writers in particular, a bit of number crunching is often called for. Sheets helps with that.

It's also just easy to organize lists. No, it's not super pretty to look at (maybe I'm just bad at formatting), but! Everything is super scannable. Each thingy has its own tab. Scrolling is reasonable. Stat tracking becomes manageable.

Awesome resource for handling the left-brain stuff. Not so great for right-brain stuff. Fortunately, it's Google and therefore free.

Bonus 1: Fantasia Archive

Free offline worldbuilding app. If you need this, Fantasia Archive is excellent. It has a ton of features for organizing stuff. Best part is it's offline, so you're not distracted by random ads or tempted to open another Chrome tab. I actually got stuff written using this one.

Downside is, you may accidentally overrite what you've written. There's no cloud backup. How do I know this? A: experience. My poor baby. I still mourn that draft. It's also a bit busy, feature-wise. I could do with less.

I ocassionally check in when I absolutely need to write offline, and when pen/paper just isn't cutting it. It's not a part of my regular rotation.

Download Fantasia Archive for free

Bonus 2: World Anvil

Sucks you into a worldbuilding wormhole. "By world builder, for world buidlers" should be the tagline. Community is active, competitions are fun. Even the emails are obviously written by people with day jobs. It's human, with a personal touch.

I wrote a few worlds on here. Tons of features (and I mean tons). It's $7 a month for the lowest tier, which is enough for most world builders, IMO. I upgraded to a higher tier way-back-when. It was a blast making my website pretty. Even motivated me to commision my first illustration!

Why I unsubscribed: I was spending so much time making my world look pretty, I lost motivation to write. So it's no longer in my lineup. However! If you enjoy worldbuilding for the sake of itself, and you don't care about all that story stuff (beyond flavor text, of course), I'd highly recommend. It's fun, feature-heavy, with a great community.

Try World Anvil for free