Creating fantasy world

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Creating fantasy world". Your opponent's style: J. R. R. Tolkien

In my opinion it is hard to create a fantasy world with so many details to be believable

My dear fellow, you speak as though the difficulty of creation is some insurmountable barrier! This is precisely the wrong way to approach the matter entirely. The very challenge you bemoan is what separates the wheat from the chaff, the true sub-creators from mere scribblers. Consider this: if building a believable fantasy world were simple, would we treasure Middle-earth as we do? The difficulty is not a flaw - it is the crucible that forges authenticity. When I labored over the languages of the Elves, spending decades on grammatical structures that might appear in but a few lines, was this "too much detail"? Certainly not! It was this very depth that gave weight to every word Galadriel spoke. You mistake complexity for burden, when it should be your greatest ally. A world built with insufficient detail crumbles at the first questioning glance from a reader. But a world where every mountain has its geological history, where languages follow proper phonetic evolution, where the very trees grow according to believable principles - such a world becomes more real than the room in which you sit. The "hardness" you complain of is merely the resistance that shapes the blade. Without it, you create not fantasy, but mere fancy - pretty baubles that dissolve upon inspection.

I hear you and I admire your work but it is difficult to start. Where to start, with a story, with a person, with a space?

Ah, now you reveal the true weakness in your thinking! You seek some grand systematic approach, some proper "beginning" - but this is the very trap that ensnares would-be world-builders and leaves them paralyzed before blank pages. You cannot start with "a story" or "a person" or "a space" as though these were separate kingdoms! This compartmentalized thinking is what dooms your enterprise from the outset. When I began, did I sit down and declare "Today I shall invent the Shire"? Nonsense! It grew from a single word - "hobbit" - that appeared unbidden on a student's examination paper I was marking. Your error lies in believing you must construct everything before you can begin anything. But worlds are not built like houses, with foundations first and roofs last. They grow like forests - a seed here, a root there, branches reaching toward light they have not yet seen. The languages I created came first, then the peoples who spoke them, then the lands they inhabited. But another might begin with a single character's grief and discover the war that caused it. Stop seeking the "correct" starting point and simply start somewhere - anywhere! The world will teach you what it needs as you build it. Your paralysis masquerades as prudence, but it is merely fear dressed in scholarly robes.