In this series of posts I am exploring the process of building my world Revilo. 

Read the first installment here.

Keeping track of stories and notes is extremely important when world building. Even more so when you have engaged others to join you on your quest. My team is starting to grow. I have my wife who is going to be editor in chief to ensure that the voice is consistent and that everything weaves together properly. I also have a few friends that are going to help with some of the pieces. They’ll possibly be creating maps of dungeons, developing key characters in the setting, coming up with unique inventions, and more.

To make sure everyone has access to the same files and knows what species inhabit the different regions, I created a shared folder on Google Drive. This way everyone can open and edit files, find maps, and learn about creatures. Now this is something that I just implemented, and with the holidays we have not made much progress as a group. As the year begins I will share how this works for a team effort.

These files should all be for content that are works in progress, or final drafts. There are no discussions taking place on Google Drive.

When working with a team remotely you need an easy way to communicate. I prefer to use a chat server instead of trying to sort through emails. As a place to communicate and to bounce ideas around I set up a Discord channel. This free source allows us to have threads for the different topics at hand. We can chat back and forth without committing ideas to the setting until it’s been  discussed. There are different access levels if you wanted to share some threads with a few people, and share different threads with other folks. There is also an option for voice threads, but I haven’t experienced those yet.

For video conferencing and screen sharing we use appear.in which is free and totally amazing. All you need is a browser using Chrome, Firefox or Opera.

The last piece of software we use to keep things organized is appear.in. This is a free, totally amazing video conferencing platform. Sometimes you need that face-to-face chat that you just don’t get from the text banter in Discord. It is completely web based with no need to download additional applications. All you need is a browser using Chrome, Firefox, or Opera. Once you’re in you can register and claim rooms.

I have claimed three rooms so no on else can claim them revilo, briancolin, and invisiblerocket. You can also change the background to make it fit your brand.

I hope this helps you on your world-building quest. Since this is an on-going effort for me I will add more posts when I have new ideas and I level up!