In what story did you feel you did the best job of world building? Any side-notes on it you’d like to share?

That would have to be my Fantasy WIP Amachi. It takes place on another world, and of course, I had to construct that world. To focus on one aspect of world building, I do like engineering social class structures.

One of the very basic elements is the class hierarchy, separating the rich from the poor, the haves from the have-nots.

I usually start off with:
Upper Class
Middle Class
Lower Class

After that, to add an air variety to my worlds, I usually create three races/cultures for each class tier so that each class has an upper, middle and lower:

UPPER CLASS
Race 1
Race 2
Race 3

MIDDLE CLASS
Race 4
Race 5
Race 6

LOWER CLASS
Race 7
Race 8
Race 9

At the end of it all I’m left with at least nine races to populate my world, each one representing a different social class within a social class. This helps me to estimate how characters of certain races will relate to each others races. I can also use the class hierarchy to create characters, using lifestyle and personality traits to align them with a social class.

In addition, when I’ve made character before creating the class structure, it’s always fun to see where they fall in the hierarchy. Sometimes either the character has to be changed, an entire race, or even parts of the story in order to make things fit properly.

I love world building.