World View
The building of a world view is to often overlooked. Why do you need a world view? Do you write scifi or fantasy? If you do and the characters are not on earth, then your readers need to know where they are and what it is like.
Anne McCaffrey did an excellent job with Pern. You need to build your world in a way that both works for you and allows it to come through to your readers. This does not mean you should use pages of dialogue to describe the place.
Here is how I did it.
I created maps for Initia. The first one was a world map. From there I did area enlargements of continents, moving on to places on those continents that were populated. Now I have a complete file of maps, wilderness areas, cities and towns even going so far as to draw out interior building layouts for areas that the characters interact with regularly. There are clear plastic overlays for fault lines, ocean currents and wind patterns. When the small details are clear to you they come through in the characters comments and actions.
Now most of you are asking yourself, can he be serious? I am. You may not want a file drawer full of maps or a wall cluttered with them. I have both. For you it may be as simple as writing a few pages of description for different areas. Then referring back to them as your characters interact with that area. Are there a lot of exposed tree roots in the forest? If so they might trip over one or two, while having to walk their horses or other mounts through to avoid injuring their transportation.
Look at a few sources for climate and weather patterns. An area between two mountain ranges is likely to be a desert. The rain falls before it hits the mountains and as it goes over them it falls as snow. When the air hits the area in between it is dry and has no moisture left to drop. A reader will wonder why you have a desert on an island in the middle of the ocean.
Explain it to yourself then it will come through for your audience.
You can also use this for explaining things that are not found on earth or are here but not in your world. Initia has no rubber. This means that if they ever develop cars the vehicles will not look like the ones you see outside.
On one island of Initia they use tar on their roofs. Why? Because a fisherman decided to use his old boat for a roof after his burned away. It was tared and now they are all doing it because it worked. Terrain and world building add history and flavor. Use it for your writing, it has worked for many of the great writers through history.
