Do you spend the most time on your magic systems, or do you find yourself spending equal amounts of time on other aspects of worldbuilding/plot such as religion/culture/language/geography/etc?
It really depends on the novel. With some I spend a lot of time on areas that in others I don’t spend much time on at all. With every book I spend a serious amount of time on the magic system. That’s consistent—it’s just something I like to do.
For a given book or series I may spend more time on a given aspect. I’d say the other big aspect that takes a lot of time is characterizing the characters the right way. That takes a lot of work, but I tend to do that during my actual writing period, whereas I spend the planning period focusing on worldbuilding and plot. It’s when I actually sit down to write a chapter that I explore who a character is, and so it’s really hard to pin down timewise which one I spend more time on. And that varies based on the book.
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