Summer Camp Prep 2024

Summer Camp season's here! So let's get ready this month to get the most out of July. Every week, we'll give you some prep homework in this page—take part and get the Homework Squad badge at the end.

But... what is Summer Camp, exactly?

In short, it's a prompt-based worldbuilding challenge. During July, we'll release four waves of prompts, and your goal is to complete as many as you can or want! If you complete 8, 16, 24, or 32 prompts, you'll get one of the completion badges (copper, silver, gold, and diamond). Each wave will have eight prompts themed around a keyword, which will help you tie everything together—plus two Wild Card prompts not related to the theme, which you can use instead if the themed prompts don't quite fit your world! After Summer Camp ends, there will be a prize raffle among all winners! Tune in to the Awards Ceremony to learn if you won a prize in the raffle or in one of the community-sponsored prompts.

Weekly assignments

Every Saturday this month, we'll release a new homework assignment! These are the reveal dates:

First assignment: June 1st
Second assignment: June 8th
Third assignment: June 15th
Fourth assignment: June 22nd
Summer Camp launch: June 29th

Want to catch the assignments first? Watch the homework streams on Twitch on Saturdays at 1pm Eastern, 6pm UK time! Make sure you follow the World Anvil Twitch channel to get notified when we go live. Want to fly the Summer Camp colours? Download the Summer Camp logos and use them wherever you want!

How does homework work?

Summer Camp is a month-long worldbuilding marathon - and mostly, it's a good idea to train and prepare for a marathon! That's why, every week in June 2024, we'll be releasing homework assignments to prepare yourself and your world, including assignments for older worlds. Many older worlds will have already gone through many of the other prep steps, which is why they get their own section! We'll also be revealing one of the Summer Camp 2024 themes each week. The goal of this prep month is get yourself ready to be as creative as you need to in July. Feel free to adapt any of the assignments to your needs, or even add your own prep work! If you begin July and feel ready to achieve your Summer Camp goal, you'll have succeeded.

Week 1: get yourself organized!

This week's theme: Change

May you live in interesting times.
— Apocryphal Chinese proverb

Tumultuous times are interesting moments to set stories in, whether they be due to natural disasters, sickness, conflicts, or others. Characters face unusual challenges, infrastructure breaks down, and society as a whole can change. Change can be big and small—from the size of a small community or city to the entire universe—, and it can be positive and negative.

Assignment 1
Consider what kind of changes would fit in with your world's themes, genre, and other foundational points.

Prepare yourself: Set your goal

How much time do you have to write? How much of Summer Camp can you realistically complete, based on that? Your Summer Camp goals are for you to set, and it's important to have realistic expectations. If you set too high of a goal, you could burn out—and nobody wants that! Take a look at your schedule, consider other hobbies or activities you want to make time for, and think how much you can write with the remaining time. If you're not sure, time yourself while you answer a random worldbuilding prompt with a 300-word article!

Assignment 2
Based on this, decide how many prompts you'll go for during Summer Camp. Then, download the pledge document and fill it accordingly!

Prepare your world: Categories & Tags

A great way to make writing faster is to prepare your world so you don't have to think about anything other than writing. Organization is a very important part of any project: as your world expands, it can get quite unwieldy unless you use a proper category structure. Take some time to review your category tree and tagging system and re-organize them if necessary. The best category trees are those that follow the themes and focus points of your setting. Check this post about organization and this one about categories for some advice! Tip: During Summer Camp, use a special Summer Camp tag (such as sc24). When the challenge ends, you'll be able to quickly find everything you wrote to review it at your own pace.

Assignment 3
Get your categories and tags organized!

For the older worlds: Update the meta

You probably have a meta already, or some sort of foundational document that guides your worldbuilding. But just like your world expands and changes over time, so should the meta! An outdated meta is worse than no meta, as it will introduce inconsistencies and other elements that won't fit your world's themes anymore.

Assignment 4
Take a look at your meta, primer, and any other high-level document and update it according to the current state of your world.

To submit this homework, add your pledge document to a generic article along with a short explanation of your answers to the assignments. Then, submit that article to the Prep challenge.

Week 2: 8th June 2024

This week's theme: Refuge

There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.
— Albert Schweitzer, philosopher and polymath

Where do you go when everything around you changes? A refuge can be a literal place (like a building or a city), but it can also be anything that keeps you safe or comforts you. The change someone takes refuge from can also be small in the grand scheme of things—sometimes, small changes can have deep consequences on a specific person or group.

Assignment 1
Consider what kinds of refuge would fit in with your world's themes, genre, and other foundational points.

Prepare yourself: Find an accountability buddy

Summer Camp is a 1-month worldbuilding marathon, and it can be hard to achieve your goal if you don't have an accountability system! Everyone has different strategies here, but having someone who can keep you accountable for your progress is a great way to keep going. But even if you don't want or need an accountability buddy, having a community to share your progress and you amazing creations is great too! Sharing your stuff can increase your motivation, and it will also help you improve if you're open to feedback.

Assignment 2
Find a community—whether that’s our Discord server, Facebook Group, your RPG or friend group, or something else.

Prepare your world: Styling

First impressions are important to get readers hooked to your world—but looks are important even if your world is just for your RPG group (or yourself). If you don't keep styling and layout in mind, your articles will quickly become too dense and hard to read to be useful. You may even struggle to read your own articles later on if you're not careful! So give future you a hand and use this week to improve the styling and layout of your world: check these tips to get started! And during Summer Camp, while styling shouldn't be the priority, keep this in mind to make your articles well-structured.

Assignment 3
Find ways to improve styling and layout in your world!

For the older worlds: Any CSS upgrades?

If you're a CSS wizard, do any CSS upgrades now! If you leave it for July, CSS will derail your Summer Camp progress when you want to focus on writing. So take a good look at your world, anticipate any CSS tweaks you'll want to do in the near future, and consider editing your theme now.

Assignment 4
If you’re a CSS wizard, maybe take the time now to give it a polish!

To turn in this week's homework, edit your submitted article with a short explanation of your progress in these assignments.

Week 3: 15th June 2024

This week's theme: Belief

Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.
— George Carlin, comedian

Religious belief is a foundational element for many cultures, but belief doesn't have to be about religion! Beliefs can be about superstition, urban legends and myths, people you believe in, and more. Essentially, anything and anyone that inspires people, for good or ill.

Assignment 1
Consider what kind of beliefs would fit in with your world's themes, genre, and other foundational points.

Prepare yourself: Find your inspirations IRL

Inspiration comes from many different places, and you're the one who knows what makes your creativity flow. But whatever it is, now's your chance to gather any inspiration sources you need! Look for music that fits your world, spend some time with the people (and pets) you love, and take in your surroundings when you go for a walk. After all, there's no better source of inspiration than the real world!

Assignment 2
Create a bank of inspirations! Quotes, music, description of experiences and shower thoughts, etc.

Prepare your world: Images gallery and maps

Real life can give you amazing inspiration, but so can art! Look for art that fits your world and inspires you (and if you're an artist, you can create it yourself!). Of course, you shouldn't use it without the artist's permission, but looking at other people's works is totally valid way to get inspired, and something most of us do. Considering creating a map for your world or area of focus too—either yourself or using a map generator—if that's important for your creative workflow.

Assignment 3
Find art and pictures that inspire you, and grab a map if you don't have one (and need one).

For the older worlds: Review your inspirations

If you've been working on this world for a while, you might not need new inspiration sources. Still, take a look at your old ones to get a refresher. And who knows, just like how your world and meta changes over time, your inspiration sources might also need an update!

Assignment 4
Check your inspirations again. Are they still relevant? Can you find any that better represent the current state of your project?

To turn in this week's homework, update the article you submitted. Make sure to include some of your inspirations!

Week 4: 22nd June 2024

This week’s theme: Decay

All things are subject to decay and when fate summons, monarchs must obey.
— John Dryden, poet

Most things decay over time, but, just like all other themes, decay can be understood in a multitude of ways. There's physical decay, but there's also moral decay—both often go hand-in-hand with old organizations, and physical decay can be used as a metaphor for moral decay. And decay isn't always a bad thing - an evil empire might crumble so something better can flourish. Think about how people in your world try to prevent decay too!

Assignment 1
Consider what kind of decay would fit in with your world's themes, genre, and other foundational points.

Prepare yourself: Optimize your environment

Having an optimal writing environment is as important as preparing your world and setting realistic goals. Your environment includes your desk, room, and any other space you write in. But it also involves time! Consider using some kind of focus mode in your devices to avoid distractions, and talk to anyone you live with so they respect your writing time.

Assignment 2
If you like special tea when you write, stock up for a month. Tidy your office, make a “do not disturb” sign, and think about any other last-minute strategies to optimize your writing space and time!

Prepare your world: Review your homepage

It's the fourth week, so your world should now be ready for Summer Camp. But take a moment to look at your world's homepage. The World Anvil community is very active during Summer Camp, so you can expect to get new readers to your world! The homepage is your chance to hook this new audience and draw them into the world. Check this blog post for tips to create an amazing homepage!

Assignment 3
Review your world homepage to hook potential readers!

For the older worlds: Update your Intro & Author page

If you think your homepage is already the best it can be, do the same with your world introduction article and even author page. These are both important pages for people looking to learn more about you and your world, so it's important to keep them up to date! If you have other pillar pages in your world, make sure they're up to date too.

Assignment 4
Take a look at your author profile and pillar articles on your world and polish them!

Edit your prep article with your answers to this week's assignments... and get ready for Summer Camp next week!