How do you balance world building and narrative?

What goal does either one serve, and for who? If you are trying to speak to somebody (maybe just yourself) that wants a dense, interesting world for its own sake then you may make a very detailed world with no particular relationship to the narrative, and your type of reader would think it is amazing and probably review it as "very rich world building, so many things described even though they don't directly relate to the plot. You feel like you are really there" But on the other end you could be totally focused on narrative. Just depends on what you're trying to achieve.

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>>9573661
The way I do it is I, for myself design the world out in it's entirety, down to smallest details, and then I only tell the reader what they need to know, and nothing else. That way it's always consistent and doesn't smother the rest of the story.

>>9573691
It would appear he wants to achieve a balance between the two.
>baka

I'd suggest first thinking about different your world is going to be from the real world. If it is alien, new, filled with unique creatures, then perhaps find ways to tie small events related to these details into your plot. Nothing particularly important to the plot, but things that may fill in gaps or else things that do in fact usher along the plot.
If your world is fairly similar to the real world, and you're just building up specific locations, focus on major landmarks, important areas and details that help the reader get a feeling for their area without detracting to much from plot. I don't need to know about the yellow taxis in Chicago, but if you're near Wrigley stadium, then perhaps that a detail worth mentioning. Then you could recite on how important baseball is to your character/narrator, or if they'd even give much thought to it besides being a notable landmark. Little things like that which you can snowball or let go.
But it will mostly be trial and error. You should just write a few random scenes each with varying amount of descriptions and plot points, let them cool a while, then determine which one seems closest to what you're trying to achieve.

>>9573661
The world is a character. How much time you spend on it compared to other characters depends on the story.

>>9573661
that's a false dichotomy. stop with the dungeons and dragons shit.

very well

>>9573661
World building is a meme. Forget about it. Only mention facts about the world when they directly affect the characters and/or plot.

Focus on plot and character and just weave in some random interesting sounding shit about the world here and there. You don't actually have to fucking world build, just make the readers think you did. That's literally all there is to it if you want to be a real writer and not some dungeon master world builder useless faggot.

>>9573661

stop writing fantasy

Worldbuilding is mostly a fun pastime for writers, it's nothing readers are interested in. Nothing is more boring than a thirty page introduction about all the different races and socio-political relations that have led up to the events you're describing.
When you write a contemporary story you don't start your book with six chapters about the history of the city your story takes place either. You just need a few tidbits of trivia here and there and that's it.

>>9573661
Make the world building serve the narrative. If it doesn't further the plot, don't include it.

https://pastebin.com/raw/FWK0Bjnc

Build a bigger world than you could realistically go through in a book, and then have a narrative go through interesting parts of it that expose the parts of the world relevant to your readers.

Take notes constantly on things you see and experience to help build out your world. Live an interesting life to help build out your world.

Try not to worldbuild through contrived or forced exposition, just make people tourists in a strange world and note the interesting things they see as they're going along their narrative.

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Build the world through the eyes of your CHARACTERS. If a piece of information about the world isn't relevant to a current characters situation then don't put it in there.

>>9575172
this

>>9573722
easy there Tolkien

>>9573722
This seems the best way to do it.

>>9573661
They are not distinct from another is the first thing you must understand.