Worldbuilding is the act of creating alternative worlds that set the context for stories and actions that cohere around the rules, logic, and history of the alternate world.

Imaginal worldbuilding creates worlds that are attractors that pull reality towards them. Imaginal worldbuilding is about the future, but is grounded in what has come before and what is happening now. We are already on a trajectory that leads to the futures we want. As the worldbuilding matures and the number of participants increases, so does that world’s power to emerge.

When we lay down the canon of the desired future, we note the seeds of  it that have already been sown. We are optimistic about the desired trajectories because we can see that they have already started. We have already taken the first steps toward the destination.  Ours is hopeful, optimistic worldbuilding. By placing ourselves on a trajectory, we awaken agency.

By creating a rich and immersive context  that is somewhere between alternate and aspirational, imaginal worldbuilding allows for prefigurative action. Writers can write as if that world were real, policymakers can write policies that would be in place in that world, individuals can behave as if they were already in that world. Because the world the imaginals hold is coherent – it makes internal sense from a set of  clear rules – other’s can also take agency in adding to the vision and  bringing into this world elements of the one we are moving towards.

“World building is a powerful tool for turning speculation into agency,” notes Architect Anne Julian Pendleton because – “agency is the process in which actions and choices in the present are made in relationship to how we manage the ongoing dialogue between the past, the future and situations in progress.”