Tool For Worldbuilding

In speculative fiction, we use the phrase "worldbuilding" (sometimes with a space, sometimes not) to talk about the process of creating the rules about the imagined worlds in which our stories take place. Tolkien is held up as the gold standard, what with the fact that he created complicated and diverse languages, then used his story of The Lord of the Rings as an excuse to showcase the people and world that spoke that language. He points out in his "Foreword to the Second Edition" that he doubted anyone would want to read it:

I desired to [write these novels] for my own satisfaction, and I had little hope that other people would be interested in this work, especially since it was primarily linguistic in inspiration and was begun in order to provide the necessary background of 'history' for Elvish tongues. (xxii)

 Maps, languages, histories, and other sundry notes were compiled posthumously in The Simarillion and other books, all under the direction of his son, Christopher. Part of this surely stemmed from the constant pressure from fans to hear more about the rich and varied world of Middle Earth. Some of it likely came out of pecuniary interests. And some of it very well could have been the urge to share something important and, well, cool.

In my case, my worlds are never as detailed or well-structured as Tolkien's, but I still put in a lot of effort. I mentioned this before, but I wanted to sing the praises of WikiDpad. If you're a writer--regardless of your genre--you should be using WikiDpad. Here are a few reasons:

1. Price: If you're a writer like me, you're not able to afford all the bells and whistles and food that normal people are. While there are likely some paid versions of this program out there, this one is free. And the pros use it...or, at least, the pros at the Writing Excuses podcast do. And they're the ones who tuned me into it. 
2. Local control: Unlike Wikipedia, WikiDpad is a local document. That is, it's not hosted on a server. Since I have both a work and a home machine, using Dropbox is an easy way to keep my files between computers up to date. I keep my WikiDpad files on the Dropbox. So long as my cloud storage is synced, I can use my WikiDpad files anywhere. When I'm hard at work at the cabin, where there's no cell or Internet reception, I'm still able to access the work I've put in there. Since it isn't in the cloud, I can feel confident that it'll be there whenever I need it.
3. Ease of use: Though its learning curve is a little higher than most other programs I use, it really only took a couple hours' experimentation to get the gist of it. There's an entire wiki filled with helpful hints if you get stuck, but for the most part it's a great filing system that's versatile enough for power users and simple enough for pick up and go types.
4. Pictures included: There are different ways of incorporating the picture files, but once they're in there, they can help clarify what I was thinking about in the file. And, with the Editor/Preview button, it's easy to switch from editing the file to viewing it.

WikiDpad, then, acts as a repository for every idea in a story. Using CamelCase letters or (my preference) [square brackets], any term creates a link within the document. So the way that a character's impact in the story and all the things that connects to her are all available with a couple of clicks.

This is the text input screen. The link at the top is the picture. The rest of the screen shows the different ways in which Des connects to the rest of the story. Since this can be a little hard on the eyes, there's also the Preview mode:

This helps me to be able to remember, at a glance, the inspiration for the way a character looks, why the character is important, and any number of additional aspects. 

On the left side of the screen, you can see all of the different pages, where they connect, and where they nest. This allows for (fairly) easy navigation, as well as any duplicates. 

This tool for building my world is something that I encourage my students to download and become familiar with, particularly those who want to improve their writing abilities. I encourage you to check it out.