How to write a story that doesn't suck

World building

World building is incredibly important, especially in a fantasy story. Though not only necessary for fantasy realms, world building is one of the most important key elements to any story. It's your setting, time, location, scenery, and history of the world you've created. Though your story may be on earth, you need world building to portray what is happening on this earth. Is it an apocalypse? Is this the future/past? Is it earth but just not quite earth? Are there magical beings that exist unbeknownst to mortals? How do people interact? What's common/uncommon behavior? Etc.

There are a few key points to world building that you must keep in mind. First, I'd like to address an important part of building your world which is to absorb other examples of world building around you.

My favorite example of fantastic world building would be from the animated series, Avatar: The Last Airbender. If you haven't seen it, I would highly recommend watching it. The thing about the world it's created is that it feels familiar. It's like earth, but it's not. You see the world map at the beginning of every episode, and it's far from being on earth. But it never addresses this verbally. There is no name for the world they're in, which makes it feel more like it's just earth from another reality.

The world feels lived in, which is important. In the episode "Zuko Alone" you can see the traces of an old war in the country side. There's stone rings—which you see the Earth Kingdom use as weapons—faded into the hills as if they've been there, forgotten for decades.

You can also see how different areas of this world slightly differ in culture. Though it was simple to base it on already existing Asian cultures of earth, you can notice subtle differences between the four nations that inhabit it. The Water Tribes live in cold climates. Their world is going to be cold, their clothing built for keeping warm (not being sexy or bad ass looking), their communities are tighter as they have less people between the two tribes so the tribes are like a family, and so on. And even then, the two tribes have their differences as well. The Northern Tribe focuses more on the men, royal blood, education, and strength while the Southern Tribe focuses on everyone, there's no royalty, well-being is most important, and everyone seems to have a role in taking care of one another.

The people in the series are also great examples of world building. Depending on where they're from, everyone looks slightly different. Skin tones, hair colors, eye colors, body structure, and even the shapes of their hands differ from nation to nation. People of the Earth Kingdom looks strong and sturdy, while people of the Air Temples look light and agile.

Other great examples of world building in fiction (in my opinion), are:

The Hunger Games- it's set in a dystopian future of earth.  You know where the districts lay (12 is in the Appalachians and the Capital is in the Rocky Mountains for example). Everything is close to what we live in, yet different. And each district has a different way of life, as addressed by Katniss when describing the Careers. The Capitol people were entirely different to those in the districts. They seems to have this whimsical state of mind, and belief towards the game. Because they didn't have to play, it really was only entertainment and you can't blame them for not feeling remorse when they were never taught to.

Star Wars- it's very blatant about what the world is like. It's in the future, it's not on earth, is it's own thing completely. But you can see the diversity of aliens and people, and how most species stay on their own home planet (though you see them spread out on other planets as well). Just like on earth where people live around the people like them, intentional or not, the aliens in the franchise do the same.

Attack on Titan- it's very mysterious. It doesn't tell you everything you need to know, because the characters themselves don't know. Everyone has German names (except Mikasa), and the housing and clothing are all German inspired. So it's safe to assume that it's set in Germany, or somewhere around that area. Their world is the walls, no one goes beyond them, and no one knows how they were created. So it's perfect in a sense of the viewer doesn't know what this world is like because the characters are still discovering it.