Are we lost?

World building is a double-edged sword. You need to make it believable but don’t want to get lost in the detail. You also need to make it a place that your reader wants to explore without losing them in the darkened alleyways. Recently, as my work has progressed, I have found myself lost in the location with an endless series of practical questions. How does my MC get to this place? How far do they have to travel (and how fast)? Does the city really need to be walled, or underground or covered by a dome? Does any of it matter?

To help, I have started developing Trip Advisor-style entries to navigate around my imagined cities. They help me feel productive even when I am stuck. They also allow me to build my locations in layers (like Rome) hopefully making them more consistent and believable.

Show me the map.

I used to shy away from any book that started with a map – I mean, who really checks them throughout the story? But having spent a whole Sunday faffing around with a particular part of the story, I gave up and sketched one out (another shout-out to the great course by Zoe Gilbert). I marked out where all the action happens, true crime style, asking how my characters get to and from those locations and if the journey is an important part of the story. This outer frame has tightened the story to a few key locations but also demanded I consider each location more carefully.

Must-see attractions

All good travel guides give you at least 5 main attractions that you can visit in a few days. As I developed my guide, I added some of these. There is a tendency to forget why a city exists where it does and what makes people flock to it. The assumption is often that denizens of the future will have no choice, but as history shows, we tend to seek out the best locations and are inclined to imprint a sense of importance on them when we find them.

How would the statue of the founding member of a colony help with the show-not-tell aspects of the story? If writing a fish-out-of-water story, how do these attractions contribute to the MC’s feeling of alienation? These places don’t have to be new or even original. Humans like libraries, museums and parks. These familar places anchor your reader in your brave new world giving them something they can easily relate to.

I have given my FMC a place to think which has allowed me to expand on the location’s origin story without too much exposition. (Yay me!)

Show me the money.

For my story (at least the one that’s in progress), currency is virtual but it’s important to know how business gets done – both legally and illegally. It’s has also been helpful to work out the rates of inflation and determine how much something should cost so my MCs know what extortion looks like (yep it’s that kind of story).

Switch on your senses

London smells different from Kolkata which smells different from Seville. I have found that developing my guide has also allowed me to explore their cuisine which provides a base layer for how the city feeds itself. This has given me a night market, which has given me a place for my MCs to meet, and also a few side characters not to mention more opportunities to explore how this new world is different from the old.

I know this is a different form of writing procrastination, but it helps me move forward even when I’m not. As I create fictional worlds, the restriction of building an actual city has forced me to consider the location more carefully, making it work harder in the story rather than simply being a back-drop. This attention to detail has helped with the separation of the real and virtual worlds – which is critical for my story but I am careful not to spend too much time on it as most of it won’t end up in the novel. It makes it fun, and most importantly for me, even when I am lost down the sad rabbit-hole of no writing, I can find my way back.