The World of Hellion House
April 27, 2020 • 2 Comments
I started planning the series some time ago, as good worldbuilding (at least for me) needs time to mature. I wanted something that was a little more fantasy and less strictly Victorian than my previous steampunk books, mostly to provide scope for adventure.
I have a fascination with how people live under threat, whether that’s in gated cities or under strict social regulation. Crime doesn’t take a holiday just because everything else is turned on its head. Even dire circumstances, we still manage to form hierarchies, establish ceremonies, build a system and then cheat it. It’s the phenomenon that launched much of reality TV.
When I wrote the Baskerville Affair, I found inspiration in a map that marked the boundaries of various utility companies. This time, I went back to a 1572 map of London and then took a left turn. What if history had gone on as per normal until the Elizabethans, and then…well, science was in a different place back then. What we now regard as fact was mixed up with alchemy, astrology, and theoretical systems we don’t use in the lab these days. Burning witches at the stake was fine entertainment. What better time to unleash something that transmogrified the world?
Fast forward to my characters’ era, in what would have been Victorian London. Cities everywhere are fortified physically and by magic to protect the populace from the wilderness—now occupied by monsters. Airships and river boats are a necessary means of travel, because going by land is suicide. Agriculture is a harrowing endeavour, with private armies and mages on tap. There are dragons, huge wildcats, and the ever-hungry Unseen. Probably Nessie. Undoubtedly trolls. (Please note, there are no zombies, as they are smelly and prone to leaving their body parts in inconvenient places.)
However, because people are people, there are also Society events, fashion, slums, politics, crime, detectives, murder, whorehouses, gentleman’s clubs and newspapers. But civilization comes at a terrible price, as our protagonists discover.
And then there’s the River Rats, and astronomy, and the tarot, but more on that later.
Image by Comfreak on Pixabay
Setting versus Worldbuilding
March 9, 2020 • No Comments
Consider setting versus worldbuilding. According to Novelist and screen writer Chuck Wendig, when we say worldbuilding “We’re talking about the revelation of your story world and its details through the story itself. It’s easy to think this means “setting,” but that’s way too simple — world building covers everything and anything inside that world. Money, clothing, territorial boundaries, tribal customs, building materials, imports and exports, transportation, sex, food, the various types of monkeys people possess, whether the world does or does not contain Satanic “twerking” rites.”
That means there is work to do on your story. The basic place to start is forming a clear picture of your setting. Chances are, it is a real place or it is similar to a real place that can be investigated.
Research everything.
If you’re writing about a real time and place, research the history of your setting up to the time period you’re working with. Your characters will know the history–at least the recent history–of their world, so you need to as well.
- One question you might ask is who founded your location? Why?
- Does that matter to your story (for instance, what would the old prime-time soap opera Dallas be without the oil industry)?
- Think about taking your story and putting it someplace really different. How much of it would work? What would you have to change? What does that say about your choice of time and place?
Writers with a contemporary setting need to do as much or even more research. People live in the city you’re writing about, and they’re not a homogeneous group.
- Different parts of an existing town have different characteristics.
- Different groups of people have different hangouts, different language, different food, dress, etc.
PRO TIP: Climate is important and often a defining characteristic of a region. However, don’t assume. Most of the world thinks of Canada as snow country. Victoria, where I live, has palm trees and rarely more than a few days of snow a year.
Story bibles
You might want to make a story bible, which is a collection of facts, documents, ideas, and everything else about your story world. This is a lifesaver if you’re doing a series.
Here are some tools:
An article on How to use Scrivener for Worldbuilding
An article on creating an old-school series bible using a binder, pens, and stuff
An amazing customizable template from Sarah Perlmutter
The type of information you collect and how you collect it will depend entirely on your story and working methods. The only important thing is that you keep the relevant information in a way you can access quickly. Start collecting information before it becomes unwieldy. The time when I normally decide I want a story bible is long past the time when it would be convenient to start one.
Other, more entertaining ways to deal with research:
- Youtube videos about places
- Blogs about visiting places
- Pinterest for pictures of places
Of course, the very best option is to visit a location. Taste the food. Smell the air. Feel the dryness or humidity, and whether the atmosphere is high and clear or soft and sea level. Look at the flowers. Fall in the mud (speaking personally). Find out what is the same and different from the place you live.