Building a City

[aeriedraconia.livejournal.com]

Building a City


Some people say they just create it as they go; I am not one of those people. Yes, create as I go works to some extent but I need to know more and I need to write the specifics down because my city does figure in several books. Other people say they've been working with their city for so long already that they know it inside and out. I used to be like that but I discovered that I could forget things over time and that I was so familiar with the details that I didn't realize that I forgot to describe things to the reader who wasn't familiar with my world (a danger for the fanfic writer too I'd guess).

If you have a city that will be the setting for many scenes or that will feature in several books you need to know something about that city so the details don't morph, drift or change through the story or the series of books. So, how do you build a city? What goes in a city? Where do you start?

I thought turning this into a group brainstorming exercise might be helpful and interesting.



PART 1:
Where do you start and how much do you need to know? There are all sorts of things to consider when building your city many of which the reader may not ever know but that you, the author, may need to know to help make your city live and breathe. Things like: government officials, key characters, markets, political factions, economics, taxes, weather, rich and poor sections of the city, church, education, trade goods export and import, military, housing, public areas, transportation, sanitation, water, food…

What other broad categories can you think of?

PART 2:
Where do you start?
What do you need first?

The City as a whole:
You could start with drawing a map. Figuring out where the city is located is always helpful.
Is it a port or inland trade center? Is it located with an eye for defense or trade?
What kind of impression does the city give? Mood, looks, prosperity, size…?

Inside the City:
If you are working a scene or several scenes: What do you need to accomplish with the scene(s)?
Where in the city will the first scene(s) take place?
What is the function of the place where the scene(s) take place?
What does the immediate surrounding look like? Smells? Sounds? Feelings, tactile and emotional?
Are there other people around? What are they doing? Saying? Their general mood?
What else?


PART 3:
What comes next?

Comments

[captlychee.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see what you mean. Well, if we're doing a step by step guide, no I don't think of the politics and economics first. Those were the areas where I thought I coould contribute here, since you'd covered everything else pretty well.

But, in terms of a step by step guide, I would think of the geography first. Then the geography will give you an idea of what resources the city has. That will then explain why the city is there.

After that you do the politics and economics because answering those questions gives you a broad 'feel' of how the city is going to be. For example, if the city is in ruins, you could just say 'it's in ruins' and leave the question of how it got that way and why it wasn't repaired up in the air. But if you say 'it's run by an old family who're now so inbred the current Doge has the IQ of a paperclip' you can understand that it will have fallen into disrepair.

After the broader aspects of the politics you need to get an idea of the city's plan (ie, a kind of street directory look at it). Is it a rabbit warren of windy streets made up on the spur of the moment like a lot of London still is, or a rigid grid pattern like Los Angeles aims to be? Is it clustered in closely like Manahattan (taking that as one city for the example) or spread out like Melbourne or Edmonton? If it's medieval and covers 5000 sq miles like Melbourne does, how do people get around in it?

Then you cram your streets with all the things a city needs—pubs, bordellos, grocers, blacksmiths, more pubs, some pubs, the odd tavern or two, possibly some places that sell or value magical items if you have those. Note that if the local politics ban drinking or prostitution you won't have those places in plain sight—but there might still be speakeasies or the equivalent.

(I think I've already mentioned the setting I did for aD&D where the locals wouldn't accept the standard gp, sp, cp etc, because the local government needed all those electro-conductive metals for a Special Project. I put it in again here to show that you can put in minor details like that to keep the readers interested. Also, I was quite proud of how frustrating it was for the players at the time :))

Distribution of Wealth
I've never been a huge fan of 'the thieves' quarter'. Why would any town allow its criminals to gather into one spot and why, if they did, wouldn't they just storm in their occasionally and wipe the thieves out? For a game you need something like it so the player playing a thief has a setting to work in, I suppose, but for a novel you don't. Nonetheless, there will be slums in the city, nice places to live, middle of the road places etc. What do each of these look like? Where are they placed geographically in the City? Note that times and technology alter what is good and bad in a city. Being near a river or near the docks used to be a bad place to live%mdash;now try and pick up a house with river frontage! Hills are nearly always popular, but if you have monsters in the mountains who can occasionally raid the foothills they won't be. Slum areas tend to be poorly lit—or do they? Modern Melbourne now has good lighting in the slum areas to keep people safe on the streets, while the tree-lined nice suburbs are still comparatively dark. If the same is true for your city, how has the local government gone about setting this up?

This is getting inordinately long. To summarise, I think of the politics and economics second, after drawing the map. I almost never get into the fine details of each street because I know little about that sort of thing—like, what does a cooper's workshop look like, for example?