Happy October!
With the new month in full swing, it’s time to dive into my new blog schedule! First up, an introductory post on the Worldbuilding category!
I plan to fill this category with all sorts of goodies about my fictional worlds: city descriptions, character bios, backstories, maps, textbook excerpts from Olive Tree Academy, vampire origins and other creature histories, you name it! Since this is the first Worldbuilding post, though, I figured it was best to start at the beginning, with a discussion of my approach to worldbuilding.
Fictional Worlds
I took a worldbuilding workshop several years ago, and it was actually pretty frustrating. It was a 2 or 3 hour class with a teacher who actually taught creative writing—including world building—as part of one of the only MFA programs in genre fiction in the country. I won’t say I didn’t learn anything, of course I did, but almost the whole thing was designed around creating planets.
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t take the “world” in “worldbuilding” quite that literally. It isn’t only Science Fiction writers who build worlds, after all. And it isn’t just about inventing magick systems or generations of fictional royal families to fight each other, either. To me, it’s still worldbuilding, even if you’re building a world that looks a lot like this one–it doesn’t have to be alien planets and magical realms.
My primary fictional “worlds” are cities. Two of them, to be precise: Barrow City and Arcanum. Two fictional major cities without any connection to one another. Each is its own fictional world: neither city exists within the world of the other. The way things like werewolves, vampires, and magick works is different in each world. They’re as entirely separate as they’d be if two different authors wrote them. I actually toyed with using a separate pen name for Arcanum but, ultimately, decided against it.
Creating a city is… a lot. At least, it is if you’re as into details as I am. Eventually, you’ll get to see maps of my cities, but it’s going to be a while because they’re intense. It’s not like drawing a general-area map of a fictional fantasy world with mountains over here, a river over there, here be dragons. I have streets and freeways and businesses. My cities may be fictional, but they’re real. You see the image at the top? That’s a portion of my in-progress map of Barrow City in Photoshop.
Why do I do this to myself? I wish I knew!
Anyway, let’s talk a bit about each city, shall we?
Barrow City
Barrow City is by far the oldest of my two worlds, even though I’ve published more books set in Arcanum for now. The Olive Tree Academy series is set in B.C.—or near it, anyway—as is my upcoming series Widdershins and later-planned series that’s tentatively called Five Rivers for now. I’ve written and published short stories set in B.C. for years.
Being older, B.C. has had time to fill out some. There’s a smaller village about five miles to the north called Greenvale—the entrance to the Olive Tree Academy campus is basically across the road from the ‘Vale. When you read OTA books, you mostly see the OTA campus (which actually exists in a pocket dimension,) and Greenvale. People talk about going into Barrow City, but I’ve yet to actually visit it on page. That’s going to change with book three, but it’ll still be minimal, I think.
B.C. has, as the working title of the series mentioned above suggests, five rivers. Three of them are good sized: the Declaration, the Postern, and the Keen. The remaining two aren’t true rivers at all: Curtain Creek is, as the name implies, a creek. The fifth is actually a dry riverbed for the most part, with just a trickle of water here and there after a heavy rain. I’ve decided on and changed my mind about the name of this one a few times—and right now, I just don’t know.
The five rivers are a BIG part of Barrow City, and there’s a reason there have to be five of them, even if I don’t know the name of one yet! All will be revealed in time!
Arcanum
Arcanum is newer, and so not as fully fleshed out yet. Like B.C., Arcanum is a big city, but not a sprawling, primary metropolis. Think of cities like Columbus, Detroit, or Kansas City as opposed to places like New York or L.A.
The most notable features in Arcanum are the Pollux River that runs through the whole city, and Castor Avenue, the major road that runs along the full length of the Pollux. If you’re a mythology buff, you might recognize those names and the connection between them. If not, you can look it up, or wait ‘til I get around to that topic under my Myth & Magick category–wink, wink!
Both B.C. and Arcanum have several specific neighborhoods, local business, and geographic features that make them unique places. I like to get as much detail about my cities onto the page as possible without turning the books into dissertations on the geography—hopefully I’m managing to strike the balance I’m going for!
Arcanum is the setting for my series, The Nexus. I’m not sure whether I’ll ever expand that to additional/spin-off series, but I do have five seasons of The Nexus planned, so there’s that!
Looking Forward
So those are my cities, where almost everything I write takes places. As I continue to do these Worldbuilding posts, I’ll be diving into the different neighborhoods, business, people, and places in both cities, as well as the “rules” of how things work in those fictional worlds. I really hope you enjoy this series of posts—I’m definitely excited about writing them!
And, if you do, and if there’s something you want to know about in my worlds, ask me! You’ll probably get an answer, and you’ll hopefully give me a topic for a post! I won’t give answers that will be spoilers, and sometimes the answer will be “dunno,” but when I can answer, I will!
My spam filter is pretty good, so I’ve been keeping the comments open on my posts. Pose a Worldbuilding question there, or reach out through the “Contact Me” form. Either way, you’ll get an answer!
Thanks for visiting and reading!
