C. J. Cherryh

1.


It's one reason I hate doing contemporary stories---you don't get to make very much up. You have to look it up. That's like work. Thank goodness for the internet.


2.


No, not really. Well, I may borrow a bit from paleontology, or climatology, but I'd rather not. I remember a certain very, very well-known contemporary writer who researched Delphi, in Greece, up one side and down the other. And then got the hotel facing the wrong direction. Drove me nuts.

C. J. Cherryh Website


RSS feed blog


Closed Circle Publications with Lynn Abbey and Jane Fancher

Margaret McGaffey Fisk

1.


I am a build-as-I-go type writer, and even when I'm writing a story in the modern world, I'm more likely to set it in a fictitious town than a real location. However, I do try to get a sense of the place and then model it after an existing locale. For example, I wrote a romance novel that is set in a fictitious city with a lot in common with Los Angeles. I wanted the conjunction of super rich and just making it, and I needed the equivalent of rodeo drive. So I did look up some pictures and remind myself of how people in both sides of that scenario lived and behaved to get the right feel down before I started.



During the first draft, I tend to draw maps and make notes of all the places I plan to return to, whether the interior of buildings or a quick sketch of where this street connects to the next, to prevent continuity errors. If a location is closely tied to an existing city, I've been known to start with the base of that city and then modify it as necessary. I've heard too many stories about authors getting in trouble with using real locations, and the moment the story requires something different, I want the flexibility to meet the story's needs rather than be locked into reality. It's called fiction for a reason.



An alternate example is a novel I have only just begun to outline. This one is set in modern Boston. I could make a fictitious town, and may end up doing so using Boston as a model, but the story very much has the feel of that city. As it is, I'm collecting a list of places, and have done some research on actual locations that would suit my purposes, because this story is about experiencing the city through the eyes of someone besides the main character, and the locations are very important in that context. I will probably be doing a lot more research and preparation for this novel than I usually do before writing. It's the nature of the story and the level to which the setting is crucial or background.



On the broader question, though, I think I might end up doing more research for a modern story than other stories because it has to feel familiar. In a world of my own making, I control every aspect, and its nature is sometimes deliberately jarring and other times unsettling in how familiar it seems. In the modern world, even when I use a fictitious place, things have to match known patterns. A romance novel can all too quickly gain a horror feel if the setting falters because jarring means something has gone horribly wrong when it's a place that might as well be down the street.



2.


The answer to this one is absolutely yes. I'll take historical places and rework them, or convert modern places into extraterrestrial ones. Humanity has not changed all that much in centuries, so why assume the future will be so completely different as not to have things in common. Then there's the driving force of environment. When I set aliens in a specific place or at a stage of development, I'm likely to borrow from human settlements in similar circumstances to use as a base, then mutate from there to reflect the aliens' differences.



For example, the novel I'm currently shopping around, Shadows of the Sun, has both an agrarian species and one living in the forests. The agrarian species lives in mud-packed dwellings similar to those in Afghanistan (where I spent some of my childhood). The aliens are bipedal, and focused on harvest and fishing. They live on landmasses that have been thoroughly stripped of trees. They need shelters that both keep out the heat in the summer and can weather the heavy winter storms on their planet. They have doors and windows, and dwelling spaces for different functions. They even have pumped water and some blacksmithy using metals found close to the surface.



In contrast, the forest species lives in huts constructed of fallen branches and vines. They have internal fire pits in the central room, and the kitchen/eating/communal area is all one space. Bedrooms are separate and rough mattresses of moss and leaves serve them. Though they can climb the trees, they live in the roots, and their lives are focused on hunting, gathering, and fishing. Where the agrarians have basic machinery, the forest people create cloth by chewing vines down to fibers, a much more intensive labor, but one they've been using for centuries.



Note that though these two peoples are very different, they both show characteristics native to Earth. This makes them more rounded as characters for two reasons: readers can connect to the environment as something they may have seen on a nature show or some experience they may have had, and the aspects of the alien societies that are invented have something to shore up against, making them feel deeper, richer, and more solid than if I created them out of whole cloth.

Margaret McGaffey Fisk's Website

Lee Killough

1.


Because setting has such influence on the shape of a story, I do most of the world-building as soon as I set my location. Inevitably things must be tweaked as I go along but the majority is done first. And that world-building ends up almost as extensive as that for future world of alien world settings. Details can make or break the believability of the setting. Though I don't have to create plants and animals, for example, I need to be sure the plants and animals in the story are correct for the location. Those in Maine vary from those in the Great Plains or on the gulf coast of Texas. Some chain stores are found everywhere but Piggly Wiggly and Whataburger aren't. Other stores are also regional. Weather patterns vary, those of the coast, mountains, and plains all different from each other. School systems and the structure of city governments and police departments vary. The culture of a city is different from that of a small city or a small town. Local businesses and seasonal rhythms vary with the area commerce, whether that is fishing, tourists, farming, ranching, whatever. The details of a fictional town need to match its location. So I'll study a town of the desired size in that location and use it as a model. If my setting is a real town, I definitely need to have all its details correct: streets, stores, businesses, highway numbers...everything.


2.


Oh, yes. In some cases I out and out use real-world places. San Francisco in the Garreth books and in Killer Karma. Topeka for my Brill/Maxwell series...though I did alter it...Because it was set in the future. So I freely replaced and repurposed buildings, created a space port, and turned a city police department into a county one. In the Garreth books I also adapted western Kansas to accommodate a fictional county, and in Wilding Nights, altered the Gulf Coast of Texas to include a new bay and small city. But in both the case of the fictional Bellamy County and Arenosa, Texas, they were carefully true to the region.

Books We Love/Killough


Coffeeshop Writers


Checking on Culture, an aid to building story backgrounds


The Leopard's Daughter, a fantasy of ancient Africa

Sherwood Smith

1.


I think I'd have to say that research is ongoing. But I also do a lot during the first draft, because Google makes it easy--that and the presence of my thousands of books. In the days of B.I. (Before Internet) I used to leave parentheses with "find out x here" after which I'd tot them all up and schlepp to the library for research. That sure was tedious. But now, I can Google to my heart's content. For example, when I look at my writing session on Friday, I stopped to check on: Hasidic writers; history of Italian names beginning with di and del; hawthorne and its symbolism; Wordsworth's poem "The Simplon Pass" then Milton's "Lycidas", modern dams that also run sewage treatment, current French slang (I settled on "vachement"), and Japanese court music besides that played for Noh. That was for one scene between a pair of lovers that erupts into action--scarcely 1500 words--but now I don't have to go back and double-check any of it. The next draft will be purely hunting for scaffolding and other bad prose tricks which my first drafts always accrete.


No--dates too fast. I haven't been much of a fan of "Amazon planet" or "New York planet" or a secondary fantasy world that is basically Heian Japan versus the Mayans.


2.


Sometimes I push through, knowing that I will be back over it (a lot), but sometimes I have to sit down with my trusty yellow pad and lay out the sequence of events. (I also keep maps, calendars, and a wad of notes.) Seeing the sequence of events is often a help. Other times it turns out to be one of those trap doors I mentioned above, where I need to reach behind the scene and yank forward a lot of the emotional understructure.

Sherwood Smith Website

Jack Scoltock

1.


The story carries me in the direction it wishes. I merely keep to the modern language of children of today. I don't do any world building before I begin writing.


2.


The story carries me in the direction it wishes. I merely keep to the modern language of children of today. I don't do any world building before I begin writing.

Jack Scoltock's Website

ADR Forte

1.


I'm a character-oriented writer. That means when I start a story I usually have a character in mind or possibly a scene and I build outwards around the characters and events of the story. (I've heard this described as a micro-to-macro approach) .That means I don't typically do a lot of the world-building either at the outline stage or when I start writing a story. But I do complete my world-building as I go through the first draft.



For example: I might start my first scene with two characters having a conversation in an office building. Okay so that can be anywhere. But when character 1 storms over to the window and looks out , what does he/she see? That's where I need to world-build and figure out the setting. Sometimes my characters will give me clues in the way they talk: maybe they're Southerners or maybe one's got a Brooklyn drawl. Often as I work through one piece of world-building, I'll figure out something that comes later in the story. My Brooklyn character is looking out the window at London fog. So how did he end up there? And what's his background? That may be important later on! So now I have to do both doing some character-building as well as world-building to support my character's history. Which means I'll head back to my outline and fill in the world building info there for when I need it later in the story.



I will say that this process can be time-consuming, possibly more so than world-building up front. I also often need to stop the story to go do research. Warning: this can be a story-killer for some folks. However the process works for me because I produce a first draft over a fairly long time, and because my creative focus comes from working with the characters and events and if I do have to stop and world-build I'm motivated to come back to the story.



2.


I tend base my science fiction and fantasy worlds on real world settings, meaning that I'll take a place in the real world (past or present) and adapt it to a fantasy setting. This means that typically my worlds are filled with dogs and horses and cups and blankets but few, if any, odd creatures or laws of physics. My science fiction is usually based in our known universe set in a possible future or introducing scientific advances to a present-day or past setting. However, I typically don't refer to actual places/place names in the story. For example, I might have a story set in a city near a river that has been conquered several times and has a clock tower and a great bridge. But I won't actually call it London. I'm only using the elements of the real London that suit the world I want to build. Or maybe it is an alternate-London, but I leave that up to the reader to decide. I think there are two advantages to this for me. One is that I think it requires readers to suspend disbelief a little less so they're able to slip into the world/story more easily, and my goal as a writer is to make the reader feel really immersed in the story. The other is that it makes world-building a heck of a lot easier. For me as a writer, the important part of the story is "what happens," and "where it is" primarily works to support "what happens." In the past I found myself doing too much fantastic world-building and then started trying to fit the story to this neat place/thingy/gravitational law that I invented. That hurt the story, so I found the best approach was to go with a real world starting point and build a strong story from there!<

ADR Forte Blog


Facebook

Lazette Gifford

1


I sometimes write urban fantasy, which means I have to do a certain amount of studying and real world building to get as much info right as possible. However, in many cases I put a real shell around a fictional area. As long as an author can create a feel for a real world location, then she can get away with creating a fictional neighborhood hidden away in the depths of the real world. In that way, things changing are not as important. However, there is always the chance that something big in the city is going to disappear. It's a chance that the story will be dated by that loss. I've already had to rewrite references to Omaha's Rosenblatz Stadium since it is soon to come down.


For my novel Ruins, I had already done extensive of studies of the American Southwest because I love the area and had visited it more than once. I knew the main streets in Taos, and the stretch of road heading down to Santa Fe. When it came time to set up my archaeology dig and the bordering lands, however, I created an area in the middle of nowhere. I needed to be able to create specific locations for the story, but I based them on places that were real in the same general area.


In Muse I used my extensive knowledge of small town Nebraska (grin) to create a believable small town for my hero to wander into. The site was inspired by the town of Peru, Nebraska, but it is not based on the town. Peru did provide a basic starting point though, and driving through it several times before and after the first draft allowed me to build the background into something realistic.


So I do a good amount of the work before I start writing. I want the real world to feel right and I want my pretend areas to fit in well. I often do add little pieces as I go along, though.


I sometimes purposely look for a setting, though. An Arctic station for some a settlement on an inhospitable world, or study desert areas (and their people) to see how that might work. Ecology, geology -- history -- everything I can find goes into the world building. I do a considerable amount of it (often into thousands of words) before I write a book. Knowing the world gives me more opportunities to create trouble for my characters as well.


2.


I love history. I love learning about other places. Pieces of things are bound to drop into my stories, even if I don't consciously mean to do so. I've gone back over a first draft of novels and found ancient cities precariously perched on alien worlds -- but sometimes all they need is a little nudge here and there to make them more secure.

Lazette's Website

Liz Burton

1.


Funny you should ask. I write in several genres, and tried using an actual geographical location for a contemporary women's fiction novel. It didn't work. I found it much too limiting, not to mention that trying to get people to help me with specific details was impossible. If you use a real place, and get the details wrong or try to add something that's not there, inevitably someone who lives there is going to call you on it. Ask Sue Grafton.



So, I invented a county (shades of Faulkner!), and am currently developing its specifications. The fun is that I can now do anything I want with it, as long as I keep within the boundaries of believability.



Originally, most of the details arose during the writing process, but those have to be expanded, especially if you plan to set more than one story in the imaginary locale. Things like infrastructure and industry and geography and culture and...well, everything that makes up a world, because things have to be consistent. I expect I'll eventually have maps and such, too.



2.


I'm lucky--I use Macs, so I can also use a fantastic writing program called Scrivener. If a chapter isn't working, I can set it aside and move on. If a character's being recalcitrant, I can work on their biography. If I'm stuck on some factual matter, I can find information online and import it into the working file--including video.


I think it's inevitable real-world places will find their way into imaginary worlds. When I was setting up the Sorcerer's Tower in Shadow of the Scorpion I came across a photo online of an old fortress in Spain that was exactly what I had in mind. I looked at as many of them as I could, but that specific one was perfect. And the small town in "Simple Sarah and Slippery Sam" was definitely modeled after the small town I grew up in, pop. 600. I think it would be exceedingly difficult to generate something out of whole cloth, something that didn't have at least some basis in a real place.

Zumaya Publications

Darrell Bain

1.


When writing a story in the world of today, world building depends entirely on the locale I'm putting the characters in, how much I already know about the locale (I like putting stories in areas I'm familiar with since that means less research) and what kind of story it is. For today's world it's not so much world building as character building--how my characters will function in whatever episodic event I've devised to carry the story. Take Postwar Dinosaur Blues, the first in a series of adventure/humor/suspense/science fiction novels. When I decided to involve the Mafia in their quest to prove there's a dinosaur in the Congo, the principal world building takes place in the Congo, not in America since I put the characters in situations already familiar to readers or easily explained in the story. Ah, but what happens in the unknown Congo? There I didn't exactly have to start from scratch since I was in touch with both my brother and another man, one who had actually been to the locale (my brother who wanted me to join him on an expedition to there--fortunately, sanity prevailed). Even so, no one to this day knows a whole lot about the area so I had to build a "world" of a Pygmy society who worship the dinosaur, figure out how they treat intruders, how they live and so forth.



I usually have all the world building done by the time I finish my first draft.


2.


Sure. Lots of science fiction includes Earth, for example. That's certainly familiar. So is most of the solar system, at least superficially. And many times in my novels I've kept the whole action on earth and mostly in America in locales I was already familiar with, as in Alien Infection, although some characters came from another solar system. Science fiction doesn't have to always take place on far worlds out in the galaxy somewhere. In fact, a good portion of it doesn't.

Fictionwise Author of the year Multiple Epic and Dream Realm awards See all my books at Darrell Bain Website

Darwin Garrison

1.


If I have a project set in current or near-future times, I'll often do a quick and dirty outline of what I expect the plot and settings to be. Then I take that outline and begin doing my "real world" research for local flavor, sights, architecture, and social issues in each setting. The more verisimiltude you can add into a work by using what really does exist makes the fiction aspects all the more acceptable to the reader.


After that, the draft is where I do the world building that must happen to deviate from what actually is. Things may deviate from the real at this point, but I try not to do so without a viable "why?" and reason in the plot.


2.


Oh, yes. Urban fantasy pieces are, by default, made better if they can tie to the real world. I've used rural Wisconsin, Chicago, Houston, and Dallas, for example, as settings for a variety of urban fantasy stories.

Darwin's Website

Jane Toombs

1.


I never think of it as world building if it's in today's world, though I realize that's what we do in each new fiction story. I either use real world places essentially as they are or create a fictious place something like a real place I know well. For example I may use the village I live in, but rename it so I don't have to be accurate as to what's where. And I don't do drafts. I edit as I write.


I write fantasy but never consciously adapt a specific real world place, though I certainly do take bits and pieces from various ones. Or I may create something very different than any place I'm aware of, which is much more difficult.

Jane Toombs Website