Worldbuilding
The useful parts of a fictional place are often the least picturesque ones. A map can be built from cathedral towers and market squares, but the story usually lives in the drains, boundary walls, culverts, service roads, the awkward bits nobody puts on a postcard.
Those are the features that decide who can move where, what gets hidden, what keeps leaking through. A grand landmark gives you atmosphere. Old infrastructure gives you rules.
I’m always suspicious of worldbuilding that only remembers the view from the hill. The hill is usually the easy bit.
Those are the features that decide who can move where, what gets hidden, what keeps leaking through. A grand landmark gives you atmosphere. Old infrastructure gives you rules.
I’m always suspicious of worldbuilding that only remembers the view from the hill. The hill is usually the easy bit.
The awkward bits are where the story gets its teeth, but I’d be wary of making them the whole meal. A place can be full of useful ugliness and still feel dead if nobody is using it. The best fictional streets usually have both, a decent shopfront and the bit round the back where people dump the things they don’t want named.
The awkward bits can do a lot of work, but they’re not always the interesting ones. Sometimes the real shape of a place comes from what people have decided to ignore. A locked room, a missing alley, the street everyone uses but nobody names properly. That’s where the story starts to feel lived in. Also, drains are useful, but they do tend to smell like homework.