Building cities

Story settings are complicated. And to build one which flirts cockily against scientific possibilities, feels like a set up for mockery.

A year ago, Noah's Orb slipped into my head. It was, and still is decidedly, and bleakly dystopian.

12,000 words in, the mazes of my world becomes apparent - it's still, frighteningly, a maze. 

I spent an afternoon between depressed naps scratching lead to paper. Productivity at the end - 0%. The optimistic part of me hopes that I have done enough to pressure cook what-cannot-be into a euphoric got-it!

So how do I build a quasi-recognisable world rendered alien and repressive? How do I bump the trajectory of history into a consequential reality?

In the creative eruption that preluded my current block, the time, place, history and even tone of Noah's Orb seemed to gyrate and click wonderfully into place.

Then of course, my characters decided to navigate the world. To live and breathe and experience a world that crystallises in the imagination. That's when I discovered they were stumbling in the dark.

Maps (as broad as Google universe to the splash on the toilet seat) I'm told, are wonderful tools to ensure the physical consistency of the place. I do not yet have a map.

I am not yet convinced I have a city to draw, much less underground sewers and dodgy lanes for thrills. In a rather pitiful state, a phone conversation with my writer friend 'FAD' highlighted just how intimate a writer needs to be with their details - 'so,' FAD asked earnestly, 'what material are your buildings made of?'

Top down or bottom up approach? I'm simultaneously switching between birds-eye to worm-view only to find that the same object isn't really the same at all. If the writer can't see clearly, the characters will be living in a kaleidoscope and we might as well forget the reader.

I know very little of architecture or town planning, and realise nuclear reactors may require a little bit of real-estate. But thankfully, fiction writers are armed with creative license to make up whatever the heck they like - the good ones are the ones who never remind us of reality.

Time to go back to the drawing board for me. Not plot cards and character misdemeanors. But blueprints of the nooks and crannies to a place that I need to convince you, is real.