Creating Worlds, Part 2: Scale

This is the second instalment of the Creating Worlds series. In the Introduction, I showed you how careful construction of your world your in adds verisimilitude, color and depth to your story. One excellent way to create a consistent, believable world is to form it by asking yourself a plethora of questions, then working out the answers to them. We’ll start this process in a more concentrated way with this article. Let’s have a think about your stories’ scale.

Scale
Stories can be told from any scale, from the intensely personal to covering the rise and destruction of entire empires and even planets. The stories’ perspective can change, too, depending on what you want to show. What you need to think about is often what’s just outside of your immediate narrative’s perspective. The color on the fringes of your story – rumors from the neighboring country, scuffles down an alley – sharpen the reader’s focus on the immediate action.

When you hint at other events in the environment, it gives us a chance to feel that there are other elements to the world happening around and behind the story. If you don’t give your readers those hints, sometimes it may seem like the rest of your world is a ghostly plane, only solidifying for the needs of your plot. This is much less satisfying, and much less tantalizing for your audience. Even if you’re going to finish this story entirely in the piece you’re writing, who’s to say you won’t revisit the world some time in the future?

Consider the size and scope of your story. We’ll start with the smaller end of the spectrum and move progressively larger. The questions listed are starting points for your own brainstorming and thinking. If you don’t have an answer to one, then do try and stop and think of something, even if it’s only rudimentary, before moving on.

Domestic and small neighbourhood scale.
Are you telling your reader about a domestic setting, contained within the walls of a house? Domestic settings can hint at the world without needing to explicitly your audience. It’s more rewarding for both of you when this happens – you, as the writer, get to outline this well-crafted setting you’ve developed, and your readers get to shape the world in their mind without having to wade through tedious exposition. The more clearly the house is formed in your mind, the better you can relay the nuances of your story.

Do we need to know about what’s going on outside?
How much do we need to know?
The length of a street?
Who the neighbors are?
What can we see inside the house?
Does the action take place in one room? Two? Over the range of the house?
Does the house change over time? Does the neighborhood?
What can we see out of the windows?
Are the windows boarded up, reed shutters, expansive panes of glass, lead lighting, even present at all?
What does the interior of the house tell us about the outside world?
Is it decorated?
Sparse?

Remember that little, subtle things can hint at a much more complex world outside. People in real life don’t often talk about the world they’re living in – expository dialogue is painful and boring. See this part of building your environment as the best way of showing what’s going on!

Are there security systems?
Servant’s quarters?
Is it well or rudely constructed?
What materials is it made from?
Is it in good repair?
Is the house well loved?
How long has it been lived in?
Is there anything unusual about the house?

Let’s pan our stories’ focus outside the house, to the immediate neighborhood. This could be a few houses, a street, or a small locality. The questions could easily also apply to a small village or outpost.

Are the streets safe?
Are they lit?
Clean?
Paved, cobbled, asphalted, steel, dirt?
What would you find in the gutters after a storm?
Do people stop and chat, do children play?
Do the neighbors know each other?
Is there a curfew?
Unrest?
A sense of unease?
Are the people living in the neighborhood content?
Scared?
Weathered?
Hardened?
Suspicious?
Open and friendly?
Are some houses better built, in better condition, than others?
Are there stores nearby?
Industrial areas?
Or is it all residential?
What do people on the street do for work?
Is the street rich, poor, full of craftsmen, beggars, merchants, gentility?
Are things sold on the streets?
Are there marketplaces nearby?
Where do people buy their food?
What are the sounds you can hear? In the mornings? Late at night? At lunchtimes?
What smells are there? Cooking smells? Oils? Sewage? Refuse? /Incense?
Where do people go to hang out? Pray? Have meetings?
Is the community enclosed? Open?
How often do strangers come through?
How are they treated?
Is there much crime in the neighborhood?
Who commits it?
How is it prevented?
When was the last major disaster in the community?
What was it?
How did people react?

What if you move out a level, from homes and neighborhoods, to have your action contained within an entire city? I’ll tell you right now – more opportunities! Don’t get scared, though, let’s jump in and have a look.

City scale
Cities have a living, breathing spirit of their own, and each cities’ spirit is unique. Don’t believe me? Think about large cities you’ve been to. Think of suburbs you’ve lived in. Think of towns and hamlets you’ve visited on holiday. Their streets all have stories – squalid, enlivening, desperate, romantic, comfortable. The city you’re building in your story needs to be the same.

How big is it?
How many people live there?
Do only people live there, are there other life-forms throughout the city?
Aliens?
Animals?
Do different races live in your city?
Different classes of people?
How do they get along?

Think about the character of your city.

Is it sprawling and chaotic?
Do buildings teeter and press up against each other?
Do enterprising families push the buildings in new directions, carving out living spaces above alleys and on perilously hanging balconies?
Or is your city orderly, patrolled, regulated?
What assaults your senses in the city?
What does the city smell like?
What sort of food is sold there?
What’s the weather like?
Are there storms, floods, heat waves, dyke’s, dams, harbors, cliffs?
How does that affect the way the city’s built?
What noises do you hear as you walk through different parts of the city?
Merchants calling?
Screams?
The hum of machinery?
Is the city segmented?
Where can you go for a whore?
Food?
To buy drugs?
To sell stolen goods?
To get something fixed?
Hire a lawyer, banker, guide?
How was the city shaped?
Do we know about it’s founding?
What about the underbelly of the city?
Does it have one?
Does it have sewers, a red-light district, slums, criminals?
Where do they live?
How do they interact with the other areas of the city?
Who keeps their peace?
Remember that cities are pushed in different directions by the wills of their inhabitants. Some are trying to get ahead, some are trying to get by unnoticed, some are trying to get out.
What about the upper-class of the city?
Where do the refined, the elite and the effete commingle?
What sort of houses do they live in?
How do they keep the rabble at bay?
Are the houses passed down through dynasties, or is there a relentless shifting of power from generation to generation?
Are there servants, and if so, are they indentured, slaves, employees?
What do the rich do for entertainment?
Do they work, or are they refined enough to have income from other sources working for them?
What level of technology is in the city?
Is it different to the outside world? More advanced? Less?

Keep asking yourself questions. Keep exploring the answers. The questions above should point you in the right directions. You don’t have to know your city well enough to write a travel guide, but the more time you think about your environments, the more comfortable and real they will be. If your characters are only passing through, then maybe you only want to focus on the areas they’ll be visiting. And if the city’s only incidental to your story – somewhere they drop in to change horses / batteries / money / get drunk for the night, then you don’t need to spend as much time and thought on building th place as if your entire story takes place in this one location.

Thinking Bigger!
Now let’s move out to a larger scale. Imagine what fun you can have crafting worlds where your story travels from one city to another – perhaps on the same continent, perhaps overseas. As you begin moving your characters between cities, then all the potential methods of travel and associated adventures open up. We’ll look at politics and power plays later in the series, but if your thoughts wander down that avenue, don’t stop yourself!

How big a distance do you want to cover?
Between a few cities?
Across the borders of one country?
An empire?
Across continents?
How is travel commonly done between those locations?
On foot?
Mounted?
In vehicles?
In the air?
Over water?
Singly, in groups, caravans, tours, pilgrimages?
What dangers do travelers face when making these journeys?
What sort of terrain will they move over?
How are cities spread out?
What difficulties present themselves in leaving and entering cities?
Is travel common?
Uncommon?
Forbidden?
Unheard-of?
Will the travelers need guides?
Bribes?
Offerings?
Maps?
Who controls the travel routes?
Brigands?
Toll officials?
Bureaucrats?

This series will continue in Part 3: Geography, where we’ll look at some of the larger-scale applications of Geography and the physical structure of the world the story takes place in.

Before heading on, think about your answers to the questions above. Did any of them niggle at you? Not feel quite right? Inspire you? Go deal with them now before moving on. Think out solutions to your problems. See what you can do. And if you’re inspired…

Go write!

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