Now I know what you must be thinking...did she mean to say world building? Well not actually I got it right the first tie but thank you for being concerned about my mental health. Its so nice t be loved.
I am a huge fan of Tolkein, Martin, Lackey and all their elk and I love to just submerse myself in the vivid and fantastic worlds they have built in their novels and try as I might I just can't match their level of excellence. Now I know what you are about to say. You would say, "Letitia, not ever writer writes that same and your world does not have to be the same as their world." And you my lovlies would be right, but if there is one thing that I have taken away from my pastor is a spirit of excellence. I want to do things to the highest quality. And world building is just not my cup of tea.
So I said to myself. "Self if you can't world build maybe you can city build." Myself said, "Well let's give it a whirl and see how it comes out." Well I gave it a whirl and actually found that I'm pretty good at city building. Now I know there are a lot of urban fantasy writers that like to use existing cities as their backdrops. That is fine but I just hate doing all of the research you have to do to write like a local and an expert.
So I set out to create a city as the backdrop to my novel. I started with a state. Where should my story be located. People always say to write what you know. Well growing up in Germany didn't afford me the chance to live in one place and have a "hometown" like many people. I mean I spent a year in California and 4 years in Texas. North Carolina is the only state that I've lived in longer than anything. So I chose North Carolina as the setting. Well then for my purposes I had to do a fair amount of landscaping because I wanted to plop my city down in the Piedmont area which is in central NC but I needed to have a Dockworks area. So that took a fair amount of drawing on my part and let me just warn you my drawing skills are about as good as my Arabic.
Now that I had a state and it looked how I wanted it to look I had to actually sit down and build my city. I like to work smart not hard so I thought to myself, would I really want to build a city from the ground up, brick by bloody brick? And myself said "hell naw." So I looked at cities who skylines I love. Paris, Chicago, New York, Toyko and I based my city off of that.
Once I got the look of my city then it started screaming for a name. I usually like to start with a name because if I don't it drives me literally bananas, and that is not a good look for me. It took me a few days to come up with a name. I used generators, existing city names, old town names, friends, families, NaNoWriMo name adoption forums and nothing worked for me. Nothing seemed right. It all seemed generic and bland like vanilla pudding.
So when I'm stuck on a name I usually pick up and book and just turn my brain off with reading. The book my hands landed on the Son of Neptune by Rick Riodan. The name slapped me in the face like a Chris Brown flashback.
Neptune.
It was the perfect name and it aptly fit what I wanted to do with my city.
After I got the name the rest of the city just fell into place. The history of Neptune even flowed perfectly for me. It started as a simple shipping town after the Spanish landed. It moved into a slave market town that grew into the printing capital of the south. Hence the Printworks neighborhood. The old slave market is now smack in the middle of downtown and it houses all the city administration offices.
At first Neptune started as basically as the first generation Matrix. It was a utopia. Everything was nice and shiny. People got along great and it was wonderful. Well that was an epic fail if I ever saw one. Cities just don't operate that way and frankly that was a rookie mistake. So I had to infuse some life into the city and Neptune started to take on a Sin City/Gotham feel and I liked it. That's when the Ramblings were born. The Ramblings are the Manhattanesque part of Neptune. Not in the sense that is the ritzy part of town people are willing to shell out college tuition payments as rent or mortgages but as its one an island in the middld of Neptune with only one bridge connecting it to mainland Neptune.
The Ramblings are the ghetto part of the city. A concret den of iniquity. The whole of the city is corrupt so don't misunderstand, but the Ramblings is where the sin is out in the open for all the world to see. I've coined it as the old slaving town of Neptune. Out of the Ramblings grew the rest of the city.
Dockworks- this is self explanatory
Printworks- the original center of printing for NC. The Confederate minting press was located here. The Guttenberg Market is located here.
Oldetown- the oldest part of the city. Old money lives here and they like to keep out the riffraff.
Clock Tower Park which is surrounded by Clock Tower North and Clock Tower South
Digital City- the newest part of the city. The tech/medical heart of the city.
Central City (downtown)-
West End- actually a misnomer as its located on east of the river
East End- located west of the river. Its the funky hipster part of the city. The theater district is located here
I'm sure as I start writing the story for this city that other neighborhoods and things are going to crop up but that's all I've got right now and I've got the feel for each section of town. But this is my first attempt at city building and I have to say that I have enjoyed the experience and I will do it again in the future, but I think that I might be a little lazy and just base a few of my novels in Neptune.
Maybe...
I am a huge fan of Tolkein, Martin, Lackey and all their elk and I love to just submerse myself in the vivid and fantastic worlds they have built in their novels and try as I might I just can't match their level of excellence. Now I know what you are about to say. You would say, "Letitia, not ever writer writes that same and your world does not have to be the same as their world." And you my lovlies would be right, but if there is one thing that I have taken away from my pastor is a spirit of excellence. I want to do things to the highest quality. And world building is just not my cup of tea.
So I said to myself. "Self if you can't world build maybe you can city build." Myself said, "Well let's give it a whirl and see how it comes out." Well I gave it a whirl and actually found that I'm pretty good at city building. Now I know there are a lot of urban fantasy writers that like to use existing cities as their backdrops. That is fine but I just hate doing all of the research you have to do to write like a local and an expert.
So I set out to create a city as the backdrop to my novel. I started with a state. Where should my story be located. People always say to write what you know. Well growing up in Germany didn't afford me the chance to live in one place and have a "hometown" like many people. I mean I spent a year in California and 4 years in Texas. North Carolina is the only state that I've lived in longer than anything. So I chose North Carolina as the setting. Well then for my purposes I had to do a fair amount of landscaping because I wanted to plop my city down in the Piedmont area which is in central NC but I needed to have a Dockworks area. So that took a fair amount of drawing on my part and let me just warn you my drawing skills are about as good as my Arabic.
Now that I had a state and it looked how I wanted it to look I had to actually sit down and build my city. I like to work smart not hard so I thought to myself, would I really want to build a city from the ground up, brick by bloody brick? And myself said "hell naw." So I looked at cities who skylines I love. Paris, Chicago, New York, Toyko and I based my city off of that.
Once I got the look of my city then it started screaming for a name. I usually like to start with a name because if I don't it drives me literally bananas, and that is not a good look for me. It took me a few days to come up with a name. I used generators, existing city names, old town names, friends, families, NaNoWriMo name adoption forums and nothing worked for me. Nothing seemed right. It all seemed generic and bland like vanilla pudding.
So when I'm stuck on a name I usually pick up and book and just turn my brain off with reading. The book my hands landed on the Son of Neptune by Rick Riodan. The name slapped me in the face like a Chris Brown flashback.
Neptune.
It was the perfect name and it aptly fit what I wanted to do with my city.
After I got the name the rest of the city just fell into place. The history of Neptune even flowed perfectly for me. It started as a simple shipping town after the Spanish landed. It moved into a slave market town that grew into the printing capital of the south. Hence the Printworks neighborhood. The old slave market is now smack in the middle of downtown and it houses all the city administration offices.
At first Neptune started as basically as the first generation Matrix. It was a utopia. Everything was nice and shiny. People got along great and it was wonderful. Well that was an epic fail if I ever saw one. Cities just don't operate that way and frankly that was a rookie mistake. So I had to infuse some life into the city and Neptune started to take on a Sin City/Gotham feel and I liked it. That's when the Ramblings were born. The Ramblings are the Manhattanesque part of Neptune. Not in the sense that is the ritzy part of town people are willing to shell out college tuition payments as rent or mortgages but as its one an island in the middld of Neptune with only one bridge connecting it to mainland Neptune.
The Ramblings are the ghetto part of the city. A concret den of iniquity. The whole of the city is corrupt so don't misunderstand, but the Ramblings is where the sin is out in the open for all the world to see. I've coined it as the old slaving town of Neptune. Out of the Ramblings grew the rest of the city.
Dockworks- this is self explanatory
Printworks- the original center of printing for NC. The Confederate minting press was located here. The Guttenberg Market is located here.
Oldetown- the oldest part of the city. Old money lives here and they like to keep out the riffraff.
Clock Tower Park which is surrounded by Clock Tower North and Clock Tower South
Digital City- the newest part of the city. The tech/medical heart of the city.
Central City (downtown)-
West End- actually a misnomer as its located on east of the river
East End- located west of the river. Its the funky hipster part of the city. The theater district is located here
I'm sure as I start writing the story for this city that other neighborhoods and things are going to crop up but that's all I've got right now and I've got the feel for each section of town. But this is my first attempt at city building and I have to say that I have enjoyed the experience and I will do it again in the future, but I think that I might be a little lazy and just base a few of my novels in Neptune.
Maybe...
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