Original Fic Challenge and Tip: Write a Story About a Strange Pet

[goneahead]

Original Fic Challenge: Write a Story About a Strange Pet

Original Fic Tip: Six questions to ask about your world

One of the hardest parts of world-building is making sure your world feels real. I recently stumbled across this article which has six great questions to ensure your world is grounded:

There can be no human (or alien) civilization or settlement without plumbing, energy supply, or waste disposal. So you need to spend at least a little bit figuring out how all of this works underneath your story’s setting.

How do your characters eat? How do they transport and store food?

How is waste handled?

Where does the water come from?

Who provides the clothes and shoes (or gear)?

What money system is there? Is there a single currency? Several? Electronic money? Where are the banks?

How does the majority of people live? How does that influence the public mentality?

Now go forth and create!

Comments

[agdhani.livejournal.com]

My NaNo this year is a sequel; the primary action takes place within a city set into a huge waterfall. Thus most of it is perpetually wet (and noisy). The 'road' surfaces are grated to allow the water through, 'houses' are built with noise reducing materials, and there is an elaborate amount of ductwork designed to reclaim the water, to filter the air of moisture, to recycle all waste into energy or usable materials.
In book one, there was extremely limited contact with the outside world, only enough to allow in the hemp grown and harvested by the outsiders, which is in turn used to make plastics, textiles, and an array of other things. For food, fish are caught and raised at the bottom level of the city, artificial protein is lab grown, algae is harvested for food and other uses, and small greenhouses are used to grow other sorts of edibles.
Energy is produced through the burning of waste, solar panels on the top level of the city, and hydro electric from the falling water.
It took a lot of brain cells to put it all together ;)

[goneahead]

that's quite a bit of detail to work out. I especially like the idea of the different layers contributing different things to the economy - very cool!

[agdhani.livejournal.com]

I wish I could 'film' what I see for the city landscape and layers. The closest I can see is a combination of Bladerunner and the remake of Total Recall...but the city isn't nearly as big as either one of those (and is more vertical...being only like three miles long, not quite a mile wide, and 24 stories tall. Very crowded, wet, and noisy (except for the top layers which are entirely enclosed, white, and clean)

[goneahead]

It sounds like you have a really cool vision of what your city is like!

[agdhani.livejournal.com]

If only I could 'film' it...or create it somehow lol