Not all stories can take place in our world, and I'll admit I
have a preference for reading and writing things that take place in a world at
least a little different from our own.
To that note, I'm going to try and explain how I create the worlds I
write in.
I have a huge preference for the genre of Urban Supernatural -
where it is our world, but with a few differences. For example, where vampires, fairies and
magical powers are real. It's the idea
of taking these fantasy worlds that people have been writing in for years and
melding them with our own worlds. (Some of
the authors I read in this genre are Kim Harrison, Rachel Caine, Jenna Black,
in case you were curious.)
The approach I take to creating an Urban Supernatural world
starts very simple. Depending on my
story and the characters and plot I want to portray, I'll start small and
expand.
For example: Let’s say I
have a character who his minor psychic powers, like being able to touch an
object and see what happened to it. This
leads to - Are there other characters like him?, Has he met these people?, Does
he hide his powers?
Expand bigger and bigger from that one character. Go from him, to the people directly close to
him, to the world as a whole. Think of
the bigger questions - such as if there are people like him in the world, how
does the world react? Do they pretend he
doesn't exist? Do they hunt people like
him down? Did they try and wipe them all
out?
As you expand your world view, it'll help you tweak the
world/universe you're creating to fit.
Think of the news stories you've heard on the radio or seen on tv and
use them as examples for how people might act in that situation and just start
to flesh it out as much as you can.
Keep in mind that a good portion of this planning will probably
never make it into your book - but that's ok.
The better you understand your universe, the easier it'll be for you to
work in it without pausing to wonder how a certain idea will work.
Something important to remember - keep your idea grounded.
The key, at least I think, to remember with Urban Supernatural
is that it's still our world. So your
ideas, as fantastical as they are, should have a root of truth that your reader
could relate to. Your reader should be
able to close their eyes and imagine that the neighbor next door might be your
character. In other words, they should
be able to imagine your created world as a part of their own. This is what makes Urban Supernatural fun and
interesting to read.
A very good example, and the one I always go to when I'm
explaining this idea, is the universe created for Kim Harrison's books about
the Hollows. Her universe is ours, with
one major core difference: a set of genetically altered tomatoes accidentally
killed off a huge portion of the human race.
This, in turn, made it near impossible for supernatural creatures to
hide anymore, so they were forced to step out.
And since humans stayed away from tomatoes, the vampires are now found
in pizzerias, almost like a supernatural Italian mafia.
That sort
of chain reaction is something you want to strive for with Urban Supernatural,
because it makes your own twisting of our world believable and it's not such a
jump for the reader to imagine that your character lives down the street, and
it's just that no one has noticed how different they are yet.
They say the Storyteller lives in a massive library full of books that tell the story of every being's life -- living or dead. He can read these books and rewrite them; changing anything he wants, even if it's already happened. Alix DeBenit is determined to do anything to get his family back and he knows the Storyteller can do just that. The problem is that he was trained to hunt demons...
