I absolutely LOVE world building

When I build a world... I BUILD a world.

There is something to the act of creation. Something I don't think I will ever actually be able to place a finger on. It's a kind of magic that I don't want to know the inner machinations of. Maybe its the fear that the magic might fade with understanding. I don't know. I'm glad I don't.

Over the weekend

I was sick. Its why I was not as present in the community. However I was still very active in Novlr. An idea hit me. I chased the dopamine. It yielded the premise of another series.

Inspiration in daily things

Okay lets get into the main crux here. Back when I was still living in the orbit of my hometown. There was a road that passed by the old municipal dump. What caught me was not the dump itself. It had been shut down and covered over with grass you could not tell what it really was save for the fencing around it and the echoing memory from younger years.

What caught me was further down the road was a methane flare. One that burned all day and all night relentlessly. Just out in the woods off a side entrance to the water treatment and what for the stories purposes was an electric generation facility.

Four miles away

Resided the local nuclear power plant. If you cant tell. This is the basis of the whole story.

What happens when that plant melts down? And the what if of: There is one little town within the exclusion zone kept the lights on.

Down the Rabbit Hole

Hello Alice, Welcome to Ashfall.

It was an absolute flurry of research into the local region, how far the actual goverment decided exclusion zone extends. Because as much as we don't think about it. Nuclear plants have contingency plans.

I researched how methane flares produce power. How much power is produced based on the size of the dump and how long that power lasts.

What about the exclusion zone itself. Is it an obstacle?

What if we treat the zone itself as a character...?

Not an antagonist, just a patiently waiting entity that the survivors treat as such. As opposed to it just a place. It formed its own personality.

I already had music picked out.

River by Texada - Just felt it fit the mood. Especially since the local river plays a major role in why the survivors survived.

#3 By Aphex Twin - This one actually comes out of me playing the S.TA.L.K.E.R Series back in high school. Which for those who don't know is built around the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster. But I remember playing the game with that in the background and it fit the mood WAY. TOO. WELL.

Till it was over

I lost a weekend, but I gained a working lore for another novella if not a series centered around a what if in my home town.

Yes. I absolutely LOVE world building. Because it gives the basis for amazing stories. That is still only one part of the formula. The motivation needs to be there. The want to see it unfold. And when it does. Its usually a stroke a brilliance.

That brilliance is what makes a world feel lived in as opposed to forced. When you integrate the location itself as a character. Not one that speaks but still has mood.