by Rachel Hauck, @RachelHauck 

When I started the Royal Wedding Series, I knew I had to create a country or countries “worlds” in which my royal families lived.

I’m a realistic kind of writer. I like real cities and real places. I once called the Starbucks in downtown Chattanooga to get a description.

I called the University of Northern Iowa to see if scholarshipped athletes had to live in the dorms.

All the sake of authenticity.

Yet, I’ve created fictional towns three times in the course of seventeen novels. Reasons can vary for making up cities, or countries. Or entire universes.

Genre is a key reason to invent other places. Fantasy, Sci-Fi and fairytales, books with supernatural elements, demand world building.

Tolkien created a middle of the earth! So what can we not do to make our story worlds rich and vibrant? The sky, or middle earth, is the limit.

As a romance and women’s fiction author, I invented fictional towns so I could create the atmosphere and environment I wanted. I used real, near-by cities to anchor Freedom, Alabama, Whisper Hollow, Tennessee and Beauty, Georgia, but with these towns, I could massage the type of societies that formed and embraced my heroines.

And to be honest, it didn’t require as much accurate research. But they were no less work.

What are some key elements in storyworld building? They have to be:

• Visual
• Emotional
• Symbolic
• Mystical or otherworldly
• Societal, meaning the world has an impact on society. On the protagonists.

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Visual

Let the reader see the world. Use your best prose and descriptive words to paint the scene for the reader.

Use power words, colorful descriptions, and key names and titles to draw the world for the reader.

In Oz, the reader “followed the yellow brick road.” It’s easy to see and imagine.

Here’s Frank Baum’s first description of Oz.

The cyclone had set the house down very gently–for a cyclone–in the midst of a country of marvelous beauty. There were lovely patches of greensward all about, with stately trees bearing rich and luscious fruits. Banks of gorgeous flowers were on every hand, and birds with rare and brilliant plumage sang and fluttered in the trees and bushes. A little way off was a small brook, rushing and sparkling along between green banks, and murmuring in a voice very grateful to a little girl who had lived so long on the dry, gray prairies.

Rare birds with brilliant plumage. A small brook, rushing and sparkling along between green banks. Visual.

Baum also gives us a great visual in the city name, Emerald City. We get an image of green and beauty, of a sparkling city, almost immediately.

Emotional

The world has to impact the reader’s heart. Emotion is a key experience between writer and reader. We focus a lot on the emotion of the characters than setting sometimes. And to be clear, not all books require a dynamic setting.

But always consider creating a world where the setting, the scenes, the street names, the buildings, the businesses, the exchange between citizens draws in and impacts the reader.

Describe the world through prose but more so through the protagonist’s eyes.

Here’s a clip from Once Upon A Prince. I created a country, Brighton, in the North Sea. Here’s the heroine, Susanna, and her sister, surveying it for the first time.

She wanted to inspect the architecture and gardens. Brighton was as old as Britain, a blend of British, Prussian, German, and Russian art, thought, and design. Every structure seemed to tell a piece of the ancient island’s story. Stone edifices with marble inlay, churches, courts of law, businesses. Then rows of plaster-and-beam buildings. Pubs, shops, and apartments. Trees with bare, snowy limbs entwined with Christmas lights lined the avenues.

Susanna looked close for dress shops. The day after Christmas, the fronts remained trimmed for Christmas as well as the coronation, and costumed carolers still strolled the streets. She opened her window to listen and was electrified by the unseen but tangible coronation excitement.

“This is amazing!” Avery slid from her side of the car into Susanna. “I want to eat at every restaurant and visit every shop.”

Susanna lifted her face when she caught a whiff of baking bread. “We’re only here five days. Let’s pace ourselves.”

“Pace ourselves? I’m going to burn the candle at both ends and every inch in between. Who needs sleep? We can sleep when we get home.”

The scene changed as the car headed deeper into traffic. The avenues widened and the pedestrians had a business-like stroll, dressed in dark overcoats and galoshes. High lamps arched over the streets. Banners swayed from the poles.

 

Susanna fixed her eyes on his cipher and raised her hand to the nearest banner as the car slipped by. Her swirling emotions surprised her. The honor, the joy of being here for him. Even if she didn’t get to see him in person.

You go, Nate.

“Look at the buildings, Suz.” Avery peeked inside. “So old and cool. I love the turrets.”

“Brighton dates back to ancient times,” the driver said. “Five hundred years. Good ol’ King Stephen I wrenched the island jewel from King Henry VIII and gave us our little Brighton Kingdom. You’ll enjoy the coronation celebration, ladies.”

I tried to invoke a scene we’ve all seen before in our history book, on television or the web. Perhaps for some of us lucky enough to travel, in person.

But I mostly wanted the reader to be with Susanna as she saw the country for the first time, feel her reaction, love what she loved.

The idea is to get the reader to believe she or he is somewhere else¾not at home with the laundry waiting.

Use the five scenes to invoke emotion. The smell and taste of warm bread or frying bacon. The sound of music or rain drumming on the roof. The sight of an old friend. Use touch like a kiss, or a hand brushing over smooth leather.

But it’s not enough to show the world once. The characters have to exist in the world. The reader should see some of the elements of the world several times. Between 3-5.

Symbolic

When creating my fictional towns and countries, I tried to create names and places that symbolized the theme of the story and/or the character’s journey.

In the Songbird Novels, Whisper Hollow, the small Tennessee town I created was symbolic for the secrets of the protagonist, Jade’s life. Lots of secrets. Lots of things leaving her feeling hollow.

The street names, like Sapphire, stood for the path of beauty God had for Jade.

In the Disney version of Cinderella, the old home is important. It’s her past. Who she was before her father died.

The house became run down after the stepmother squandered the family fortune, so Cinderella herself became a prisoner of the house, of her stepmother. But we don’t need to go up to her attic room–of her indentured life but also of her lofty life, the one to come every other scene.

Snow White, running through the dark forest where the trees and limbs where hands reaching out to snatch her hair and skirt. All symbolic of her life being torn apart and of the fear in her heart.

So look for ways to tell your story through the world the characters live in. Build a world that either symbolizes where they are OR where they are going.