Setting The Scene

Sometimes I love homework.

KZO by Cristiano Rinaldi.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not some closet deviant, to be looked at like an escaped mental patient with a history of violence.  I mean, I love doing proper research for stuff (my new book in this case, but other stuff in general).

Being able to spend a bit of time on this today has reminded me how little time we usually get to do a proper job of things.  I’ve been tapping away across the Internet (as well as my own collection of books, music, and video games) for about four hours now; I figured it was about time for a coffee, and it turns out that it’s closer to time for lunch.

Today’s research has been building out a world – finding the right elements of architecture, people, and fashion to give it a sense of immediacy.

Suffice to say, I’ve been having a blast.  This book is more on the speculative side of specfic, so there’s more things I need to fabricate.  This is by design; I wanted to get some skill with the previous book at making up fairly simple scenes, people, and so on.  This one is quite a bit more complex, but a delight to make for all that.  I’m using a more visual approach this time – more of my artefacts are supported by images than last time.  It’s a trick I’m trying to see if it helps bring scenes to life – it’s time exhaustive on the setup, but if it provides a better outcome then it’s time well spent.

I just hope I’m not going to fall prey to the sin of, “Too clever by half.”  More of this tomorrow I think; I’ve done parts of a world, but only one character only so far.  I need more parts of a world and a bunch of supporting dudes before I start “the writing.”

Oh, the plot?  I think I’ve already got the main tropes sorted, but I’ve already trashed some ideas over the past couple days as I’ve been munching through the world-building phase.  Exposing bad ideas to a bit of sunlight is good for everyone.