Populating San Raimundo County (Part II)
I would describe storytelling as the synthesis of plot and characters, just as I would describe world building as the synthesis of physical and human geography. The characteristics of a place can be fascinating in and of themselves, but for the purposes of writing they only matter insofar as they impact the characters and their lives.
For example, that range of mountains is beautiful, and perhaps filled with interesting strata of rock forged over millennia of tectonic activity, but what I need to know is how they force the prevailing south-westerly winds off the ocean up, cooling the air and forcing water to condense and fall as rain or snow. That water will then define the course of human settlement, leading to predictable cycles in agriculture and grazing, moving people along routes that will be later paved into roads and then the highway a desperate murderer plots their escape along.
For stories set in the modern age, we can look to real life for a lot of shortcuts to building a civilization whole cloth. Taking California as an example, major settlements tend to occur near the center of sufficient hinterland (Los Angeles, Sacramento) or near natural ports (San Fransisco, San Diego). Smaller settlements will crop up between these major hubs, radiating and flowing along the easiest routes like a river seeking the sea. As the larger hubs grow they expand outward, capturing former exurbs and turning them into integral neighborhoods.
My imaginary town of Rancho Valdez is an example of an exurb being devoured by a metropolis. The indigenous people of the upland meadows were displaced or indentured by a Mexican land grant for cattle grazing in the 1830s (the eponymous rancho), which in turn was swallowed by the American conquest in 1848. Proclamations about the sanctity of the ranchos vanished as Yankees moved to take over the grazing industry of the region in the 1880s. Ranching gave way to gravel mining in the 1950s, which itself died out in the 1990s. As young people fled the dying town near the turn of the century, large developers took notice of the buildable land. The building craze of the early 2000s threw old notions about commute times and environmental review out the window and the population of Rancho Valdez close to tripled in about a decade, most of it sold on subprime mortgages. And, then, well, our story starts.
Because I wrote a book taking place in Rancho Valdez, I have thought more about its particular history and its people than other places on my map. This is the very crux of convincing world-builidng: remembering that every place has its own intricate history, its own unique traditions, its own hidden skeletons and buried sin.
And this can seem overwhelming!
I advise building a world in the same way one might approach the characters of the main plot. There’s likely to be a “main character” location, like my Rancho Valdez. This location should be scripted out as deeply as you can. Know when it was founded, by whom, and who disputes that particular narrative of the founding. What social, political, and historical trends have entrenched the dominant narrative, and how do those forces relate to others in the area? Where are the centers of power, whether you’re talking about the imperial court or local busybodies at a cafe? Who runs these centers, and are they an entrenched power or a newly ascendant one? Where are the major arteries of trade and commerce? Where do people live, and how do they live? If they need to get from one place to another, how do they do that?
But don’t concentrate only on filling out a spreadsheet of interesting facts and figures. Are there fun local customs that might surprise an outsider? What makes the place unique? What are the people who live there proud of? Ashamed of? Don’t realize might seem odd to an outsider? Is there a special holiday, and what does it celebrate? Or perhaps they don’t celebrate a holiday everyone else does, and why is that? Humans are infinitely interesting creatures and that diversity should be reflected and breathed into every aspect of the “main character” location.
Once that’s done, move on to other locations that play a secondary role in the story – the supporting characters. For me, there’s Zenith, the next town down the hill from Rancho Valdez. Zenith refused the developments that came in the early 2000s and much of the tension between these two places comes from that fundamental difference. I also have San Raimundo, the large, glittering metropolis that’s both too close and too far from Rancho Valdez. These places should have a few broad characteristics that differ from the main location. You should know the broad outlines of their history and have a few locations within them that are fleshed out enough to host scenes.
Beyond the supporting character locations are the background characters. These are places that are little more than a name and maybe one stereotype. For my example, a place like Los Terrazos. It’s a rich neighborhood whose cliffs are crumbling, threatening to spill multimillion dollar mansions into the Pacific Ocean. Los Terrazos doesn’t feature in any of my stories, at least not yet. It’s a name on a (poorly-drawn) map and a half-thought idea. Even if these places don’t appear in the story, they’re still important to have around because they give an impression that the depth you’ve integrated into your main character location expands across the entire sea.
And, who knows? Maybe someone will let you write a sequel.
