It’s all about location, location, location!

Now that I have created my city, I find myself in a bit of a conundrum. I have built this excellent city with a market, a social structure, a religious cult, a government, and so on, but I forgot about one of the most important aspects of your city: your location!

For my second novel, I wanted them to have built into a harsh terrain, but not one that would lead to mass deaths due to environmental hazards. There needed to be a location where they could obtain water, wood, stone, and access wildlife (and subsequently that wildlife would have access to them). While the city would be walled off, it needed to be something imposing and constructed into the immovable, which would serve as the central location for the government of this new society. If this were a novel without access to these new abilities or technology, this location wouldn’t work.

After much research, looking at photo after photo, and knowing what I needed, I settled on a real mountain range. Why would I establish my city in a real location? Well, it helped to make it more concrete and created a tie to the past that needs to haunt those who have survived. Many authors can develop their towns or countries outside reality, but I needed mine tethered to the world we used to know in this novel in some way. Imagine this, in a world where everything has changed, you find yourself living in what used to be a national park, at the base of a regal mountain. At one point, perhaps you would have visited as a tourist and taken a hike to the mountain, fished in the nearby rivers, or sampled the local food in the now decimated city just a few miles away. Why would I need this tether? I want the people of this city to feel not quite at home, not quite comfortable, and while conditions would already not be good (see my prior post on city building), there needs to be a further desire for comfort and “normalcy”. This need for comfort is where the roots of desire can grow. The idyllic views would contrast starkly against the darkness roiling in the city’s streets, the mountains, and the creatures now stalking across the lands.

In addition to this aspect, I wanted to create a mountainous citadel where the people’s power carved the rooms and tunnels, although none of them were allowed to even walk the halls after they were built. This is reminiscent of the builders of castles or palaces throughout time. This would once again drive home the kind of rulers the Council are.

When thinking about location, ask yourself: Is location important for your writing? Would you be creating an entirely new geography? Or would you be borrowing from the real sites that we have? Is there a need to have a stark reminder for your people? Is the peace that they feel only skin deep? Is there some kind of utopia waiting for them, or is it all an illusion skillfully crafted by those who hold all the cards?

See you next time!