I’ve been busy world building again.
This time, I didn’t even mean to (honest!), it just happened.
I was writing away happily on the spice trader stories (which still don’t have a proper working title), when I quickly needed a character in a hurry. Usually I have no trouble coming up with random people, because most of the time they’re created to serve a certain minor purpose and don’t reappear again.
Seras needs to overhear something in a tavern, for example. Put two guys on the next table, make them discuss whatever Seras needs to discover to further the storyline. Give them faces, hats, cloaks, boots, throw in a mug of ale – done.
This time around, a random face and boots weren’t enough, though. There was no reason for this person to be in that place, let alone interact with my storyline. I didn’t want to have a character who just appears out of thin air like a djinny, but I also didn’t want to have to explain at length what the hell they’re doing there in the first place.
So I stopped writing and started to think up background for this person. Why is he there? What’s he doing there? And swooosh, 3 days of making-up-stuff later he has a home, an occupation, religious beliefs, traditions, neighbors, tools, transport and a dialect.
And I have a whole new race of people who just moved into my story and occupied a previously empty bit of my map while I wasn’t looking, messing up my geography and refusing to pay taxes. Goodness me.
I didn’t see that coming.