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Chapter 10: Navigating the Locations in Your Stories
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A completely alien universe or totally alternative reality in which everything
is different can be quite exhausting to invent as well as confusing for readers.
Imagine a world in which all the physical laws of nature are different, where
the characters are made of a gaseous material, communicate telepathically
through mathematical equations and don’t experience emotions, and you
soon see what I mean!
Here are certain kinds of imaginary worlds that writers have developed:
✓ Alternative realities: Can start with a historic event that ends differently;
for example, in Robert Harris’s novel Fatherland (1992), where he
imagines a world in which the Nazis won the Second World War. Often
you don’t need to worry about explaining in detail how the world ended
up differently – readers just need to know that it did.
✓ Fantastical worlds: Usually involve characters like humans who simply
happen to live in an imaginary world different from this one.
✓ Futuristic worlds: Often involve new technology and contact with alien
civilisations, but they can also be regressions to an earlier form of civilisation
after some kind of apocalyptic event, as in Cormac McCarthy’s
The Road (2006) or Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker (1980).
When you’re inventing an imaginary world, you need to think about the following
aspects:
✓ Culture and religion
✓ Education methods
✓ History of your world
✓ Languages that are spoken
✓ Names the people are given
✓ Physical laws that apply
✓ Technology they have developed
The more you write about these things, the more convincing the details
become for readers. You don’t need to go to the lengths of JRR Tolkien, who
adds an appendix and invents whole languages and mythologies, though
without doubt this incredible effort is part of the reason that his story is so
convincing.