So this weekend’s writing job, while I do a bunch of other, non-writingy jobs, is to start dreaming up a city for one of my current projects.
I’m a big advocate of the setting-as-a-character-in-its-own-right school of world building. My favourite novels are the ones you want to keep re-reading because you just enjoy being in the world of the story so much. Think JK Rowling’s Hogwarts, Anne McCaffrey’s Pern, Terry Pratchett’s Ankh Morpork, Enid Blyton’s Enchanted Wood, Diana Wynne Jones’ Moving Castle. And just to show this works outside fantastical stories, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s Secret Garden and Georgette Heyer’s Regency London. In fact, one of my big motivations behind writing The Beast’s Heart was to write myself a fairy tale world I could go and live in for a little while.
I have some sketchy ideas for this city, but so far it’s really just been a backdrop for the action in this new story. I want to level it up a bit, deepen it’s character, really bring it alive. I want my city to have twisty, shadowy alleyways lined with crooked buildings, cobbled streets and piazzas, a complicated clock tower, avenues of terraced mansions, moonlit shenanigans on rooftops, a river with treacherously damp water stairs, a monumental bridge lined with statuary, and a royal palace with towers and turrets. I want it to have all this and hold out the tantalising promise of more.
I have a whole Pinterest board of city inspiration.
I love looking at old photographs of cities in times gone past for inspiration.
I also love using old paintings and drawings for city inspiration. I find it interesting to look at what drew the artist’s eye. What was it about the city they thought was worth capturing? Rooftops? Stately buildings and squares? Shadowy spaces and archways leading…where?
And I’ve been mainlining illustrations by the likes of Anton Pieck and Arthur Rackham, who did delightful, fairy-taleish cityscapes.
What are your favourite literary cities? And what brings them alive in your mind?
Leife Shallcross 
I rather enjoyed Scott Lynch’s city of Camorr in The Lies of Locke Lamora. One of the things I liked most about it was the sense of history–the strange bits of glass architecture left behind by an ancient race. Also the canals and the places where crowds gathered.
I’m about to start playing a new roleplaying system called Blades in the Dark. It comes with its own setting–a gritty industrial fantasy/steampunk city where ghosts and demons are a fact of life. The setting was a major draw card for me in wanting to play it.
That’s fantastic – I think that sense of history is critical. If I think about all the real-world cities that fascinate me, that sense of there being layers upon layers of human habitation and evolving use of spaces is a big part of that. Looking forward to hearing about Blades in the Dark!