Worldbuilding
10-13-24
This might be a post that I write on for the next week or so, but its purpose is going to be just to share some of the methods I’ve used for creating the universes my novels take place in, as well as some info about each.
Overview
I have two universes that I write in, Gatherer’s Bounty and Shifting Memory. They both have Leviathans, Star-Shapers, and the worlds they are set on both are different instances of a similar supercontinent based off our own Pangea. Think of them as parallel universes.
I write about the world Vilakku within the Gatherer’s Bounty universe, where worlds are known as Alina Bairns. Civilizations on Vilakku could be compared to those in the 13th or 14th century Middle Ages, though I didn’t really base them on any particular area or culture too deeply. Of course I drew general inspiration from them, but I opted to create more of my own cultures and settings, whether than draw too much from what we know from our own history. Vilakku is an Alina Bairn both infatuated with and tormented by Mother Nature. The religion centered around Mother Nature is called Alinto, and is one of the most widely practiced. But, there are many who resent the deity that supposedly created all life for all the foul things she has done to humanity, and for the plague that can be Leviathans.
Then I also write about the world Unfeasted within the Shifting Memory universe. So far, the stories here take place in my own version of 1979, as well as a few decades prior, but will of course continue beyond these dates in the future. The overall setting again is a supercontinent just like in my other stories on Vilakku. The world has fallen into near complete ownership by the government, and its largest sector is the malevolent Levithan Safety Organization, which oversees all Levithan and even other animal activity, along with a host of other duties and responsibilities it has taken over from other organizations. This is a government run amok on its people, and while people remain free, there is little room for anyone to expand beyond what borders have been placed around them. For example: the farming and food industries have been taken over entirely by the L.S.O., and the places that can afford it have been fortified by and imbued with their officers, making it impossible for private farms or other mass productions of food to exist outside of the L.S.O., as well as traversal from Quadrant to Quadrant harder than it would be say to travel state to state.
The Gatherer’s Bounty
This universe I have written about the most so far, five books as of October 2024. The first story I wrote about here began as a mostly generic medieval fantasy setting with a huge amount of sci-fi shenanigans thrown in. I don’t remember having a name for the planet, or even the surrounding places beyond the main setting which was a single city. I didn’t have any Star-Shapers, Queen Redshift Allacora was vastly different, and the underlying tone and structure of the story was more of a twist on a fairytale, with the classic princess doesn’t wish to stay in the castle plot, the arbitrary prince she is to be betrothed to that she can’t stand, etc. I still have that original manuscript and I have never been able to reread it for fear of vomiting (and I hate vomiting. Love to write about other people vomiting, but me? No thanks).
Shifting Memory
As of October 2024, I have only one complete novel written in this universe (THE LIGHTLESS) and a novella (FLOWER FLESH), and I think last year I wrote a couple dozen pages on a follow up to THE LIGHTLESS. However, that doesn’t mean I dislike writing about these people and places, far from it, I absolutely love writing about the people of Unfeasted, as one of their stories is the very first complete work I ever finished.
