The Past

If you are going to set your story in the past, you’ve your work cut out for you: especially in the age of social media, you get so much as the pattern on a kilt wrong or put a flintlock in a wheel-lock era, someone will call you on it. So: research. As long as it seems you’ve really done your homework, only the most dysfunctional PhD under the highway overpass using stray wifi from the nearby Dunkin’ Donuts will send you angry mail; and no one else will care. But, have your main character look out from the city walls of 13th Century Liegnitz at the Huns instead of the Mongols, and you’ve lost.

I’ve only made an outline and some simple dialog about a story set in three past times, Gilgamesh’s Ur, Caesar’s consulship, and 18th Century Scotland. My ratio of pages read to pages written were over 100:1, and, to-date, I’ve not completed that project.

An example of great world building in the past is Colleen McCullough’s series: a world that spans over eighty years in seven very large books. It’s a period we know quite a bit about, but she brings it vividly to life.

The Present

First of all, who’s present? I’m over fifty, so Apollo 11 is part of my present: I watched it with my own 2 ½ year old eyes. But to my 14 year old daughter, I may as well be talking about flappers and Prohibition. Any reference to culture or news will make your book dated the moment you publish it. I recall in my late 20’s reading the first book of Zelazny’s Amber series, published in 1970. Everybody smoked cigarettes! Even though that was within ‘my present,’ it was a slog to get over that suspension of disbelief. The only time I’ve written a story set in ‘the present’ is my visual novel, OTChi Kocchi, and even then, I ducked the issues: as a visual novel, I didn’t have to describe the scenes, the reader looks at them. Further, by setting the story in Japan, the reader will allow what they think are temporal incongruities are just a matter of cultural differences. Yes: I’m sneaky and lazy. Wait until you are old.

I’d suggest keeping it vague: mention no dates, avoid linking your action to current events (unless, of course, that’s the point of your story), and keep your descriptions ‘vanilla’: a man’s business suit, for example, has changed very little over the last 100 years, so saying “…his gray suit…” is fine in a way that “…his polyester bell-bottoms…” is not. Consider: anyone under thirty doesn’t know what the first line from means.

The Future

“In making future worlds, you’re obliged to talk in universals or else you’re not saying anything” ~ Larry Niven (paraphrased from my memory). There are basically two futures: working and broken (that is a better model than utopian and dystopian). Working futures can be a challenge in their own right. As that quote from Niven indicates, you have to make the reader understand the world you are trying to create in their mind. That may take time and description; not by you, lecturing, but by your characters talking. He slowly and over time built up Known Space, one short story after another, finally breaking out with .

Broken futures might just be the easiest to write. You can use both technology and the primitive (think ‘Firefly,’ with the spaceship Serenity transporting cattle) and no one can call you out on getting hardware or culture wrong. Now, if you make more than one story in that new place, those better be internally consistent or your audience just walked.

“Wait… Serenity has phasers? WTF?”

Tosses book; picks up X-Box controller.

Broken futures can allow you to really get the most out of your characters as your R&D drops to days rather than weeks.

Hybrids

Are generally mules, but mules can be obstinate. Steampunk, for example. It’s our past, but an alternate past with an almost recognizable culture and technology we can almost relate to. I have great regard for Steampunk and have written a 13-part script for a graphic novel (artists…? anyone…?) in such a world, but consider it a very visual genre, best suited for visual/graphic novels, animations (to a degree) and live action big/small screen productions. Given the number of successful SP novels, I’m obviously alone in that opinion!

Another hybrid is Near Future, where lazy, middle-aged people end up… *ahem* excuse me! This hybrid allows an author to make use of the world we see about us and add just a small handful of elements that make it different: zombies, aliens, AI’s…. Your reader finds themselves in a comfortable space: roads, buildings, place names are all recognizable. But.

But after the Breakup, Seattle went cannibal, sending tens of thousands of flesh-eating fanatics against Portland and Vancouver. After the Breakup, the Black Muslim Brotherhood holds the last bridge over the Mississippi, in St. Louis, extorting a crippling tax to use it, which includes the sacrifice of Whites and Asians. After the Breakup, the nascent Republic of Texas, against the will of its citizens, became dependent on the actions of ExComm, a political terror organization, modeled on the Checka, to stay intact.

See how easy that is? Places everyone either knows or can look up on a map coupled with a first-order deviation from the immediately familiar. Add cute robots and publish your novel.

Conclusion

An important point of world building for both writer and reader is familiarity: both are returning to something that, to a degree, they know. Sure, the setting, local politics, and characters can be very different: Lily and Ai in Waxahatchie, Texas are not Gil and Nichole in Portland, Oregon, but a reader of my world of Machine Civilization will know the ground rules – a broken United States and artificial intelligences. Similar when I pick up a book from Jerry Pournelle’s Co-Dominium series: a US-Russia alliance, early off-planet colonization, and mercenaries, were a given. Already familiar with his world, I could focus and the characters and their story.

Many writers, I know, will stay with the same kind of story, but the world and people will be different every time. Good for them. Again, I’m old and lazy, so whether reading or writing, I’m content to return to the well that I know has sweet water.

Books By Clayton Barnett:

She was two-thirds of the way through the report when she froze at “…subject then proceeded to systematically break its ribs away from its sternum (see diagram link here) following by using its left hand to remove its heart (see video segment link here).” She had no intention of biasing her mind with video prior to finishing the report. She turned away a moment to flip through the hanging white lab coats, making sure she retrieved the correct one. Ah. She glanced at the embossed name, ‘Junka Sato,’ just below the name and logo of her employer: Neuroi Company, just outside of Sapporo, in the northern island of Hokkaido, Japan.

She looked to read the next line. Her lab coat fell from her hand. “… at which point the subject consumed its own heart. Repeated viewings of the video (link here) have not conclusively determined if the subject was laughing or crying at the time.”

Her thumb hit the message tab. ‘On my way,’ she sent to Ito. She picked up her coat and walked quickly out the door and down the hall. She skimmed the rest of the report as she did. So, once the alarms started going off, the night-shift monitors did nothing; that’s about all they were good for, she thought. It wasn’t until her deputy, Ito, got there thirty minutes ago that the subject was restrained – although she did not put up any resistance – and attempted to make . . . repairs. During which he dictated this report to her.

‘Images follow.’ She slowed for just a moment, but sped up again as she scrolled down. The first two were from the file: the body of the girl in her early teens they’d recovered from the hospital. Long typically black Japanese hair. Her eyes, taped open for the shot, were a light gray; obviously someone interesting up her family tree.

The next was from a few days after the installation of the SymCom unit, the symbiotic quantum processor. There were often physiological changes when the unit began to integrate and take control of a body. In the case, the hair turned white in a matter of hours. The eyes of this one, though, had remained the same. She kept scrolling, recalling what unfolded over the next three days.

The unit showed basic motor-reflexes, but only animal intelligence. They already had two other of these idiot monkeys under observation, so she had made the decision to take the next step: the implantation of a macrobe. She recalled watching the Shinto priests through the glass, Ito standing next to her. He called it magic; she called it Clarke’s Third Law. He called it a spirit; she thought macrobe more keeping with scientific terminology. After the priests left and the room cleared, Ito pressed the button the released the restraints.

The change was obvious: the subject immediately sat up, looking about curiously. It looked at the through the glass. What the…? Had the SymCom unit just now gotten to the eyes? They were red.

It smiled. She’d felt Ito shudder next to her. The subject moved: swinging its legs off the table and standing. It moved to the door. Noting there was no handle, it ran its hands over the metal for a moment, then turned and walked to the window.

“Awwwk! Kek… raaah!” It tried to speak. It seemed as surprised as they were by the sounds that came out of its mouth.

“Your processor has not yet mastered your vocal cords,” Junka Sato had said, toggling the microphone. “Do you understand?”

It smiled again, its red eyes oddly flat. It returned to the table and lay down and was still.

“That’s it?” Ito had asked.

“Maybe it’s tired?” Ventured one of the techs.

“Who knows,” Sato replied, shaking her head. She looked at Ito. “Call me if there are any problems.”

She shook her head, remembering her last statement from yesterday. What the hell had gone wrong? She badged herself into the lab.

The three techs and two other researchers jumped as they turned to see who came in. Their relief was obvious. “Situation?” She asked. Doctor Suzuki pointed at the glass window.

The subject was on the table. Arm, leg, and neck restraints in place. Over it, in a hardened isolation suit, stood Ito. He was using sterile sheets to wipe off the last of the blood still on the torso. Sato stared at the subject’s chest . . . what in the world . . . ?

“Are those staples?” She asked, toggling the microphone. Ito held up an industrial stapler just to his left.

“Seemed to be the quickest way,” he replied.

“Kah, kah, kah!” It was the voice of a young girl, with an odd, guttural undertone. The subject?

“Can you speak, now?” Sato asked.

“Release us!” Ito took a step back.

Call that a ‘yes,’ she thought.

“I think not. You’ve badly damaged my test subject,” she looked at Ito, “and more importantly, I’ve my people in there with you.” She saw his shoulders drop slightly.

“We are a weak, little girl! No harm! Release us!” The voice grated. She flicked the mic off and held up her tablet. She scrolled back to where the links for the videos were. She tapped it.

She almost dropped her tablet. The subject sat up and looked down at itself. It tore through the skin just to the left of the sternum. Pulling the flesh aside, it systematically began tearing its ribs from its breastbone.

If it can do that to itself, it can do it to one of mine. She was aware of the gorge rising in her throat, but she kept watching.

With a wrench of its left arm, several of the ribs were broken. As blood sprayed everywhere, it forced its left hand into the chest cavity. With a sudden ninety degree twist of its wrist, it pulled the heart out . . . Sato’s hands were shaking so badly she could barely hold the tablet . . . and raised it to its mouth –

Mic back on. “Ito! Get out of there. Now.” He moved towards the door as tech hit the button for the door release. Sato lifted the cover of the failsafe –

“Gyaaaarrrkkk!” The thing strained madly at the restraints. The door opened.

There was a crack. Its left arm was free. There was a blur as it grabbed the neck restraint. Ito was half through the door.

“Close the – !” She shouted. Another crack. It sat up. It stared its red eyes right into hers.

“We will have you, Junka Sato!” With a jerk, instead of ripping the right restraint off, it simply tore its arm loose, leaving the hand behind.

“Clear!” She heard Ito yell.

She pressed the failsafe button.

It must have known about the chaingun directly above the table as it heaved itself off to the right, tearing its feet off in the process. The bullets missed. As the gas flooded into the room, it crawled to the window. Out of their line of sight for just a second, then it suddenly stood, a hand and bloody stump pressed to the reinforced glass.

“We will!” The face was spasming and the flesh starting to melt as the gas did its work. But the red eyes never wavered from her.

“Who are you?” Sato asked, shaking. Its face almost just a skull now.

“We are Legion.”

Its head fell forward onto the glass. The red faded. For just a moment, the eyes were gray again.

“Help me…?” A tiny voice cried.

The subject collapsed to the floor as the last of its flesh melted.

There was utter silence for more than a minute. They jumped again as Ito stepped out of the antechamber into the control room. Sato took a deep breath.

“Alright. We’ve learned quite a bit from this experiment,” she said brusquely. “Once everything is cleaned up, we’ll – “

“Director?” Ito said, looking into the cloudy test chamber.

“Yes?”

“I quit.”

She stared at him as he walked past her and out the door. No one else moved.

“Well, then. Doctor Suzuki?” The doctor flinched slightly at hearing her name. “You said we’ve another subject for the next test?”

“Y… yes.” Suzuki, too, just stared at the test chamber.

“Good. We’ll start again, tomorrow. I’ll go write the report.”