Meme #12

12. In what story did you feel you did the best job of worldbuilding? Any side-notes on it you’d like to share?

I have to assume that this doesn’t mean world building in the traditional SF sense, in which you literally do build the world from the type of sun , the orbit, the geology and the history upwards.  If it does mean that, then The Witch’s Boy is the only one I did anything of that sort, and that was very pseudo 11th Century England with added Holy Roman Empire with wizards.

Taking “worldbuilding” to mean “establishing a convincing setting”, I’d say it was a toss up between False Colors and The Wages of Sin.  With both of those, I took special care to add lots of detail so that you could smell and taste the setting, and I had characters react in ways which were there specifically to convince the reader that we were not in the modern day any more.  (George patronizing the sister he loves, simply because she’s a woman.  Charles suggesting that Jasper should wear more make-up.  Alfie reflecting that John was too much of a gentleman to ever forgive someone who hit him.  That sort of thing.)

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