Building the World
What are some unique ways you can create a setting for your novel that is both memorable and stands out?
In my light novel series, I made a world that is a diagonally vertical array of seven spheres the size of Earth each. They aren’t in a solar system, nor are they aimlessly floating in space. Each sphere has its own Flame, and they also have differing aurora patterns that rain down full flowers, petals, and blossoms every time two mysterious spirals in the sky eclipse each other for a length of time.
The spheres all play literal music as the characters interact with the world, with the ocean playing bass notes, and a thunderclap sounding more like an 808 drum than what we find in our world.
There are unique locations in this world, such as a plain full of disco flowers that are shaped like disco balls.
In The Voided Promises of Noble Songs, there is a mansion that only lets you enter each room (which has its own mystery piece needing to be collected to enter the basement) by gambling in different forms.
Violeste is terrible at gambling, while other characters fare better than she does as they go through a massive mansion with a casino aesthetic.
Different aesthetics also add character to the world, making it feel lived in and alive.
In the first novel, the characters’ journey midpoint is a place where water weeps along the waltzing sandbars, called the Waltzing Weeps.
These sandbars then lead to a continent made up of several large islands, and the aesthetic of the culture of Treblesong is more islander-like than Stanzielle’s home chordel, which is also near the beach, but from a far more moderate climate than the tropical Treblesong.
Each settlement has an auroral node with a name that I either make up the language for or tie it to a foreign language that exists in our world. These massive structures provide power for the hexagonal grid system that flows through the spheres.
The world of Orchestrylus is one where the people have learned to live in harmony with nature, where the world is high tech and natural all at once. The landscape of the world is intermixed with the wilderness in some creative ways (meaning the culture of the spheres of Orchestrylus, not me). There might be bridges of lush vegetation mixed with hexagonal points where the energy of the symphonic streams is harvested for human use.
But simultaneously, the world is constantly at war, so while the people have learned to follow the path of nature, there is massive destruction happening as well.
The money in this world is called “tunes” instead of gold or silver pieces.
Alucinized instruments are made of pure light, created from the symphonic streams. But the Euphonious Phoenixes must offer you a glimmerdell mark on your neck to be able to wield one. These ancient beings rule the spheres, and while sighting them is rare, they help offer a sense of mystery to the world as I explain the concept as the characters’ journey unfolds.
Everything in the world can build the same world.
Think of unique spins on common concepts or collide two different things together to form a new concept.
Be it weapons, money, the locations the characters visit, everything used correctly serves to enhance the world and make it come alive.
Be daring and see what you come up with.
But the secret to making these worlds is knowing that there is no box to think outside of. The possibilities are limitless—and you can try anything you’d like to.
