Worldbuilding

It’s one word. Who knew? Not me. I just looked it up to see if I’d need a hyphen. Anyway…

In literary circles, the term is generally used in relation to sci-fi, fantasy, and paranormal stories. But that doesn’t mean it can’t refer to every day life on planet Earth. And in the case of the series I’m putting all of my writer’s block hopes in, I need to create a fictional town. A small town in northern lower Michigan. As opposed to Michigan’s Yooper-filled Upper Peninsula, which is across the Mighty Mackinaw Bridge (where Lakes Huron and Michigan meet).

 

 

I was making really good progress on that, basic plots for each book, and the beginnings of characters I hope we’ll all fall in love with. But three days after my last blog post, I wound up getting what I thought was a flu virus but sounds like it’s RSV instead. So I don’t really know what that is, nor do I care. It’s seems to be a bit worse than a cold but not as bad as the flu though so I’ll be glad to bid it goodbye. I hate being sick.

While I’m getting over it, I’m still doing some work in the plotting and character creation but not as much as I’d like. All the coughing is interrupting my sleep, and just wiping me out. So I decided the next best thing to forcing myself to think coherently would be to find some television series about small town life and do a little binge watching.

That led me to Everwood, a series I loved in the early 2000’s. For some reason I’ve never understood, I missed the last few episodes so when I found it on Hulu, I had to watch them. But now I’m on the fifteenth episode in season one. And I’m remembering that there was one thing I absolutely hated about it – and I still do.

While the show ended in 2006, I’ll put ***SPOILER ALERT*** here so if you haven’t seen it, it won’t ruin it for you. In case you ever decide to give it a whirl. I’ll tell you about the story line I hate after the trailer below…

Now for the spoiler alert. Technically, only the first season was about Colin and whenever I think of Everwood, I’ll always be sad the powers that be decided his story needed to end. I still enjoyed the rest of the series – but I really did like Colin.

***END OF SPOILER***

Everwood is a prime example of why I tend to like stories set in small towns. While everyone might not know everyone else, you know enough other residents that you almost always run into someone while dining out or shopping. And it’s really nice.

It’s that atmosphere I worked hard to add to the Coach’s Boys series. And that I’m trying to achieve with this series, only on a larger scale. The atmosphere, not the town. 

I’ll be sharing progress on the new series here, and in my newsletter. In fact, subscribers to the newsletter will likely get a few more sneak peeks than visitors to the blog. So if you want to get everything, you might want to subscribe now. Just click the link below:

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Photo Credit: Pexels.com

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2 Responses to Worldbuilding

  1. I don’t like being in a small town. Way too many people in your business and not much to do. Plus, if anything goes wrong, it’s hard to find someone to repair the house. LOL But I like writing, reading, and watching movies about a small town.

    • Kristy K. James says:

      I live close to several small towns – but I choose to spend most of my time in the largest of them. I did live in one of the others for a few years. I mean, I’m talking less than 1,700 people. Everyone really was in your business all the time, and if you sneezed wrong, the rumor mill started buzzing. But it was fun. In fact, that was where, as a teen, I had my first story published. I think it was an 8-part series published over the course of two months. My dad thought it was great that he heard some stuff around town about it. It was a mystery and people thought it was real, lol. One of these days, I might publish it – in 8 parts – on my blog. I haven’t read it in ages. Be interesting to see how my writing has changed since then.

      Like you, I love reading, writing, and watching movies set in small towns. Actually living it though? It’s pretty interesting. It also tends to keep you on the straight and narrow. 😀 😀 😀

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