Fantasy Cities and Towns

Describing locations in fantasy books is often a lot more in-depth than in any kind of modern fiction story set in the real world, for obvious reasons. It’s easy enough to get away with saying “it was a town like any other ordinary town in [America/Britain/Denmark/wherever]” because many readers will have lived in, visited, or otherwise just seen in other forms of media the kind of town that’s being referenced. It loses a modicum of impact when you say “it was a town like any other in Cardolan,” though.

In terms of both fantasy and modern fiction it’s largely dictated by the writing style of the author, of course, but generally speaking more elaboration is called for in an entirely fictional world into which only the author can see.

I find it much easier to give a clear picture of the settlement in question if it’s a place that the characters return to often; such places often develop a character of their own, in a way, like the iconic Ankh-Morpork in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, from which I can name streets that have been visited by multiple characters from that world. Describe enough parts of a place, and revisit it enough times, and it does take on a familiarity, both for the readers and the author, which allows more vivid imagery to form and a greater picture of the town/city/farmstead/whatever location you want to be compiled.

I have a harder time writing a snapshot description of a place that will not be visited again – a one-time visit to a certain town along one character’s path, that they won’t be coming back to, that will never be written about again. In short, if there’s anything I want to say about this place, I have to get it all out in the one description, and I find this to be a lot of pressure.

Ironically, I’m the opposite when it comes to people; it’s much easier for me to describe a minor character who probably won’t be elaborated on again than to describe a major character who will probably be seen in a different light later by somebody else, I think mostly because I really want to capture the major characters in exactly the right way.

I started thinking about all of this because of what I wrote today, roughly two thousand words (which is my daily goal, for now), which contained a description of an Irtysu town called Cillasca that the story won’t be revisiting after this part:

“…they were still a very noticeable band as they crested the lip of the rise below which Cillasca sat, squat and crowded, inside a sheltered valley, plumes of chimney smoke rising into the air like beacons. As with many Irtysu settlements, it had originally been positioned in the dell for strategic reasons, and had gradually outgrown the natural defensive walls of the valley, leading to partial excavation of rock in some places and in others a few clusters of houses perched on the walls above the rest of the settlement, and clumped buildings bordered by wooden barricades squeezing out of each end of the basin.

Though the rooves were a mixture of slate tiles and cheaper thatch, the buildings were all made of stone, each and every one, as was the standard across Irtysuhëm and indeed in Havershom as well. In the cold of the Winter Peninsula, wood as a building material was only really used for ships, barricades, weapons and shields, and furniture, since it would burn too easily to make building houses out of it very practical in a land where fires were essential and raiders a very real possibility. As a result, stonemasonry and quarrying were important industries all across the Winter Peninsula, and this was one of the reasons Serutric often found himself having to push further and further east to reach truly wild parts of his people’s land, since quarries would pop up anywhere where sufficient amounts of stone could be extracted.

There was one, rather small by usual Irtysu standards, on the western outskirts of Cillasca, above the township and mostly out of sight; Serutric knew that Gullinis, having been born a farmer, preferred fields and animals to mining and industry, as he did, which was probably why the nearby quarry was so unusually modest. Beyond the northern borders of the settlement were several plantations of blue ash trees, which were grown specially to be harvested and carted off to the shipwrights, and were the Ascandar tribe’s main offering to his father, where other tribes often sent stone or food.”

I prefer a more piecemeal description of the larger cities in my story, as with the Havershonian capital city Lockolme where I gradually build up a picture of the slate rooves and cobbled streets, noting its position below the mountains and adding specific districts and buildings that are crucial over time as the story spends more time there. But for Cillasca, especially given what will be happening there, I needed to get the description all out at once.

Is this usual for fantasy stories? I am not sure, though I am quite curious. The fantasy books I have read most are of course The Lord of the Rings, and Tolkien could never resist the urge to describe any part of his world. It is naturally very important as a writing technique, particularly in fantasy, in order to draw the reader into the world, so I hope that my descriptions turn out satisfactorily.

If I can create even a tenth as vivid a world as Tolkien managed to do, I will be a happy woman.