World Building Example

This is an example of some world building I had to do for one of my stories. Voyageurs is set in two time periods -- the Chaos of 2065, and 2015. This segment is told from the viewpoint of Ian Daiichi Akimoto, a Traveller (time traveler) of the Chaos. (I'm not claiming that my writing is a superlative example of world building or any writing; I'm just showing you how I did it).

Notice that much of the world building is done by 1) description; 2) comparison to an earlier time; 3) things that Ian takes for granted daily. This book also uses the unique vernacular of Travellers and of the daredevil subgroup known as Travellers, but they're not present in this section.

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I went to my room and changed out of the shorts into my gauze button-down shirt in plaid and a khaki pair of men’s knee-shorts that I had washed that month. It would be quite hot outside, as it was May. Berkeley had told me once that May used to be on the cool side. Not anymore, not in the time of the Chaos.

I strapped on my walking sandals, because even the bus-trains that had replaced cars were instruments of global warming, and I couldn’t justify the wait for the bus-train for such a short walk. I also strapped on my hydration bladder, because 110-degree weather required precious water. I put on homemade sunscreen against the brutal rays and headed out.

As I walked on 39^th Street, I saw nobody on the sidewalks, but full bus-trains motored past me. I saw no cars, because cars had been outlawed in my birth year. My parents had told me that even electric cars had been outlawed because of the violent reactions that the carless had had to the few who could afford electric cars. Hundreds of people nationwide had died because of those riots.

Houses on the path down the hill looked like houses in most parts of town — sagging, crumbling piles of grey with patches of old paint and rags stuffed into cracked windows. Houses in the wealthy part of town had been built underground so they couldn’t be destroyed by mob action. As concrete took a huge amount of water to produce, I wondered how those houses could be built in a time of rationing. 

As I said, the ComfortZone sprawl included a college and many clinics once upon a time. The shells of the college, and many of the clinics, crumbled into dust. I steered clear of the college, got lost anyway, and then stood in front of the glass doors of ComfortZone. A sign on the door reminded people that their sacrifice served God and country.

A helpful greeter who thought I looked hopelessly lost steered me to the elevators with instructions to the oncology wing. Oncology’s walls, like most walls in the complex, were pasty and scuffed, with signs of peeling paint. At the reception desk, I asked how Carlie Peterson fared, and a big redheaded nurse said tersely, “I cannot give you that information under CIA,” which I interpreted to be the Citizen Information Act. I suspected that if I had been Homeland or the local Police, I would have been freely granted the information. The nurse then smiled and waited for me to ask another question, one he could safely answer.

I finally settled on, “Is Ms. Peterson taking guests today?” The nurse nodded and said, “She’s in room 324.” He escorted me down a winding series of scuffed, dirty halls.

Once in room 324, I saw a single bed swathed in white against pale mint walls that could have used painting. A gaunt woman with ice-blue eyes sat in the bed knitting. Her patchy white hair failed to hide pieces of pink scalp. She looked up and smiled at me, and I thought that she must have been quite an electrifying woman when young and healthy.

She interrupted my reverie with, “So, are you Berkeley’s pup?”

“I’m twenty-five,” I sputtered.

“I’m sixty. You’re a pup,” she countered. I would have guessed her as much older with the wrinkles and hollows in her face. She squinted at me and said, “You’re the only Traveller I’ve met who wears it in his face.” I knew she meant the comma-shaped pattern of freckles on my cheeks, the ones that transform my face from exotic to boyish. 

“You’re a Traveller, then?” I asked as I sat, sitting in the cracked beige guest chair.

“Yes. You never cease to be a Traveller just because you don’t travel anymore. The doctors marvel over my Blaschko’s lines every time they check my heartbeat. They think I’m simply a chimera.” 

“I’m supposed to ask you about two people,” I changed the subject. “Harold Martin and Wanda Smith. Were they Travellers?”

“They were. Harold may still be alive. I wouldn’t know; Harold wouldn’t contact me unless he had something to gain from me. Last year, he actually tried to influence me to change my will so that a bogus charity of his would benefit from my estate.” She looked up and smirked. “He didn’t succeed.”

“How did you catch him at it?” I asked, curious.

“When he tried to kill me after I had signed the document, of course,” she shrugged.

“How did you get out of that?” I leaned forward.

“Rolled out of his way, grabbed the will, and transported to 2070 to tear it up.”

“Why 2070?” I asked.

“Because I figured that was five years after I’d die, so I wouldn’t cross myself. Things get strange when you cross yourself.” Such as they had with my own parents, who died of a mistake they knew better than to make.

Apparently, Ms. Peterson suspected she would die this year. Given the gauntness of her face and body, I suspected she was correct. She didn’t seem to be perturbed.

“Ian, you haven’t asked me about Wanda.”

“What about Wanda?”

“She died in 2017. She crossed herself. I always suspected that there was something more to that. She had too much skill for such a simple mistake.

“Is this why Berkeley sent me here?” I asked her.

“Yes, we thought that if we set you on this mystery, you might find something. You do see the mystery — Travellers make mistakes they knew better than to make, and they die. Setting you in motion might pay off in other ways. I’m not sure.” She set down her knitting and beckoned me over. She took my hand in hers and said, “I’m glad to see you again.” Again?

As I trudged through the walk home, the sweat evaporating as it formed, I thought about Carlie Peterson’s belief that she had remembered me. I knew all about false memories, which could be added through suggestion, through doctored pictures, etc. Or she might have remembered someone who looked like me many years ago. I had never seen her before, however. 

I glanced up. A dragonfly hovered above me, which seemed impossible after years of drought. Travellers nicknamed them ‘time flies’ from a children’s story. My mother had read the story to me when she was still alive.
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For you Kansas Citians -- ComfortZone used to be called St. Luke's. There are other sections where Country Club Plaza gets described as a burned-out shell where desperately deprived people live, and the library has been razed to build a garage for police riot vehicles (think MREPs and the like).