How do I create a fictional city?
World Building: Creating a Fictional City
I recommend using a real city (or a few real cities) as inspiration for your fictional city. Having real places to refer to for things like weather, layout, population, culture, etc. can help tremendously when planning out a fictional city.
If you're creating a modern/contemporary city, use current cities as inspiration. If your story is set in an earlier era, look for information about your inspiration cities in the era of your story to get era-specific details.
If you're creating a city for a pre-modern era (such as a fictional medieval city or a city for a Bronze Age fantasy), you can again look for information about real cities that existed in the era most like the one you want to portray. For example, if you need to create a fictional city for a medieval-style European-inspired fantasy, you could use medieval London, Paris, and Toledo (Spain) as inspiration.
If you're creating a futuristic city for a Science-Fiction or Science-Fantasy story, you can look to modern cities that have futuristic elements. Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, Tokyo, and Shanghai are all considered to be modern cities with futuristic elements. You can also look to other fictional futuristic cities for inspiration, though you obviously don't want to directly copy anything from an existing fictional city.
Once you've found your inspiration cities, here are some things you can do to familiarize yourself with them and figure out what elements you want to incorporate into your fictional city:
1 - Look for images of the city via Google, including searching for images of specific elements like parks, buildings, shopping areas, etc.
2 - Watch walk-throughs and tours of your inspiration cities on YouTube or Vimeo, or watch documentaries or travel videos about the cities. (You can even find these for ancient cities since historians and archaeologists often create them using computer animation.)
3 - Look through your streaming services or library's offerings to see if you can find travel videos or documentaries about the cities. You can also look for travel guides and "coffee table books" for more information and imagery.
4 - Look online for blogs written by residents who live in the cities. You can use search terms like "living in L.A. blog" or "life in London blog" to find some.
5 - Use Google Street View, Google Earth, or other app/software to do your own walk-through/exploration of a city.
Have fun with your world building!
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