Writing Wednesday: World refined

When last we left our intrepid authoress...

We'd done some fairly large info dumps regarding this new world that's taking shape, so this Wednesday we're going to refine it down into something we can actually work with.  Once I do a bunch of info dumps, usually in the form of a series of snapshots into the character's world (i.e. really badly written short stories), I pare it down into the basics and make a notes file for it.

Let's start with the character, Ashe Rae Steinburg.  First thing I did was drop the 'Rae' part.  Yes, it's nice to know her middle name but everyone calls her 'Ashe' so it makes sense not to keep putting the middle name into everything.  First in the notes is the character's actual description.

Ashe is 5'8", 145 lbs, toned, and has flame red hair with ink black tips.  She has nine piercings not including her ears, her ears are pierced, she has a full back tattoo which everyone sees bits of because of her choice in clothing after a certain point in the story - which is also when she starts getting the tats.  She's got two partial sleeves on her arms and an ornate 'D' tattooed on the back of her neck.


Great.  Now we've established her looks.  Let's move on to the personality.

Ashe is a Deviant - both sterile and into BDSM.  She makes her living serving drinks when she'd rather bash people over the heads with the bottles for being mindless sheep.  She's very bitter towards the government because of her sterilization and the subsequent destruction of her dreams.  She's loud, opinionated, and isn't afraid of sharing those opinions.  She runs on adrenaline most of the time because she's generally always afraid.  Her loud behavior helps hide that fear.  She's a Domme in the BDSM subculture because that puts her in total control of whoever is her submissive.  She needs to feel this control because she has no control over the rest of her life.


So now we know what she looks like, and that she's always scared but uses her fear to fuel her rather outspoken personality.  Now...what about the WORLD she inhabits?

Dark.  Gritty.  There's no sunlight.  The city is under a perpetual cloud cover.  The ozone layer deteriorated enough that people were affected on a massive level.  To protect humans, at some point in the past someone came up with the idea to seed a perpetual cloud cover and add in all of the protections the ozone used to give.


Ashe lives in the Alley with the rest of the Lurkers.  The Alley is the area beneath the upper echelons of the city where all "law abiding citizens" live.  The upper part of the city is actually home to the middle and upper class.  Everyone else scrapes for scraps in the Alley.  Everyone in the upper tiers wears dark, sober clothing.  Nothing too tight, nothing too revealing.  This is in keeping with the laws about unauthorized breeding.


Down in the Alley, color and indecency seem to be the normal way of things among the better off Lurkers.  Public transport is the only method of transportation available, except to the exceptionally wealthy.  Public transports are crowded, smelly, and dirty all the time.  Buildings tower higher than even the tallest buildings today, driving up into the steel grey sky like spear points.  They are the major source of light in the Alley, and that light is very dim.


Now we have a glimpse - a snapshot - of the setting.  What about the people?  Who else besides Ashe inhabits this world?

Jan - m - Ashe's first lover; drops her after they're caught having sex outside the breeding facility
Liana - f - Ashe's second lover; commits suicide after she and Ashe are sterilized and become Deviants
Jack - m - Bar regular and Ashe's best friend in the Alley
Lucen - m - government leader who continuously butts heads with the Lurkers and Deviants


Lurkers - The poor, the deviants, the Deviants, and the eccentric who have either been forced or have actively chosen life in the Alley
Deviants - Sterilized by the government for having sex outside breeding facilities
Sec Pats - the security patrols who ostensibly keep order in the Alley but are almost as corrupt as the government


See?  Now we have something to work with.  Finally, the plot.  You can have all the characters, pretty settings, and interesting tidbits of fact you want but without a reason for them all to play nicely together you don't have a story.

Ashe has to get past everything that's happened to her in order to help make a better future for her world.  The government has become too corrupt and no longer cares for the needs of the people - just for the needs of their pocketbook.  All rebellions have been crushed with excessive force in the past.  Ashe and her Deviant friends must find a way to bring the life of the Deviants into the light again.


Not much detail in the plot, but that's okay.  Right now we're just going for the basics.  Yes, it's the typical "rebels are rebelling against the status quo".  But if it weren't such a fascinating cliche, it wouldn't BE cliche.

Next week we'll get our first look at how Ashe interacts with her world and learn a little more about Lucen, the face of the antagonist in the story.