G is for Geography

from Rebekah Loper’s book called The A-Zs of Worldbuilding: Building a Fictional World From Scratch

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Zebulon is broken up into sections, and each one has a number. Zebulon is the main community and within it, there are about 20 residential buildings called Zebulon 1, Zebulon 2, etc. There are an additional 5 buildings that are full of resources: growing centers, childcare centers, manufacturing, food production, technology development, etc. The residential buildings are all based on essentially the same floor plan, so some of them can be repurposed when there are more children in the community.

Underground tunnels connect the buildings within Zebulon. Underground trains connect Zebulon to other communities. The closest community outside Zebulon is an hour trek on a high-speed train. The closest one is called Enfield, and there are others besides that throughout the continent. They only focus on their interconnected communities as the geography has made it impossible to traverse to other continents.

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Above you see my description that I wrote based on the extensive questions in The A-Zs of Worldbuilding. Below, you can read an excerpt from Chapter 27 from my novel Exploration. This one is actually just before the one posted yesterday!

Remember this (and most) of my posts contain adult content!

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I couldn’t believe Marchand wasn’t going to tell me where we were going. I wanted to know, but at the same time, there was something thrilling about not knowing. Would we go to his room? Was his room just like mine? Would he take me to a room on an Exploration floor? No, he wasn’t supposed to do that. Were we supposed to be doing this? No one had told us we couldn’t see each other, just that we couldn’t have sex with each other off-camera. So what the hell was this?

Marchand guided me out of the building and turned me to the left. When we got to the end of the building, I expected to turn left toward my building, but we kept going straight. Building 15 was looming in front of me. It was just a residential building. Was it his residential building?

He waved to the person at the desk when we entered, and I knew something was up. It was too late in the day for a regular shift at the desk.

We went to the elevator, and he pressed a button. Down and down and down we went. The doors opened up to an empty hallway, cement floors, dim lights. I looked at Marchand, but his face gave nothing away.

He took my hand and led me down hallway after hallway. I would never be able to get out of this place on my own if my life depended on it. And then finally the hallway ended in a door. He knocked on the door, but it wasn’t a regular knock. It had some kind of pattern to it. I wondered if a regular knock would have received the welcome we did.

A tall, red-haired man opened the door. “Welcome,” he said, and he stepped back to let us enter.

“Hey, Pete,” Marchand said.

“Hi, Marchand. Who’s your friend?”

“This is Mara.”

“Hi, Mara, welcome to The Underground.”

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What is The Underground?

Who is Pete?

Find out all that and in Exploration or come back tomorrow to learn more!