In the first edition of my email newsletter (October 1st, 2013, which you can read here), I included some behind-the-scenes info about the city of Bastul that fans hadn’t been able to read anywhere else. With my next newsletter scheduled to go out on January 1st, 2014, I thought I would share that portion of October’s content here on my blog. If you would like access to this type of information as soon as it is available, please sign up for my email newsletter here.
The City of Bastul
Aside from the scenes that occur in our own world, the Awakened story begins in and around the city of Bastul, which is a fitting place to kick-off this segment. Bastul is the southernmost city in the Orudan Empire, located on the tip of a finger of land—not quite a peninsula. Because of its location, citizens can see both the sunrise and sunset over the ocean. It is a port city, inspired by the Greek Isles, with white stone buildings of Greek/Roman architecture in the wealthier districts and wooden structures in the poorer districts. The surrounding terrain is characterized by rolling foothills with taller mountains farther inland (in the distance). The trees are clustered into forests with sparse areas between (neither heavily forested, nor bare). The coastline is a mixture of white sandy beaches (with dunes and clumps of long, pale grasses) and rocky outcroppings (with shrubbery). Warm weather, sunrises, and sunsets are what I imagined when thinking about this city.
Most of the fantasy stories I read growing up took place in misty, England-inspired settings and usually involved dragons and knights. When I began writing in the winter of 1998, I knew I wanted an entirely different backdrop for my series. I was inspired by research into the late Greek/early Roman civilizations and a drier, dustier landscape seemed to provide the gritty realism that I wanted. Little did I know that several movies (such as Gladiator, Troy, 300, Clash of the Titans, etc.) would soon popularize this time period and setting. Bastul was the city that encapsulated this backdrop, set the tone for the rest of my story, and represented my attempt at bucking the trends of the fantasy genre.
For your viewing pleasure, here is a rough sketch that helped me orient my imagination while writing those first scenes:
