The Temptations of Worldbuilding

Trinity City is a setting, not a story in itself. I want a place where I can set crime stories inspired by the news in Calgary, Toronto, or Vancouver (Or New York, or Tokyo) without having to deal with the physical and historical realities of each and every city. Trinity has it’s own history, neighbourhoods, and socioeconomic issues, all of which let me map story ideas from other urban centres into the Trinity setting.

But Trinity is the setting, not the story. It’s tempting to get into insane detail, to indulge my imagination and go fractal with the maps and histories. Which would be a lot of fun for the RPG Game Master in me, but would get me exactly nowhere with the story outlines and would leave the actual characters lifeless and untold.

So as fun as it is, it’s time to move past J-Town and Little Naha, past Croker Narrows and Foundry Heights, and move on to Frank Mabes and Kelli Turi standing over a corpse in a Thames alley.

Welcome to Trinity, Murder Capital of Canada.