Before I got too lost in a rabbit hole of urban planning for my capital city, I took a step back to think about what level of detail I really needed for this scene.
My characters are going to visit a series of three markets from the upscale shops by the castle down to the docks, so I needed to describe the difference in those three markets and the surrounding areas of the city, the sliding scale of wealth from the top to bottom of the city and from the center to the outskirts – as well as the exceptions to that rule – but beyond that, I really don’t want to go into too much detail.
I will be revisiting this city in the next several scenes, as well as later in the book or series, so I don’t want to describe so much that I trap myself out from a feature that I need to add later. I need the specifics for this scene and broad strokes for the rest.
The most important think about the setting is how the descriptions reflect my characters’ relationship with the city and their state of mind during the scenes set here, so I have given myself what I hope is enough canvas for that.
We’ll see how well it worked when I get to the actual writing tomorrow!