👉👈 do you by chance have any tips for worldbuilding in a cyberpunk story?
oh boy cyberpunk!
My world-building approach for all genres typically starts out with looking for inspiration. Whether it’s scrolling through pinterest, reading cyberpunk (or other genre) books, watching movies/shows in the genre, listening to cyberpunk music mixes on youtube, or all of the above, inspiration is key. All that (combined with the very weird dreams my subconscious keeps giving me, I’ve gotta be honest) give me a “what” I want in my story. Then comes the “why.”
So for cyberpunk, you’re typically dealing with a dystopia, centered on technology in some way. Basically what I do is think of what kind of technology exists in this world, and then reverse engineer why it’s there. Cyborgs in Bias & Bionics exist in-universe because the very rich fleeing Earth needed “expendable” people to undergo very dangerous and expensive surgery so they could safely fly the ships carrying them. First, I came up with the idea of cyberpunk Pride & Prejudice in space. So of course, there have to be cyborgs, right? But a fundamental part of the story is that Darcy and Lizzie belong to different classes/statuses. So cyborgs have to be considered “less than” somehow. Ta-da, reverse engineering the history which gives the cyborgs a whole hell of a lot of debt that has kept building up over the years.
I don’t know if any of this is actually helpful, or if it’s already really obvious or too general to be of any help. But if you want to talk about more specific details and/or just have someone to bounce ideas off of, feel free to message me!