Wow, no fossil fuels? I didn't remember, from what I heard you read at Cap, it being that different a world -- though I don't think you went into much explanation of the technological and economic basis of the world, I took it for more steampunk -- so no common use of liquid petroleum-based transportation fuels, but having coal based industry, so you have trains, factories in a location without water (or really good wind) power, and steel.
If your Chicago is a big city, it has to be a transport hub, which presumably means linking Great Lakes shipping to the inland rivers and the canal systems (which were just getting going when they were supplanted by railroads).
I could chat about this sort of world building background stuff for a long time, but I gotta run now, and if you're trying to NaNoWriMo you probably don't want to spend a huge amount of time on this now, especially for a world that you already know in your own head...
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Date: 2010-11-06 02:48 pm (UTC)If your Chicago is a big city, it has to be a transport hub, which presumably means linking Great Lakes shipping to the inland rivers and the canal systems (which were just getting going when they were supplanted by railroads).
I could chat about this sort of world building background stuff for a long time, but I gotta run now, and if you're trying to NaNoWriMo you probably don't want to spend a huge amount of time on this now, especially for a world that you already know in your own head...