Blog Tour: The City of Lost Dreamers by Lisa Lueddecke

Happy Monday, Book Dragons!

I’m so excited to kick off the blog tour for the brilliant The City of Lost Dreamers by Lisa Lueddecke! I loved Lost Dreamers from start to finish, my review will go up later this week. Now onto the good stuff, I have a guest post written by Lisa to share with you, its a good one, trust me!

Happy reading!

Writing A Cartography-Based Magic System
By Lisa Lueddecke

So far, this has been the first question that most people ask me when I tell them about the book, or when they read it for themselves. Why maps? What inspired that? And there isn’t one clear answer, but a lot of little answers put together.

My biggest reason for building a magic system based around maps stems from the fact that as someone who loves to read fantasy books, the most exciting part for me has always been to open a book to the first few pages, and then spend an hour staring at the map. I have a map of Skyrim hanging on my wall, and even though I’ve seen it a hundred times, it still holds excitement every time I study it. There is something about seeing a whole world or a city or a forest sketched out on paper like it’s a real place, and you’re about to go there. What could feel more like magic than that?

Maps also lended themselves to a sort of rigorously-guarded magic system in the world of The City of Lost Dreamers, because it’s all about being carefully designed and sketched out before adding something like an incantation. There are rules and guidelines and everything must be done on paper, which adds a nice sense that there are practical failsafes in place. If you want to build something or change something about the city or the world, it has to be meticulously drawn out before being brought to life. I loved that idea.

And then, of course, the entire concept lended itself to things going wrong, or power being in the wrong hands, and that’s where the story comes in. It was so exciting to sketch out the magic system first, and then see the story sort of staring me in the face. I’ve never written a book like that before, and the process was exhilarating.

The City of Lost Dreamers by Lisa Lueddecke is out now.

Add to Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58663667-the-city-of-lost-dreamers

Buy from: Waterstones Hive