Writing about a setting

[Yora]

You will find a lot of advice that the setting exists to serve the plot and not the other way around. And it's something I very much agree with.

However, I find myself in the unfortunate position that the creative spark that really motivates me to write is a very clear vision for a setting of a kind that I feel is regretfully missing from fantasy books. And I can tell from experience that this doesn't work really well. Finding a plot that serves the setting is hard, and it gives me a new appreciation for writers who write commissioned novels for existing settings from other media.

But supposed you do find yourself in such a situation where the setting is already picked and you have basically full freedom to come up with a plot and characters for a book. How would you approach it? For me it has been a very slow and not very satisfying process so far.

 

[Penpilot]

The setting serving the plot is only one approach to things. It all depends on what you want to do. It's valid to flip things and have a plot that is nothing more than a directed excursion to show off your setting. Obviously, the plot still has to be interesting enough to keep the reader's interest, but like I said, there's nothing wrong with this approach.

You should check out this Writing Excuses episode. They talk about Orson Scott Card's M.I.C.E. Quotient in stories. It's from his book How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy. It explores how there are different types of stories, and how they each have a different purpose and focus. Some focus on showing off the milieu/setting. Some focus on ideas. Some focus on an characters or an event.

Writing Excuses 6.10: Scott Card’s M.I.C.E. Quotient

 

[WooHooMan]

Make a character you like and have them explore. The character is the story, not the setting. If the character works, you can drop them in just about any setting.
That's the easy answer, I guess.

 

[skip.knox]

Setting does matter for me. I use real Earth for my setting, so I have to choose both time and place. Both matter. For example, people learn over the centuries more and more about how magic really works--the science of magic, if you will. So if I set a story in, say, the 7th century, I can't have characters dealing with numerology or alchemy. Their understanding of magic is heroic--it's a power wielded by gifted individuals. The time period also sets parameters on technology, on what characters believe about the world and their past.

Place matters because it provides the physical details. I know where the towns and rivers and mountains are. I know how long it takes to get from Here to There, and the four different routes of travel. The place provides the political context for the story, even if it's just to reference a distant king. The setting gives me the atmosphere--whether it's a castle high in the Alps, the marshlands of the Rhone River delta, or the mile-long hills of Dacia. Each place has its own animals and plants, its own weather, even its own quality of air and light. That provides me the vocabulary for setting mood.

To me, setting is to writing as instrument is to song writing. In theory, you can just write the song, and indeed many songwriters do just that. But the choice of instrument matters greatly to me. I do not compose the same way with a guitar as with a piano as with loops and a drum machine. When you start with a different place, you end in a different place.

 

[Svrtnsse]

I started by creating a setting, and I had no intention of writing stories in it. I designed it to be used for a pen and paper roleplaying game. The stories happened later.

In this way, the stories serve the setting, but I'm pretty confident I could tell very similar stories in a completely different setting.

I've put a whole lot of work into my setting, but I'm also very careful not to show it off to the reader too much at a time. The stories are about the characters, and the setting is the backdrop. I think that by having a pre-defined setting and letting the characters adapt to it, I bring more of a sense of life to the stories. The setting isn't just there to support the story - it's a limitation on what kind of story I can tell.

Yes, I'm aware that doesn't really mesh very well with my previous statement about how I could write similar stories in a different setting.

 

[Yora]

Make a character you like and have them explore. The character is the story, not the setting. If the character works, you can drop them in just about any setting.
That's the easy answer, I guess.

Write stories around interesting elements that are specific to the setting? That sounds like a good idea.

I've put a whole lot of work into my setting, but I'm also very careful not to show it off to the reader too much at a time. The stories are about the characters, and the setting is the backdrop. I think that by having a pre-defined setting and letting the characters adapt to it, I bring more of a sense of life to the stories. The setting isn't just there to support the story - it's a limitation on what kind of story I can tell.

It's a limitation. But when you have a setting that stands out from the masses, you in turn also have stories that could not be told the same way in other settings.

I guess a good start might be to pick two or three distinctive elements of the world and create a story in which these play a prominent and central role.

 

[Svrtnsse]

A limitation in this sense isn't a bad thing. It gives you a framework within which to play and it gives you tools to use in your storytelling.

One thing my beta readers often bring up is that they're curious to know more about this or that aspect of the world. I believe this is a good thing - partially because it means they're interested, but mostly because it shows they believe there's more to tell (there is). It shows they feel like the world is alive and that there's more to it than what they see, and that tickles their imagination.

 

[Yora]

Do you do anything specific to get this effect?

Make a character you like and have them explore. The character is the story, not the setting. If the character works, you can drop them in just about any setting.

I have started to try creating a cast of characters who are loosely connected in their motivations and whose paths could cross in interesting ways I'l see how that works out.

 

[pmmg]

I don't think it will be helpful, but if someone was to give me a setting, I would almost instantly think of a character. You say snowy plain with sparse trees, and I think a barbarian wanderer, you say dense jungle, hot and humid, and I think of a naked warrior painted in jade. I don't think it will matter much the setting, least not to me. I am sure I can find a character to put in it, and the rest is just the story. What is character doing? Off to rescue someone? Running from pursuers? Trying to survive? and from that it all flows.

I suppose I should say, for some stories the setting can be almost its own character, and for others it is just background paintings. For most of what I write, I think it would just be background paintings.. Stories for which the setting plays a much more important role, well, I think the setting would have to then be part of the conflict. How does one survive on Mars? Man -vs- Mars brings up a lot of difficulties, such as environment, lack of food and water, temperature, dust storms, and if was to go further and treat Mars as a character, maybe it is actually that is not rooting for the man's survival. Maybe it seems to have its own motives?

I don't know.

But say "here is your challenge setting", I don't see that holding me up for very long. Even if it was just crazy, it would just be a story about something crazy.

 

[Svrtnsse]

Do you do anything specific to get this effect?

The basic principle is to not explain everything that's new and strange and interesting as soon as it appears - or even at all. If my characters are familiar with the concepts it doesn't make any sense for them to dwell on it, even if the reader doesn't know a thing about it.

There are two negative side effects to explanations that I avoid in this way.
1. I don't let the explanations get in the way of the story. They don't interrupt the flow of events, and the story itself feels more alive, this spills over to other things in the story, and as such they too feel more alive.
2. I don't remove the mystery from the unknown. By explaining a concept to my reader they become familiar with it. This highlights how it's something different and artificial that's made up, and it feels less real.

Instead of explaining my alien concepts to the reader I feed them little details through how the characters interact with the concepts throughout the story. I give them little puzzle pieces that they can fit together on their own. Not only does this increase their understanding of the concepts in the long run, but it also makes them more interested in finding out more.

At least, that's the theory. There's probably a bit of intuition and luck mixed up with it as well.

 

[skip.knox]

To give another kind of example, I had a character need affect setting. Specifically, as I began A Child of Great Promise, I knew one thing for sure: she didn't go to Hogwarts. That is, I was not going to have the character be going to any sort of wizard school. Just an arbitrary decsion. But now I had a problem. Where would a child without parents live for an extended period of time? Not with relatives or some such because they would simply become the surrogate parents.

So now general setting affected specific setting. This is alternate medieval, so a monastery would be an obvious choice. I did the Language Shuffle (not to be confused with the Harlem Shuffle), and placed her in a cenobitum. That setting, in turn, set parameters for more about building her character.

It also conditioned how I described that setting. Since she grew up there, I wasn't going to give some big explanation about what a cenobitum is, and not much about what it looks like. I needed only to describe things as she encountered them through the couple of days we see her there.

As others have noted, try thinking in terms of point of view. Like a camera, that's part of it, but also looking with the character's eyes. That can help in deciding what to describe in a room or as you come into a valley. At the same time, be on the watch for a grace note or two--a descriptive item that suggests something about the world, or that adds to the setting. For example, as Talysse enters the cenobitum for the first time (in the story) she climbs over the wall and into the main courtyard behind some orange trees. Now, they could have just been trees, or they could have been bushes, or they could have been Krellian Stoneflowers. I'd use an invented plant only if its peculiar characteristics affected the scene in some way. As just bushes or just trees, they're hardly even worth mentioning, except that they screen her from view for a moment. By making them orange trees, I was able to add another sense--smell--to the moment, and to reference them later.

There are, in short, many aspects to setting. Especially in fantasy and SF, it's nearly as important as character for establish the feel of the story.

 

[Yora]

2. I don't remove the mystery from the unknown. By explaining a concept to my reader they become familiar with it. This highlights how it's something different and artificial that's made up, and it feels less real.

Instead of explaining my alien concepts to the reader I feed them little details through how the characters interact with the concepts throughout the story. I give them little puzzle pieces that they can fit together on their own. Not only does this increase their understanding of the concepts in the long run, but it also makes them more interested in finding out more.

This is one of the really big things that are annoying me with a lot of fiction, especially when the supernatural is involved. Could be that it's changing now, but a few years back there seemed to be always a demand from parts of the audience to get every small detail fully explained and neatly wrapped up by the end. And creators apparently happily obliging, since people pay well for another installment that gives the answers they always wanted. But I really think that this hurts the whole point of having mystery in fantasy fiction in the first place.

The famous counterexample from recent year are the Dark Souls games. They have made it an art to keep things vague and leave it up to the audience to see patterns in the descriptions and appearance of things that are encountered. The director said he got the idea when he loved reading English fantasy novels in his youth while he still didn't speak English very well. He constantly encountered missing pieces of sometimes important information because he didn't know the words or only half-understood key sentences and had to fill in the resulting blanks with his own assumptions, which turned out to make the stories really interesting and exciting. I think that's something more writers should take into consideration.

It's the same thing as a good horror monster. There's horror, and there's gory monster carnage fiction. Lot's of stuff that is called horror these days is actually just the later. You don't show the full monster and explain it's full nature and origin in horror. In the same way, mystery fantasy shouldn't tell the audience what it is that the characters just encountered.

This is actually one aspect that I planed to include in the setting I made very early on. Giving it a prominent place in plot sounds like a great idea. Getting a better idea about what is happening to the characters is really diving into the peculiars of the setting.

 

[Svrtnsse]

My main inspiration for revealing the world in the manner is the Malazan Empire books by Steven Erikson. Things just happen and you're left to figure out the details on your own. Supposedly it makes for really good re-read value, but I haven't gotten around to that yet as I read very slow.

 

[Chessie2]

You will find a lot of advice that the setting exists to serve the plot and not the other way around. And it's something I very much agree with.

However, I find myself in the unfortunate position that the creative spark that really motivates me to write is a very clear vision for a setting of a kind that I feel is regretfully missing from fantasy books. And I can tell from experience that this doesn't work really well. Finding a plot that serves the setting is hard, and it gives me a new appreciation for writers who write commissioned novels for existing settings from other media.

But supposed you do find yourself in such a situation where the setting is already picked and you have basically full freedom to come up with a plot and characters for a book. How would you approach it? For me it has been a very slow and not very satisfying process so far.

The part in bold, OP, is what stands out to me the most about your post. If this is the case, then why write at all? Writing is hard, yes, but it should also be satisfying to your soul. Personally, I'd drop this way of writing the story; meaning if your approach isn't working then switch gears. If the setting was already picked for me and I didn't like it then I wouldn't write the story. But you and I are different people, so you'll need to find what will work for you. Stop? Or continue in a different way? What about the setting can inspire you?

If nothing, then why bother? You'll do what you need to of course, but consider that books are heavy endeavor and writing one that satisfies not only you but the reader is a monumental task. If you can't do it because you don't like the setting then that will show through to the reader in how you write and how the story ends up being developed. My suggestion is to consider placing your satisfaction above all else, because it's this motivating factor that will propel you to the end. Good luck.

 

[skip.knox]

"... satisfying to your soul ..." comes close to the mark for me. I've never understood the "I love to write" crowd. I'm over in the "I can't help it" camp. But neither do I try to cure myself. Why? Because, however difficult and frustrating and demoralizing it can be, writing satisfies my soul.

 

[Chessie2]

"... satisfying to your soul ..." comes close to the mark for me. I've never understood the "I love to write" crowd. I'm over in the "I can't help it" camp. But neither do I try to cure myself. Why? Because, however difficult and frustrating and demoralizing it can be, writing satisfies my soul.

It's still equally important to remember the reader though. My whole point is that if the OP isn't being satisfied on a soul level by his writing then how will it please the reader?

 

[skip.knox]

Oh yeah, sure. The readers. Them too.

 

[Yora]

I have a lot of ideas an opinions on how fantasy stories would be done well, how a lot of existing stories would be done better, and a number of themes that I find very meaningful but find to be highly underexplored by existing fantasy books. And at the same time, I also have strong images about fantastical worlds that I also don't really see getting used by fantasy writers.

There's a type of fantasy books that I would really want to read, but they don't seem to exist. Books with certain themes that also deal heavily with exploring highly alien worlds. If I want such books in my life, I have to create them myself. Since my approach so far has not worked out, I tried to get thoughts and suggestion from other people by making a threat in a fantasy writing forum.

 

[Orc Knight]

making a threat in a fantasy writing forum.

Sorry, I chuckled.

 

[Chessie2]

I have a lot of ideas an opinions on how fantasy stories would be done well, how a lot of existing stories would be done better, and a number of themes that I find very meaningful but find to be highly underexplored by existing fantasy books. And at the same time, I also have strong images about fantastical worlds that I also don't really see getting used by fantasy writers.

There's a type of fantasy books that I would really want to read, but they don't seem to exist. Books with certain themes that also deal heavily with exploring highly alien worlds. If I want such books in my life, I have to create them myself. Since my approach so far has not worked out, I tried to get thoughts and suggestion from other people by making a threat in a fantasy writing forum.

What kinds of suggestions do you think might be of use to your situation?