Good grief. I'm writing whole essays. I hope the Honorable Assembled have not lost patience with me.
You might think for an alternate history tale, set squarely on Earth, would have no trouble with setting. Not so, not at all. If you were to decide to set your story in America, my first question would be Kansas or Brooklyn? 1780 or 1980? Among the wealthy or among the poor? And so on. Setting is not so easy. Shouldn't something around here be easy?
Well, the decisions were somewhat easier, anyway, mainly because making a choice had some clear corollaries. I'll demonstrate.
One meta goal for each of my Altearth tales is that the story must illuminate some part of the world not yet shown. I have a story with an ogre and a sprite, set off the coast of Brittany. I have one planned that goes from Sicily to the Rhineland and involves mostly humans. I have another human tale set in the Altearth equivalent of the 1950s. I have a story with dwarves and sprites that somehow also wound up in Brittany. So I'm looking for something new.
I've been dodging the elves, sketching them from a distance, so I early on decided that while Falaise is human, she spends at least some time in the company of elves. That will force me to sketch in more specifics about elvish culture. Who knows, maybe the whole thing will be among them. So there's some social setting.
I could set this in England, but I have other plans for there, involving dragons. I was looking for something less well-known. There was once a kingdom called Arles, which was roughly equivalent to the Duchy of Burgundy. Southeastern France. This is good territory for story telling, with diverse geography and some interesting linguistic possibilities. Now it's a matter of finding specific settings, where specific actions will take place.
Here is where plot and character get entangled with setting. Right now I assume Falaise has been placed in some isolated place, either hidden away or she's studying with some elven master magicians. So, with the geographic parameters set, I can start researching some place in particular to set a tower or a college or a camp.
Since it's the Kingdom of Arles, part of the story will take place there. More research. All this sort of research should be done prior to writing. I can "scout" other locations, too. The choices have impact. They determine, for example, how long it takes to get Falaise from Setting 1 to Setting 2. They even affect her clothing, what she eats, and so on. Not all those need to be researched beforehand.
Finally, there's chronology. Exactly when do I set this? Now, the Kingdom of Arles lasted only a few generations, but one of the advantages of alternate history is I can change this. I make it last longer, start earlier, or even make it a duchy instead of a kingdom. I went looking for some time period not already staked out by other stories and came up with an arbitrary year that amused me: 2017AUC.
Altearth marks years by the old Roman chronology. AUC=ab urbe condite, which means from the founding of the city. Meaning Rome. The traditional date for that is 753BC. So, subtracting 753 from 2017, I got 1264. Which was great! A time period I know well. Plus, it amuses me to choose a year in AUC that corresponds to the year in which--I am determined!--I will write this novel. 2017.
How about you guys? How much of the setting do you decide on prior to writing? Is it as goofy and arbitrary as the above? Do you find that the choice of setting has repercussions for plot and character?
You might think for an alternate history tale, set squarely on Earth, would have no trouble with setting. Not so, not at all. If you were to decide to set your story in America, my first question would be Kansas or Brooklyn? 1780 or 1980? Among the wealthy or among the poor? And so on. Setting is not so easy. Shouldn't something around here be easy?
Well, the decisions were somewhat easier, anyway, mainly because making a choice had some clear corollaries. I'll demonstrate.
One meta goal for each of my Altearth tales is that the story must illuminate some part of the world not yet shown. I have a story with an ogre and a sprite, set off the coast of Brittany. I have one planned that goes from Sicily to the Rhineland and involves mostly humans. I have another human tale set in the Altearth equivalent of the 1950s. I have a story with dwarves and sprites that somehow also wound up in Brittany. So I'm looking for something new.
I've been dodging the elves, sketching them from a distance, so I early on decided that while Falaise is human, she spends at least some time in the company of elves. That will force me to sketch in more specifics about elvish culture. Who knows, maybe the whole thing will be among them. So there's some social setting.
I could set this in England, but I have other plans for there, involving dragons. I was looking for something less well-known. There was once a kingdom called Arles, which was roughly equivalent to the Duchy of Burgundy. Southeastern France. This is good territory for story telling, with diverse geography and some interesting linguistic possibilities. Now it's a matter of finding specific settings, where specific actions will take place.
Here is where plot and character get entangled with setting. Right now I assume Falaise has been placed in some isolated place, either hidden away or she's studying with some elven master magicians. So, with the geographic parameters set, I can start researching some place in particular to set a tower or a college or a camp.
Since it's the Kingdom of Arles, part of the story will take place there. More research. All this sort of research should be done prior to writing. I can "scout" other locations, too. The choices have impact. They determine, for example, how long it takes to get Falaise from Setting 1 to Setting 2. They even affect her clothing, what she eats, and so on. Not all those need to be researched beforehand.
Finally, there's chronology. Exactly when do I set this? Now, the Kingdom of Arles lasted only a few generations, but one of the advantages of alternate history is I can change this. I make it last longer, start earlier, or even make it a duchy instead of a kingdom. I went looking for some time period not already staked out by other stories and came up with an arbitrary year that amused me: 2017AUC.
Altearth marks years by the old Roman chronology. AUC=ab urbe condite, which means from the founding of the city. Meaning Rome. The traditional date for that is 753BC. So, subtracting 753 from 2017, I got 1264. Which was great! A time period I know well. Plus, it amuses me to choose a year in AUC that corresponds to the year in which--I am determined!--I will write this novel. 2017.
How about you guys? How much of the setting do you decide on prior to writing? Is it as goofy and arbitrary as the above? Do you find that the choice of setting has repercussions for plot and character?