Craft Questions #2: Setting

1. What kind of settings do you like to read about?
I like two kinds of settings: completely unlike Earth settings, and very well-crafted, non-medieval European settings. The first one, stories that take place in a world unlike ours, that's something I love. I mean, our world is cool. But damn, why write in another world if it isn't really a different world? Otherwise, I'll take something different. I'll read medieval fantasy, and I'll read pseudo-historical fantasy if that's what there is. But very historically rich, well-researched settings are enjoyable - Guy Gavriel Kay does this very well. I like non-Western cultures in particular, since I've just read so much European stuff, but I must say I've never read one set in a counterparty!colonial America, so I'd make exceptions to the non-Western rule.

2. What kind of settings do you like to write about (medieval, urban, alternate history, etc.)?
Same as above. Other world. And I have one historical/medieval fantasy novella, too, though even that follows the "rigidly historical" rule, to the point where I figured out when the full moons were in a few centuries ago.

3. Does the setting play a huge part in your stories or is it more in the background?
Depends on the story. Some of them are very character-oriented. But my current big project is joined only by the fact that all the stories take place in the same setting, and even though the stories themselves do not always focus on the settings, it dictates what sort of stories get told. Since the premise is 'sound = magic', the protagonists tend to have some some sort of unique sound quality. Muteness, deafness, or they just have perfect pitch.

4. Will you get turned off of writing a story that has a setting you can't really connect with?
Not necessarily. As long as the characters are interesting. I don't really care much about medieval Italy, but I'm still writing about it.

5. Do you do tons of preparation (world-building) for you setting or do you just sort of build it from the ground up?
Depends on the story. Sometimes I wing it completely, sometimes I spend months working on it.

6. Do you tend to go with a macro approach (dealing with whole countries, armies, etc.) or with a more micro approach (dealing with a small village and going from there) when it comes to showing your setting?
This, too, depends on the story. If I am writing a story about a big war and neighbouring nations battling for the throne and epic journies and adventures, then the macro is important. Maps and whatnot have a purpose. If I am writing about a couple of guys trapped in a cave or in a gladiator tournament, it probably won't matter as much.

7. Do you think lengthy prologues describing the setting help you get into a story more or don't really do anything for you?
They don't do it for me. Unless, I guess, it was a haunted house novel or something. But rarely is the setting so important that it warrants an introduction.

8. How do you come up with a setting? Do you borrow elements from history, from other stories, or do you try to come up with something that blends them all together? What's your most original and captivating setting in your mind?
Usually the latter, and the aforementioned "soundworld". Influence from all over the world and all throughout time, and the main focus - the sound thing - has lead to a lot of interesting worldbuilding elements. Also, most of the animals in the world come from the sort of caveman era, so we get sabretooths and mammoths and other good stuff. Marsupial lions are my favourite. <3

 

1. What kind of settings do you like to read about?
Any setting that is well-described can pull me in and win me over, I think. But I'll always enjoy settings that provide for a lot of outdoor and wilderness scenes. Descriptions of landscape, terrain, vegetation, animals and weather always fire my imagination. I've come to enjoy tropical or hot weather settings more than I did, I think. I've also grown in appreciation of stories set in old cities with dark forgotten or secret places, like The Phantom of the Opera, Relic and Reliquary. And then there's Sandman – I could not get enough of the dream world.

2. What kind of settings do you like to write about (medieval, urban, alternate history, etc.)
I had fun using a stone age setting for NaNoWriMo one year, and the setting was a very important element in making a story that I still believe in; it's just on the back burner for now.

Now I'm trying to do more with early modern-style urban settings (without the underground secret places but with a good dose of grit and vice). It's an invigorating challenge.

3. Does the setting play a huge part in your stories or is it more in the background?
It's pretty important, like in that stone age novel. For my current novel I was working on the setting for years before I finally found a story to go in it.

4. Will you get turned off of writing a story that has a setting you can't really connect with?
Yes. I don't have to know it like the back of my hand, but I have to feel either affinity or familiarity to some degree. The novels I've drafted that take place in the real world have all been set in places I've really lived.

5. Do you do tons of preparation (world-building) for you setting or do you just sort of build it from the ground up?
Tons of preparation, maybe too much – although for my stone-age story I only did about a month's worth of world-building.

6. Do you tend to go with a macro approach (dealing with whole countries, armies, etc.) or with a more micro approach (dealing with a small village and going from there) when it comes to showing your setting?
Macro first. I typically draw a map of a continent then zoom in on an area.

7. Do you think lengthy prologues describing the setting help you get into a story more or don't really do anything for you?
I think for me they do help, although I greatly admire the skill some authors have of integrating setting descriptions, exposition &c. in the normal flow of narrative and dialogue. But there is something refreshingly direct about a story that says: “look, here's where, here's what, here's who. Now let's go.”

8. How do you come up with a setting? Do you borrow elements from history, from other stories, or do you try to come up with something that blends them all together? What's your most original and captivating setting in your mind?
I do borrow a lot, but I try to compost the things I borrow so it's not quite so obvious that here's a Russian analogue, there's a Spanish one, etc. At some point I try to cast off the moorings and let a culture or place be itself: it started off as a Zoroastrian Bulgaria but now it is just what it is. If it still looks kind of like a Zoroastrian Bulgaria, then that's fine, but at least I don't want to restrict it to doing only the things that its model would do.

For my stone age story I did leave the resemblances to American Indian cultures (as I know them) deliberately obvious. And I think I would probably consider that setting my most original and captivating. It has neolithic technology alongside magic that enables flight and instant long-distance communication.

 

1. What kind of settings do you like to read about?

In the end, any setting put together well enough for me to believe it could be real. I seem to gravitate a little more to low magic, but high magic works just fine for me too. I do have a weakness for wilderness, having always preferred the rural life or camping o spending alot of time in the city, but really I'm not so picky about this. It just has to be decent.

2. What kind of settings do you like to write about (medieval, urban, alternate history, etc.)

Mine typically follow a European guideline, but unlike most I really don't care for the High Middle Ages when compared to the Dark Age or Early Middle Ages.

3. Does the setting play a huge part in your stories or is it more in the background?

The setting plays both roles, but while a setting can exist without a story the story can't exist without a setting. A different one, sure, but for my main project that story would have to be set in a hugely similar setting with a hugely similar history for me to justify the existance of the plot.

4. Will you get turned off of writing a story that has a setting you can't really connect with?

Probably, to some degree, but an engaging plot and characters can make up for it.

5. Do you do tons of preparation (world-building) for you setting or do you just sort of build it from the ground up?

I sort of work both ways. I'll do real worldbuilding efforts for weeks at a time and then I'll write something and build what I need, or vice versa. I don't have a set way to tackle this.

6. Do you tend to go with a macro approach (dealing with whole countries, armies, etc.) or with a more micro approach (dealing with a small village and going from there) when it comes to showing your setting?

Both, really.

7. Do you think lengthy prologues describing the setting help you get into a story more or don't really do anything for you?

A prologue that describes the setting isn't for me. I'd rather discover the world naturally.

8. How do you come up with a setting? Do you borrow elements from history, from other stories, or do you try to come up with something that blends them all together? What's your most original and captivating setting in your mind?

I don't know how my wind works. Honestly. I don't usually choose to start a world based on this or that or using this as a theme or that as inspiration, It just happens. And if I do happen to start with a theme or general inspiration my mind purverts and corrupts it until what ties it to the original is holding on by bare fibres.

Oh wait I missed a part. My most original and captivating setting so far? Probably one of the ones I threw away over the years, like thae fantasy set in a world with completely alien biology. For originality, that is. My favourite is the one that's grown with me for the last seven years, changing so much from the original as to be unrecognizeable. It's hard to set an exact reference date for it unless going by region, but the kingdom the story starts in would be in Europe's eleventh or twelfth century. It's designed as low-magic, though there are certain abuses that will eventually cause a certain faction to have a relatively high amount of magic. This is inconsequntial to the fact, however, that it is built specifically to facilitate the story I have in mind about war, action, politics, assassination and personal vendetta, while still allowing me to write it in a personal way.

 

1. I'm kind of bland with setting. I prefer a medieval European setting, or really anything with a medieval-level of technology. Big fan of sword fights. High magic or low magic is fine with me.

2. Same as #1.

3. Yes, specific places play big parts.

4. I do get turned off by many settings. I'm not a fan of steampunk or urban fantasy. I like more traditional settings. However, I did pick up Mistborn on recommendations from MS, and loved it.

5. I try to do a little world building before, but most of it is done as I go.

6. As far as settings go, it depends on the book. But most is at a micro level when it comes to settings. I'm trying to show events like battles on both a micro and macro scale in my writing, which is something I think most traditional fantasy lacks.

7. I like prologues, but not ones that are solely based on the setting.

8. All of the above. Most of the settings I spend a lot of time thinking about are strategic points for a battle. Specific defensive measures for castles, for example.

 

1. What kind of settings do you like to read about?

I like unique and unusual settings, too. I like absurd, detailed, busy, mysterious, or scary places. Clive Barker's Abarat, Garth Nix's Old Kingdom, the place where the Rats of NIMH lived in Robert C. Obrien's book, and Southern gothic settings I've read in various short stories.

To me, the most memorable fantasy novels have unique settings as well. These are all fantastic settings: the Wizarding world, Oz, Fantasia, Middle-earth, Earthsea, the settings for The Books of the New Sun and the Black Company series. I'm sure others could think of dozens more. My point is that these books wouldn't stick in my mind if the settings were generic. The setting is part of the fantasy, and neglecting it is neglecting an opportunity to allow the reader to plant his feet firmly in the story.

2. What kind of settings do you like to write about (medieval, urban, alternate history, etc.)

I suppose medieval or renaissance era? I write stuff like fairy tales that take place in "distant lands" and in "olden times" but it's a little ambiguous. I also like the mid-to-late 1800s America and pre- or post-apocalyptic settings, but most of my stories are in modern times. Decay is common in my settings, from urban decay to ancient kingdoms with lost prestige.

3. Does the setting play a huge part in your stories or is it more in the background?

The atmosphere is important to me. I favor a sense of isolation and foreboding that is palpable to my characters. Other times, the setting is threatening in some way.

4. Will you get turned off of writing a story that has a setting you can't really connect with?

I scraped by once with a flash story that focused on the character's actions rather than emotions. The emotions and the setting are tied together for me, so when I'm lacking in one I'm lacking in the other. That story is my least favorite. It's cliché and horrible.

5. Do you do tons of preparation (world-building) for you setting or do you just sort of build it from the ground up?

Yes and no to both parts. I world build the heck out of my main project, but I wing it in stand-alone stories.

6. Do you tend to go with a macro approach (dealing with whole countries, armies, etc.) or with a more micro approach (dealing with a small village and going from there) when it comes to showing your setting?

Micro! I do short stories, which might be why, but even my novel concepts are limited in scope. Maybe I like to stifle my characters or maybe I like to thoroughly explore a place. It's a close-up instead of a bird's eye view.

7. Do you think lengthy prologues describing the setting help you get into a story more or don't really do anything for you?

Lengthy prologues describing anything go back on the shelf. I want to read a book, not a summary, an essay or a catalog of events, people and objects. I want to imagine I live in the author's setting. A prologue that features storytelling instead of description appeals to me.

8. How do you come up with a setting? Do you borrow elements from history, from other stories, or do you try to come up with something that blends them all together? What's your most original and captivating setting in your mind?

I'm not sure. They're probably an amalgamation of moods I've felt, places I've visited, locations I've read about, scenery in movies, and my imagination. They're heavily based on real places, though it's not done consciously from the start. I wouldn't say any of my settings are captivating on their own since it takes characters to bring them to life.