Setting a Setting

Would you care to sit in and listen as we learn to set our setting? Or maybe you would not like to sit in, but would rather like to sit and learn to set your own setting. Well, either way, you are free to sit in with us while we discuss:

Setting a Setting

This may seem to be quite an odd topic. Now, it would not be quite so odd to you if you joined us before in the first three parts to the Ultimate Cheat Sheet to Writing Stories. Well, it also might not seem so odd, if you were just a natural odd ball, then it would be less peculiar and quite plain to you. As you may have realized, this is our fourth step into the journey of writing. Of course, you can go follow these steps in any order you would like.

Now, let us begin. Take your plot, if you have one, and examine it very intimately. Do not add to it, we do not want it to start growing yet. But look at it closely, and see where you think it might be taking place.

Possibly, it is taking place in many different locations. Such as Star Wars, where there were many different kinds of planets, and space ships, and you traveled between these places and there were many different environments for the characters to participate in. Though, there is the possibility, where your story takes place in only one small area, and maybe primarily in a small portion of that area. This is such the case with Harry Potter. Most of the time, he spends inside Hogwarts, though occasionally he ventures out into Hogsmeade or other parts of the world, but not so long as to make it a plot with very many locations.

Let's say your plot is the following:

Amelia Red must defeat the increasing horde of zombies beneath her home town.

What things do you get from this? Amelia lives in a town. It might be just barely bigger than a village, where everybody knows everybody, or it could be just a bit smaller than a city and lacks a downtown, therefore there can be many separate neighbourhoods within it and everybody does not know everybody.

Let's say that Amelia's town is the latter, as this would be much easier to hide zombies and such creatures.

Continue in this process and try to figure out the best setting you can possibly have for your plot. If you want you can make a list of different settings for you to try out and decide which would be best for your story plot.

Here is a list of possible settings for the Amelia Red plot:

Mid sized town, multiple neighbourhoods.

Budding Metropolis.

Stretched out farm town.

Space Station on another planet.

Giant cruise ship-zombies coming from the ocean deep.

You can create many different possibilities for your setting, and then keep working through them and create many different drafts with your different settings and finally decide where you think your story should take place. Or you could decide it takes place over an entire continent and have your character move throughout the continent, there are so many possibilities you can do with settings.

Hope you enjoyed this part of the Ultimate Cheat Sheet to Writing Stories, join us next Wednesday for the next segment: Simply Outlining. Don't forget to check out the other parts of the UCSW: Before You Start, Do You Know Your Plot?, and The Quest For Characters.

Thank you, and have a British day! -Kac