Setting the Table

     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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      Over on this page, we cooked up a nice plot that would be enough to make even the most picky person drool. Here, we're going to finally serve it to our dinner guests. The guests? Your characters. The table? Your setting.

      The setting of your story is exceedingly important. Even if it doesn't show up much in the finished product, it shapes the plot, the characters, the theme, and so much more. You might think differently, but I believe that writing a story without at least one setting is lie, well, eating dinner without a table. So, let's get started!

      Wait. Hold on. Before we create a setting, don't we need to know the setting's significance in our story? If the entire story takes place in the same room of the same office building all the time, we'll surely need to focus on it, but if our story is set across dozens of different planets, we'll have a lot of tiny things to work on. If we don't know how important a setting will be in our story, we don't know how elaborate it needs to be.

      Fear not! This guide offers tips for creating a setting of any amount of detail. Sure, it won't be the most detailed guide you'll ever see, but it'll give you what you need to get started. The rest, as many things usually are in writing, are strategies unique to you that you'll discover as you continue to write. So, let's get started...

      Scenario One: A small place