Prewriting: Setting, World, Synergy

Hello, Neophyte! Today, we’re delving into the often-overlooked and anonymous character that’s all too frequently forgotten, pushed to the sidelines of the larger story while the main characters take center stage. We’re talking about the setting. It’s a character in its own right, often neglected or, worse, mistaken for the world at large. Many tend to conflate the two, a mix-up that leads to the misconception of treating both as mere backdrops—simple elements over which the action unfolds.

Yes, Neophyte, I said character. Although this statement is more accurate for the setting than the world. Confused? Let me clarify. The setting is where the story unfolds—it could be a city, a town, a series of interconnected locations between several cities, a cave system, and so on. Regardless of the specific details of where you plan to set your story, that is the setting. On the other hand, the world is the broader context of the story. If it takes place in a city, where is that city located? In a kingdom? An empire? A democratic republic? Who are the people, and what are the characteristics of the place—the physical location and weather? These are all the relevant details to the story you wish to tell.

For the layman, Neophyte, it’s easy to confuse the two. A story happens in a world, so for the uninitiated, the distinction might not seem crucial. However, if you’re diving into the craft, Neophyte, you must learn to understand the difference.

World:

The world is less of a character and more of a force influencing the entire setting and characters. Much of the static identity of the characters and settings is given by the world they inhabit. It might seem like an attempt to focus on seemingly narrow details, but that’s where the devil resides, and you don’t want to ignore it. Why? Because inconsistencies sink more ships than you could imagine, and a proper flow is important to avoid problems, even if you don’t plan to build anything specific.

You could imagine an entire world of societies, histories, stories, legends, culture, whatever, to build your epic fantasy adventure tale. Or just a simple and grounded mystery type story set in a small town in the current year. No matter how expansive or narrow you plan to make it, keeping the world consistent is the most important part. Yes, if you go online (like I did) and try to start learning (like I did and continue to do), you will find a lot of people going into excruciatingly absurd levels of detail on the building of societies, cultures, continents, etc. It’s not necessary to do if you don’t need it, or more specifically, if your story doesn’t need it.

What you need from the world your story happens to be in is to influence your characters and settings—their aspirations, fears, ambitions, quirks, features, etc.—and to limit your story, as many external conflicts happen because of whatever occurs in a specific patch of land.

Setting:

Here, we arrive at the forgotten character of writing, the one that is often overlooked. Why, you ask Neophyte? Because it is often confused with the backdrop, a mere canvas upon which the story happens to unfold. It can be more, so much more. The world may paint the setting, but the setting is the one that the reader interacts with through the characters, the tone, the sounds, the sights, how things feel and smell, what happens to the characters, and what the characters do within the setting, and how the latter changes and evolves during the story.

As an example, Kingsbridge, the main location of the book “Pillars of the Earth” by Ken Follett. The town is as much a part of the cast as everyone else. It grows, it expands, and it shrinks and suffers with what the characters do, both within the narrow scope of the setting and the rest of the world at large. Much of what we see and understand of Kingsbridge is tinted by the characters—either joyous or dark. It is all painted by how the characters feel about what is happening and how they are feeling at the moment, whether it is a tense place full of dangers or the town where life occurs.

Be not mistaken, Neophyte, the world in “Pillars of the Earth” is our own planet in medieval times, more specifically Europe, but the setting is Kingsbridge in particular and Southern England in general.

Characters:

The one thing you won’t be able to ever escape, Neophyte—your characters. They are your brushes; with them, you paint not just the story but the world. Why? Well, because a ten-page info dump about the background of the Duchy of the Peninsula is all well and good for a reference document or a companion book for your fans once you’ve hit it off. But to put it into a novel, it will grind the story to a halt and frustrate people. And for us perpetuated readers, frustration is worse than anger, because angry readers will care, but frustrated readers won’t.

World and setting will influence the characters, as I mentioned before—how they think, how they act—because we are all people within a context, and that context partly gives shape to our lives. Yes, you have archetypes that you won’t be able to escape from, no matter how creative you think you are. But by using the rest of the elements at your disposal, you can give them an identity of their own, something that can lure people in.

Synergy:

The holy grail here, Neophyte, is the harmonious synergy of all these elements. Once you know, at least the basics of what the story needs on one side, what you need on the other, and what your characters need on their end, then you can just write without stopping to think about the story. That is the magic that you aim to achieve with all of this.

Until next time.