From the Outside In~~

Your Fictitious World    Part 2:  

Setting, Setting, Setting 

Your Characters' Physical World

Carol Ferderlin Baldwin  posts thought-provoking writing-related questions on her Facebook page, from getting into your character's head to getting into your character's world. 

She got me thinking I should share some of the tipsheet topics I use in workshops and manuscript critiques.

 Your Fictitious World: Part 1☚ click 

covers check lists for making your characters three dimensional. The world they inhabit needs that same depth, breadth and believability. 

the rooms of the house, the streets of the town, 

the halls in the asylum, the colonies on the planet 

~~ the fine art of world building ~~

Heidi Ruby Miller's speculative fiction is known for detailed worlds. She says "it was part of the satisfaction. It took me six years to come up with the main aspects of the Ambasadora-verse and its six moon system."

Shelley Adina's Trilogy Magnificent Devices yanks us into steampunk London. She uses real streets but "my heroine's experience of them is fantasy.... she breaks a mad scientist out of Bedlam~~which was the Bethlehem Hospital in its old location near St. George's fields. I found a floor plan on line and she broke in near the cold baths that they plunged the poor 'unfortunates' into in real life." 

~~Another planet, another century,

 another country or three blocks over~~            

It's in your head, now hit the keys or grip the pen.
Create your own system; keep it at your fingertips.  

❉  In a single paragraph Describe broad settings: fictitious, real or combination?

❋   Start wide and funnel the view. 

          Another planet? Another country? 

          Topography? 

          Urban? Suburban? Rural? 

• Name streets and relevant buildings your characters inhabit, ✹where they work/go to school ❊ worship/party ✾ shop 
• Describe habitats: A pod on a space station? A barn on a commune? Subsidized housing? Apartment complex? Condo? Post-WW2 tract housing? McMansion? Estate?
• Own or rent? Mortgaged or not? There by choice? 
• Describe significant rooms in detail

 ✐ Draw floor plans, sketch maps ✐

☀    ☂     ☃     ☁

 Remember the importance of flora, fauna & weather

As with character sketches, a fraction of this will wind up on the page. Your goal is to breathe life into every individual & create atmosphere for every setting. 

You have to take your readers there.

And they have to want to stay.