Café Session # 4: Setting

Discussion in 'Archives' started by Plums, Oct 22, 2012.

  1. Plums Wakanda Forever

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    Café Session # 4
    Literate Beans Group: Here


    Hey all! Welcome back to the pot. <3

    Anyway, as the last session revolved around the ever loveable characters, I was thinking we could dive straight into another big topic. So you’ve got your character, but now what? Where do they live? What is the time period? With these questions in mind, let us visit the marvelous world of Setting.

    And as a kick start to discussion, some questions for you lot (YOU DO NOT HAVE TO ANSWER THEM ALL LOL):


    What kinds of settings are you drawn to? How have they intrigued you?

    Think about two of your favorite characters. How has their setting(s) affected the way they were raised and their ambitions?

    If you’ve written a story before, think about one of them. What kind of setting did you use? Describe it. Was it a major motivator for your character, did it impede/speed up their growth, etc?

    What kind of setting would you live in? And for a bonus challenge, think of two of your friends (offlien or online). If you could write yourselves into a story of any type, what kind of setting would you want it to be?


     
  2. Saxima [screams geometrically]

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    Saxima finally participates in one of these. Woo.


    I think I mostly like settings that have more than just one thing going on it in; usually, if the book starts with a busy area, then I'm usually hooked for the rest of the book. I just feel like there's so much potential for the character if s/he starts around a lot of people.

    If the author describes the actions/thoughts of more than one character in the busy area, you wonder which one is the main character - or if s/he is even there. I kinda like guessing games.

    In contrast, I also like solitary settings, where things are quiet and there is much introspection for a character to be had. I don't like it when there's so much inner thought that the background is completely forgotten for a period of time, but I suppose it happens.


    I think I might like to be in a setting where the weather is nice, and the people are agreeable. If there are more than a handful of people, that would be okay. I'm not really a people-person, but I'm not sure if I would really mind it or not. A warm setting might do me best. Were it a chilly setting ( and I'm talking atmosphere, here ), then I would definitely become defensive and closed off.

     
  3. Jiku Neon Kingdom Keeper

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    Lost another attempt to reply. I nearly just gave up, but I'll start small and work my way through it slowly this time. Maybe then I'll get at least something down even if it's more than ten degrees separated from what I actually mean.



    To be perfectly clear. I feel that world building is what setting should be about. By that meri setting isn't about whether or not this story is in space or in a quiet Elizabethan township or magical ****ing Tokyo. Setting is world, it's place, it's themes and it's atmosphere. All of my descriptions and answers revolve around the idea that setting is not a physical location at all, it is the extent of the story's universe and by that merit more related to ideas. In theory, we can have two completely physically different places that are the same setting. Sure the physical matters to a certain extent because it defines how far certain limits can extend but it's not by any means the main event. So I'm going to get out of that single element in world building and work outside of sights, smells, sounds and minutiae like that and try to take the long view.