User blog comment:SpaceWeather/Writer's Workshop: Setting/@comment-3350823-20170625230436

I said I would comment on this and then I disappeared D: I’m sorry Space! It's a shame, because this is really good too. So better late than never I guess. I’m completely on board with this Workshop, as I also wholeheartedly agree that setting is underutilized and overlooked. Yet its also one of my favorite things about Total Drama and TD fanfiction, specifically how it can vary so much yet still be Total Drama. A character in its own is a great way to think of it xD Honestly, its hard not to plug LTDI. Its use of setting is great, and looks at the classic island in a very fun way. Tone is very important. I never really thought about it before, but World Tour does have the interesting angle of seeing our cast interact in new settings. I always go back and forth on my feelings about that season. It tried a lot of new things we didn’t and haven’t seen since; an always changing location, more than two teams (that didn’t follow the usual naming scheme), musical elements, our first non-Island players, etc.) I’m getting off track, we don’t need a full discourse on WT :p

But I do want to touch on that for some reason…I always felt disappointed with World Tour’s challenges. I’m not sure why, especially because I love RR and a lot of its challenges. I guess for something that has the name ‘World Tour’, I wanted something exotic and to tour these places, but it didn’t feel as exotic or have a sense of adventure; I remember a lot of challenges felt more like it was people talking than exploring. I guess it’s the tone and theme that contribute to my disappointment as well.

I agree mostly with the static home base setting; I think its important. But RR makes it a bit harder. Its not a TD competition, so maybe it shouldn’t count because it has a tone more focused on racing than say the social game aspect of Survivor that TD parodies. But it was able to have characters be defined to an extent and develop without a static location. Though there wasn’t as much interaction between teams. What are your thoughts in how RR falls into setting Space?

The cliff is a great example!

Reading LTDI I never noticed but TD did have a lot of places, some that were never mentioned again. Like the Dodge ball Stadium, where is that on the island? Or the mud track for skiing or the pins for the chickens and moose. LTDI acknowledges this by saying the interns built them and referencing dodge ball more than once.

I admit I have had the bad habit of making up new locations as needed in TDGenesis. Sometimes it's a bit necessary, doing a beach challenge is hard in a haunted hotel. Other times rooms I’ve never thought about pop up, which I kinda hand wave as they were hidden with the secret passages and such.

With planning out your setting, when to introduce certain locations is important too. Will there be a tour as the contestants arrive at their location, or will certain areas become prominent as they go. I tried to foreshadow a future challenge location, which can be fun. I think it had good payoff.

I could plan a bit more where which challenges take place, instead of inventing a new location. I’m not even sure I had the eating challenge in the Dining Hall…

I think one thing that you kinda touched on was challenges are often affected by the setting they’re in, which ties into your season’s theme too. I think theming your challenges around the location is a good way to use it. For example the camping challenge makes sense, they are in a summer camp.

This doesn’t have to necessarily be true, after all Island had a lot more challenges based off parodying other reality shows than just camping. I don’t think every challenge has to be themed to the location, since you have to do a lot of challenges, but an attempt to at least strive for a good mix. I’ve just seen some fics where there appears to be an interesting setting (or theme), but is underused and the challenges they have could’ve easily taken place at the Island and not much would’ve changed. General theme affects challenges a lot too.

XD your varying descriptions on the brown house cracks me up. I admit I can be a little too low simply cause I can’t ever stay in a word count, so that’s where I can skimp. Other times, usually after reading LTDI, I want to go in extreme detail on certain locations. I need to find more of a balance.

All the finer notes are good too! I probably use weather a bit too much that it's a cliche. I might have a continuity issue with what exactly is in the Pentagram Hotel too, though I kind of handwave it?

Overall, I really love this Writer’s Workshop and it's one that we’ve needed! Setting is often way overlooked, and reading this has given me a lot to think about with own setting and future settings for stories! This was a great read Space!