User blog:SpaceWeather/Writer's Workshop: Setting

Other Workshops

 * Character Creation and Development, hosted by Sprinklemist, posted 23 April 2010


 * Commenting Etiquette, hosted by Webkinz Mania, posted 5 May 2010


 * Description and Characterization, hosted by Tdiandrockmusic2 (aka TDIRM), posted 2 June 2010


 * Elimination Orders, hosted by Mroddy, posted 19 July 2015


 * Rivalries, hosted by Mroddy, posted 29 May 2014


 * Starting Your Story, hosted by Cards777, posted 29 July 2010


 * Writing Style, hosted by Gideoncrawle, posted 18 April 2010

Opening Monologue
Many times when it comes to Total Drama fanfiction one very important aspect of storytelling tends to be forgotten, and that is setting. Often times the setting can really change how the story is told, and even act as a sort of character in its own right. It can have both positive and negative impacts on the characters who’ve been thrust into it, and that’s why it’s so critical to really flesh out a stories’ setting. Now of course there are limits which should be taken as a setting, much like a character, shouldn’t be gone into too deeply to the point of dominating a story. However, having a well done setting can really push a story to new heights. In this workshop I’ll provide a breakdown of how to choose and set up your setting. I’ll provide examples and tips on how to really make that background scenery pop, at least a bit, into the foreground.

General Setting and Concept
The initial process you have to go through is to decide on your concept for the story, aka what’s going to be the central theme. Total Drama Island is the perfect template for this, as it was a teen comedy/parody first and foremost. It lampooned the competitive reality show genre while also making fun of how a demographic that can’t be used in this type of show would react, that being teens. However, the same location can be used for different tones. Insert the plug for The Legend of Total Drama Island by Gid which is in the exact same setting as Total Drama Island with the exact same characters, except he shifts the tone far more towards drama. While some settings can be used for many different tones, others tend to lend themselves to a singular tone. An abandoned mental asylum that’s said to be haunted will, more often than not, be used for something with a darker tone than say Disney World. It’s not impossible to set a comedy in an asylum or a horror at Disney World, however it does become more difficult for it to be taken seriously. If you’d like the challenge you can match up a setting to a tone that doesn’t really fit it.

Essentially my message here is to choose a general setting that’ll aid your tone rather than hinder, or do nothing for, it.

Setting Archetype
Now of course the first step in development is to actually choose a general archetype for your setting. Total Drama Island was set at a summer camp in order to give it a fun teen summer experience vibe, Action had a movie set to really influence the more star like tone these players had taken and give more diverse challenge arrangements, World Tour showed the larger ‘budget’ the show had received and also allowed for very diverse challenges throughout the season, Revenge of the Island went back to a summer camp setting but added a few twists in order to showcase a new cast in a familiar setting and make the challenges more contained. The common ties between all these settings are that they changed to reflect more or less diverse locations in order to showcase more or less diverse/complex challenges. They also changed to reflect a change in ‘budget’ which translated on screen to a change in how the characters reacted to the environment and their fellow contestants.

Take for example in World Tour when they went to the arctic in ‘Anything Yukon Do, I Can Do Better’, it allowed us to see the competitors in a setting that wasn’t familiar to them. That shift resulted in humor that focused on them adjusting to, or failing to adjust to, the challenges that environment held. Such as Cody being frozen when he falls into the water, and other cold related jokes/gags. Yet it can also affect character interactions such as when tight confined spaces have, multiple times, led to characters acting differently than they normally would. A big example is Owen’s behavior on the plane during World Tour, as his fear of flying often lead to gags at his expense throughout his stay.

World Tour was a show that had a different general setting every episode, and in these cases you’ll always need a ‘homebase’ setting. A plane, RV, car, boat, and etcetera, just somewhere that’s a centralized and dependable location that’s static for the characters. This is necessary as it allows a measuring stick of sorts as to who these characters are, and allows the reader to compare a characters reactions to a sort of base template. If the reader can’t see how the character behaves in a more static setting, then they won’t be able to get as good of a feel for the character when only seeing them in differentiating settings every chapter. Yet having a story with a different challenge setting every chapter is a great way to show how characters react to different types of diversity. It takes a bit more creativity, and much more time to develop each individual setting, but it can payoff in the long run.

Essentially my message here is to choose an archetype(s) that’ll aid your story rather than hinder it in the writing process.

Finer Details
Once you’ve decided on the archetype for your setting it’s time to go into the finer details. What’s the layout of the setting? What buildings will be present in this setting? Where will your characters be sleeping, eating, bathing? Where do the challenges take place? All of these are questions you need to ask yourself as you delve into your setting in more depth. I know it can be a lot to think about, but it doesn’t have to be terribly complex. A tip I’d give is to take a sheet of paper and list out the needs your characters are going to have. Obvious ones are eating, sleeping, and hygiene. Less obvious needs are places to be isolated, places to relax, and places to just have fun. Having multiple places for these needs can really help by giving you a number of different places to have characters interact.

A great example is the cliff from TDI. This spot may not have been in every episode, but it was used to great effect multiple times. It was the site of the first challenge, had a few fun Owen moments, and was even important in the final episode of the season. Even though it was a secondary location, it was still important, and still held a personality all its own.

Another huge piece of advice I could give is to draw a general map of your setting. Figure out where each building and landmark will be, figure out what will be around these landmarks, and just layout scenery that could be present there. Say you’re going to include a communal bathroom in your story. Will there be trees around the bathroom or just grass? Perhaps it’s near the lake and that’s where the water comes from for it. How many toilets and showers are there? While you don’t have to go too far in depth, it is nice to know certain aspects that could come into play later on.

You’ll often want to provide a diverse amount of settings for scenes to take place in, and knowing details about these areas can further aid you in fleshing out your characters or moving the plot along.

Settings and Challanges
Speaking about coming into play, the setting can be crucial aspect of challenges. Having the right setting for a challenge can help enhance it beyond just another boring detour. Going back to previously seen settings for certain challenges can help to flesh them out a bit more while also giving the reader a familiar location they’ve already come to know. This familiarity can cut down on the description you have to use for the setting. Instead of going back into already treaded waters, you can focus on new aspects or refocus time that would usually be given to setting on other aspects like dialogue and action. Challenges especially need a lot of writing focused more towards the action of a scene, so saving words by using a familiar scene can really be a help here. However, beware the pit fall associated with this mentality, and remember that too much of a good thing can be bad. Over reliance on any one setting for challenges can lead to that setting becoming stale to a reader. In fact overreliance on any one setting for certain activities can lend itself to becoming staler than old bread. You wouldn’t want all the challenges in TDI taking place at the cliff now would you?

Great examples of this are how the Dining Hall was used well for food related challenges versus how the forest was used for more survival related challenges. You need to matchup your specific setting with the challenge at hand. Having a cooking challenge at the cliff or a paintball challenge in the mess hall would just feel out of place and, even if it’s in a minor way, throw your readers off.

Essentially it’s good to have your challenges set in quite a few different locations, and making sure to match those locations to the challenge itself.

Settings and Description
When it comes to description of setting the same rules apply as to every other aspect of writing. You need to diversify your language and make sure not to go too high or too low with your word choice and sentence structure. “The house was brown,” is fairly low. “The residential abode was coated in a brown covered paint substance which looked as though it was from the ancient times,” is going a bit too high. You’ve got to strike the right balance, “The house was painted brown, and the paint was beginning to chip.”

Underdescription and Overdescription are often dependent on the opinion of the writer. Just make sure to avoid delving to far, or not far enough, into the details of the setting.

A Few More Points
Now a few last minute notes on aspects of setting I failed to include in other areas.

Weather can be incredibly effective in getting across emotion, or subtly hinting at events to come. However, overreliance on it can make it seem incredibly cliché and can hurt your story as a whole.

It’s nice to know about the objects which are in the surroundings, but you don’t have to delve into this aspect too heavily. We don’t need to know how many different knives Chef has in his drawers, but mentioning key objects that will be used is a good way of avoiding continuity errors. Yet constantly pointing out only the important objects will make it obvious when those objects are used later on. Try to balance out placements of useful objects and those that are just being used in order to keep your readers guessing.

Continuity, continuity, continuity. Too often have I seen authors randomly add stuff to a previously used setting that couldn’t possibly have been there before. Or vice versa remove a key aspect of the setting for plot convenience. If you need/want to add something later make sure you leave space for that item in the setting. If you want to remove something give a brief explanation of why it had been removed. Neither of these additions to your writing has to be long, but it goes a damn long way towards helping your readers understand what the hell is going on.

Conclusion
Finally I’d like to leave off with a warning. It’s easy to overlook setting in a fanfiction, especially a fanfiction about a series that was so focused on characters. It’s just as easy to over use setting as a way of overcompensating for the sake of looking more refined, when in reality all those fancy descriptions just take away from the other aspects of storytelling (it happens a lot in fanfiction). Striking the right balance between too much and not enough can be incredibly difficult, and often times a writer will be their own worst critic in this regard. Yet if you find a type of balance that works for you, and your reader base seems to like it as well, then that should leave you satisfied.

I realize that many authors tend to neglect the finer details of their setting in this type of writing, and I understand if many of the suggestions and points I’ve made fall deaf to certain people. However, if this writer’s workshop helped even one individual grow, I’ll count myself lucky. I will also answer any questions in the comments below if further depth is needed.

Best of luck in your future writing endeavors,

Space