Subject: [FFML] Choosing a setting
From: "Richard Lawson" <nouma@msn.com>
Date: 1/31/2007, 4:17 PM
To:

I have a sci-fi and/or fantasy story I've been writing in my head for many 
years now.

It's epic.  It has characters, a plot, a villain, a conflict, and an ending. 
Typical fish-out-of-water scenario, thrust into a situation that has Dire 
Consequences, struggles between different Good Guys, manipulation by the Bad 
Guys, and a Dramatic Resolution full of melodrama.

What I don't have is a setting.

Let me give you a basic outline.  The universe is populated by intelligences 
that are mostly far greater than our own.  They live for thousands, even 
millions of years but are not quite immortal.  They've been involved in a 
conflict since the very beginning of the universe, and things are 
approaching a critical juncture.

Everyone knows about humans, but they're regarded as barely intelligent. 
And since they only live for a few decades at most, humans are considered 
insignificant in the universal struggle.  Until one of the near-immortal 
super-intelligent beings decides that perhaps humans should become involved, 
and plucks one human from their homeworld and tries to teach him what he 
needs to know to fight against the Evil Bad Guys.  As you might be able to 
predict, said human becomes a key figure in the conflict.

I started to write it in a modern-day setting, some random college student 
being yoinked from Earth, but it ended up sounding way too much like a 
self-insert, which I didn't want at all.

I've toyed with the idea of making it sometime in the past or future - maybe 
someplace in Old England, maybe on an overpopulated Gibsonesque 22nd-century 
Earth, etc.  I've also considered just creating my own world, a Middle-Earth 
type of place except no non-human races, the typical RenFen fantasy setting.

Try as I might, none of those appeal to me.  And the setting is important; 
wherever the human comes from, be it Earth or some equivalent, he'll keep 
coming back to it at key moments in the plot.  So I need that world to be 
fully developed.

Anyone have an idea for a setting for such a story?

How do you decide on a setting when you're writing a story?

Thanks.

-Richard



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