Simple version: What sort of locations do you like to see in fantasy or horror books? Complex version: In my Fantasy Horror WIP the hero spends most of their time in one place: an oily black basilica shaped like an upside down diamond, surrounded by hovels under the rotting canopy of a forest of redwood trees in the shadow of icy mountains. I'm trying to get the most out of this location by having the hero visit large portions of the "estate" without backtracking a lot. For instance there's a kitchen, but the reader only sees them go there twice. There's a bunch of rooms for people, but they only ever visit two rooms. Some places are sort of focal points, like a big ritual circle, and a library, but for the most part I'm trying to keep the locales diverse. What sort of places would you think are important?
The forest sounds interesting. The kitchen, library, and ritual sound like places you probably need to go. What about the wall? Is this is a proper castle barrier wall, with a ring around the basilica as a defensive layer? That would provide some nice views, and give you an opportunity to touch on the surroundings other than by going outside, keeping the story still mostly to the building but without feeling boring.
Staying indoors in a horror setting is usually the norm to give that sense of claustrophobia and closeness, though I might think that that is less effective in books than it is in film/games? Something outdoors would be a change in locale and it sounds like a rotting forest could be no less scary, especially with low-hanging mist and wildlife. Additionally, if most of the book is set inside the building, then this draws more attention towards the outdoors scenes - so if they are important/ have special significance they could be particularly effective.
I'm a compulsive reader, mythology nerd, mystery buff and general finder-out-of-things, so I really enjoy stories set in libraries. One of my favourite horror stories is The Dunwich Horror, precisely because the hideous peril to the world is dealt with by a couple of academic old farts who looked it up in a book.
@Oscar Leigh and @Dracon and @raine_d and @Privateer I'll respond to all your posts, I'm just trying to let the question and post float for a while before I taint it with my input.
Thirty foot wall - This doesn't feel like there's a lot of flexibility as regards what you do with it if it's just an ancillary feature. Stone rooms - This feels like a blank slate. Anything can happen here. There's nothing about the stoniness or roominess that indicates a narrative direction. Stone prisons - This feels interesting. This is a place to meet denizens with interesting stories to tell. Kitchen - meh Ritual circle - This feels like it could also be interesting for what it says about those who use it. Library - I expect every fantasy story to have a library. There's something metafictional about the idea of there being a collection of books. Cliffs - Would make for great scene description if you can put into words the phenomenon of scale. Rotten forest - Ooo. Lots of things can live here. Smorgasbord. Caves - Again, lots of things seem to want to live here. Glacier - Doesn't say much to me more than "That's a whole lotta' ice."
it really depends on what happens at each locale - kitchens are meh, until we find that the antagonist spends most of his time their rendering local children down to soup
You can have a lot of fun with a glacier. My story has a big one. It has many natural and mined ice caverns. Varius creatures and relics are incased in ice beneath the glacier. I also got the idea for my villain from the glacier.
I like reading also about normal people doing normal stuff in a fantasy world. Most of the world won't be high adventure after all so it makes sense that there's small scale actions also in a place like a kitchen.
Rotten forest definitely gets my vote. If the rotten biome creeps into the caves, the caves might pass into the number one spot, otherwise they're just high up on the list. The same goes for the cliffs and glacier, but not as much as the caves. In other words, I like eerie environments, especially when they're covered in organic matter (not counting gore themes, usually).
