So, I am writing a science fiction story where reality is flipped on its head like many science fiction stories. The details of my world aren't really important and I am still figuring them out as I write, but things are coming together much better than my previous genre attempts. Here's the thing. My lover and I were talking about this story. We talk about most stories I work on. My lover loves this story. We talked about my fiction world and all the "But, wait, what if this happens?" and "How would this work?" Yeah, I'm feeling pretty good about my world, but that's just setting. Did I say my lover loves this story? My lover loves the setting of this story. We haven't talked once about the actual story or the characters. Obviously, I am going to try hard at this and don't want it to suck, but I'm wondering from some of you, can a good setting carry a story and how much? I don't think the genre matters so much. In some genres you truly leave this world other authors know how to shift reality just the right amount so that it doesn't quite line up with the world we're used to. When setting is at the crux of a story, is it all about the setting, the world? Is the story just a way to navigate this world? I feel like my setting and my story are competing and the setting is winning. Have any of you ever felt that way? What did you do about it? Can a decent story in an awesome setting work? Or do I really need to come up with a better way to make the story outshine the setting somehow?
I have not had this issue. I have attempted to read a number of books/stories that had this issue. For me, it seems common in artistic endeavors. You'll keep me reading a little longer, but most of that time is spent wishing everything else were as good, and making it better in my head (changing your story until it hits a point where the two are too far apart).
Definitely, assuming the "decent" part is decent enough (i.e., it doesn't hurt anything). I'd say a lot of the cyberpunk, steampunk, fantasy/sci-fi sub-genres make their bones on cool worlds/settings. China Mieville made his career on setting, in my opinion. The gag for most of his books is figuring out the world and what makes it work. The characters and plot are decent to good but seldom great but his settings are always mind blowing. Reader expectations of these genres are geared toward worlds/settings too. Not to dip my toes into the mindless validity-of-fantasy debate going on in the other threads, but most of the readers aren't looking for a Faulknerian, life-changing experience in those stories. They just want a cool world with competent characters and story.
I agree with this - and I was thinking of China Mieville too! One of those authors I respect more than I enjoy, and I think largely because I value characters first, plot second, and setting a distant third. Not at all Mieville's priorities.
I certainly think it can, but it's also not a guarantee. I completely agree with @Homer Potvin and @BayView when they cite Miéville as an example where the setting is practically a character and is so full-immersion and deeply satisfying that it becomes a large part of why you even wade through his sometimes magniloquent rhapsodic waxing. But sometimes it's not quite enough. I've extolled numerous times concerning Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson, which is pretty old-school, but certainly had its 15 min amongst the nerdy set. In the case of that story, which was chapter after chapter of what felt like a cut-&-paste out of the author's worldbuilding notebook, I got really frustrated. What plot there was just pissed me off. In the case of that story, the up-front down payment for all his glorious setting wasn't anywhere near enough for me to even finish the first book.
He's a mad scientist apex genius when it comes to setting. You can picture him doodling in his lab, making flow charts and inventing heuristic plot puzzles, when he suddenly screams: "My God... it's a race of aliens that gets high off of language!" And then he'll go nuts setting all of that up, maybe spending five minutes coming up with characters and a plot. He's admitted to as much. He says he wants to write a book in every genre, which I have no doubt he'll be able to do swimmingly. He also has no qualms about ripping off established narrative frameworks, like Moby Dick or the Pied Piper. Check out some of his interviews sometime if you haven't... he is one sharp dude. Tagging @Wreybies here because he's a big Mieville fan too and would probably have greater insight than I into @deadrats question. ETA: also, for a literary guy like @deadrats, whose probably had to make his bones on character and plot, letting the setting do some of the heavy-lifting for you should make this endeavor relatively breezy since your skill-set is already honed to fill the gaps where setting comes up short.
But, at the same time, I think even Miéville sells himself short as regards what he's doing. As much as I want to start a church in his name and be the first of his temple prostitutes, even he gets caught up in the game of what we call things in writing. You just cited Embassytown, which for me remains a novel of such insane brilliance that it makes my pants too tight. Okay, so plot in the typical, pedestrian sense isn't what drives that book, and I completely agree with that. That book runs on a different fuel. It runs on metaphor. The whole flipping thing is an orgy of erect, throbbing metaphors. Some small and fun-size, others godlike in their girth and heat. His investment in the way the Arieki only have biological technology is an adjunct to the way their language is biological. Humans as living similes. Language as opioid. And the screaming birth of Theory of Mind when the Arieki first grok the idea that those which are not Arieki and born into language are their own seperate paradigms. The book does certainly tell a story, a deep story. But again, it's a story that runs on something exotic. And if you'll excuse me, I think I need a cigarette.
Setting can definitely be the story but I still think you need a sortof good idea to showcase it. The characters don't have to be much though. Take Charlie and the Chocolate factory there is no real plot, the characters are pretty flimsy with the exception of Willy Wonka it's all about the malfunctioning candy. Get yourself a good gimmick or idea.
Yeah, you had a least six phallic references in that post... might want to take a few plays off, champ.
On the whole I'd say that setting can make a good story better , but the most beautiful setting in the world won't save a bad story from being crap
This thread...did it just get warmer in here? Anyway I think a setting functions similarly to a premise, especially in a genre like sci-fi. You can do all sorts of things with any given premise. Like the premise "What if there were zombies?" can lead to George Romero's brilliance or Lucia Fulci's camp or later-George Romero's stopped-trying-and-just-phoned-it-in phase. So I'd say that an interesting setting is probably a necessary but insufficient condition for a good story. Or to answer your question more directly, it can't save a bad story, but it can sabotage a good one. Just my $0.02
I'd say too that a great setting will get you more mileage in a short story than it will in a novel. Novels are like marriages... you need a bunch of positive elements that have to work together for an extended time to sustain themselves. Short stories are like flings... the sex alone will make up for a lack of personality or intellectual engagement.
A setting can do a lot for you. It can sell your story, it can market your story and it can provide you with a dedicated fan base. I can think of at least one author who relies about 100% on setting, and they are making a living out of it. But even in that sort of works, there is a story hidden somewhere. If you are really good, you can leave the story implied rather than fully developed. You can just create the spark for the reader's imagination and leave it to do the rest of the creative work on its own. It takes a certain type of reader to like that and there aren't many of them. It's not a mainstream thing. Another option is to leave the story underdeveloped. Do the minimum effort, resort to the mundane and the cliche. That could still make a publisher provide you with a nice advance and a healthy marketing campaign, plus enough professional reviews for a great start. There are plenty of examples where a book takes off to lots of fanfare but then fizzles out due to lots of reader disappointment. Lack of good story (sequence of interesting events) is bound to disappoint the majority of readers. So that's a trick you could probably do successfully only once. Can you give an example? I haven't seen a novel where there is no story but only setting. It could work for a short story. One set piece may be alright but I don't see many readers willing to read 300+ pages of scenery descriptions, however interesting they are.
No, the setting can't really carry the story, I'm afraid. First off, I think you need to step away from feedback until you have a workable draft. By workable, you've got a story line, characters and you've ironed out inconsistencies.
Step away from feedback? I was just talking to someone I care about about something I care about. I don't think that's really feedback. And I don't really think your rule is one that works for me. But thanks.
Well, I'm an absolute sucker for a rich setting, I must say. In fact, I tend to skim over any story that's light on setting. I prefer character-driven stories, don't get me wrong on that. However, if the characters are operating in a vacuum, I find it difficult to get engaged with the story. I think setting and characters are equally important. Just as we all exist in some environment, so do story characters. Or, at least they should, in my opinion. What makes a story come to life is what happens to those characters in that setting. That's the plot part of this equation. So I don't think setting alone will hold my attention for too long. Unlesssss ...it's a work of informative non-fiction, or a travelogue. If your setting is the most important thing to you, @deadrats, and you can't seem concoct a worthy 'story' to emerge from it, you could maybe frame your story AS non-fiction, or a travelogue! It would still be fiction, but would read differently. People who read non-fiction or travelogues don't expect a plot or character development. They just want to learn and experience the world that's being dealt with in the book. So you could play with that idea. Why would somebody want to read about this place? Why would they want to travel there? A fictional narrator could have a lot to say in this regard. And who knows ...a plot might emerge after all. Is the narrator encouraging people to visit the place? Discouraging them? Trying to frighten them away? Trying to sell it to somebody? Hoping to get a group together to go exploring? Think outside the box a bit, and see what happens.
This is about where I was three months ago before starting my latest revision and doung a lot of research into plot. I love my characters and setting and would like to believe others enjoy watching them interact and reveal themselves like I do. My favorite advice came from a book called "Writing Fiction: A Guide To Narrative Craft" by Janet Burroway. (All these books have similiar titles.) In it, she describes a story as a sequence of events often told chronologically. A story continually answers the question "What happens next?". She then says the story is the beginning of a plot, and books need a plot. She gives a very simple idea to turn a story into a plot. The idea is to place linksvof casuality between events in the story. Not just Event Obe, and then Event Two happens, and then Event three... but to create links so that Event One causes Event Two to happen, which causes Event Three. If a story keeps asking "What happens next?", it's converted to a plot by continuously asking "How was this caused by what came imnediately before?" or more simply, "Why did this happen?". For me, this is a revelation that has dramatically improved my work. Magic seems to cone from that why.
It's business of selling things. It doesn't matter much what you think about the book after you've already bought it.
Yup. I'm re-reading all of a 15-book series, and so far I'm actually buying them this time. (Going for used when I can find them, but I've had to buy about half of them new so far.)
I know we're talking books instead of TV, but what immediately came to mind when I saw your your questions was the series Downton Abbey. The setting isn't all the show it had going for it, but it provided a rich well of storytelling that could be drawn from again and again, and the nature of the setting itself provided opportunities for new characters to appear and for existing ones to step up and have their moments (the house needs an heir, the house needs a new maid, who takes over if the butler retires, etc.). In terms of world building, I see a lot of parallels between the world of Downton Abbey and fantasy novels.
