Have I taken on too much.

So I am struggling to write my first novel.

It's going to be a comedy set in a dystopian near-future in a state of mild urban decay. I have a storyline, I have characters, I have a theme, but what I don't have is a setting, ie an actual place for the story to take place within and I also can't seem to come up with suitable evil overlords to rule this dystopia.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

hmm an interesting problem. Why not have a look at some cliche overlords and think about how you could warp the templete of a typical overlord

 

Why not start with a short story to take the setting and characters for a test drive and to kick the tires?

 

There's a good idea, I once went to an author talk where the author said she did one or two chapters before writing a novels outline just to get a feel for the story and characters.

 

Cool, the short story/test drive idea sounds like it would help alot. Thanks.

 

Short stories are great spring boards for full fledge novels. They help you get the most basic concepts in line and in place and from there the fun begins

 

Just a thought. I had this issue with a piece of cyberpunk fiction I was writing. Why not ignore the settijg completely. Stay with me here, I'm not nuts (well not officially). Write the story - or a brief version of it. Once the story arc is finished, then reexamine what aspects of the environment that character interacted with and build the environment around the dialogue and action.

Rumpole

 

Good idea, I shall do just that. Thanks.

 

Good luck Sideburns. Let me know how it turns out.

 

I like the above advice!

You can also base it in a major city like New York or Los Angeles. Just a thought. Normally, when I see stories like this (albeit they are not usually comedies), they take place in a big city.

Anyway, I can't wait to see what you come up with!

 

While everybody else seems to have tossed their two cents in, here's a pennies worth of my thoughts:

If you often picture the story and character while you aren't writing, try picking one of your characters and just following them around for a day or so. See what they do or interact with. I get good setting ideas from this.

Another good way to come up with ideas for setting is to think of what your setting reminds you of (especially helps if you can think of a historical example). Then read up on that example. You'll get good ideas for what to add.