How to Set Up a Story World for Your Characters
The world of your story is made up of time, space and the characters who use that time and space to achieve their story goals. The strongest, most believable worlds are the ones that evoke emotion in readers, where—no matter how fantastical the world—they will dive deep and long into your story.
Your story world is a physical expression of who your hero is and how he develops.
This post will go through some of the key steps to help you set up a story world that follows a journey similar to your characters’ development.
Let’s hop to it!
One of your first objectives in setting up your story world is to make sure it provides a place where your hero can go through a full range of change.
Every story is a journey of your hero’s growth, and it honestly helps us writers to know the endpoint of our hero’s journey in order to understand the world that would best fit their development.
CHARACTER STRUGGLE TO CHARACTER REVELATION
Identify your hero’s weakness, story goal, and need at the beginning of your story. Then determine the endpoint of your hero’s change, their self-revelation. What happens along the way between the beginning and the end is the bulk of his journey.
The details and limitations and opportunities of your story world should work in such a way that it matches your hero’s journey.
Ask yourself what the world looks like at the beginning of your hero’s journey that will act as the perfect container for your hero’s struggle. Ask yourself what the world needs to look like at the end to fully and credibly support your hero’s self-revelation.
For example, if your hero lacks confidence and self-worth at the beginning of your story, and grows into a confident and powerful leader at the end, then the story world needs to express your character’s struggle and revelation in some way.
Conversely, if your hero doesn’t actually change from beginning to end, or worsens over the course of their journey, then the world behaves accordingly.
USING TIME TO DEVELOP YOUR STORY WORLD
Setting is made up of space and time. Space can be broken down into sub-categories, including natural settings, man-made settings, and technology.
Time can be expressed through past, present, future; seasons; and cultural celebrations (Christmas, birthdays).
Keep in mind that when we’re setting our stories in the past or future that we’re not writing about the past or the future. We set a story in the past to give our readers a lens through which they can see our present circumstances more clearly. We set a story in the future, not because we’re predicting what the future will be like, but rather, to provide a lens through which our readers can understand our present days better.
In other words, when we write stories based in the past or the future, those stories enable us to judge our current selves and circumstances by comparison.
We can judge characters in stories set in the past based on the differences in the values people lived by in the past compared to the values people live by in the present. Stories set in the future allow us to think about choices the characters make (and the subsequent consequences) compared to the choices we face today.
When you choose to show time passage through natural time, such as seasons or the passing of a day, you can similarly show the growth or decay, the rise or fall, or the advancement or hindrance of your hero and your story world.
Be sure to ask yourself if you’re better off following expected time guidelines, or if your story might be more interesting if you go in an unexpected direction. As long as you’re following natural laws, then changing sequences or patterns is acceptable.
ENDPOINT OF TIME
Tick tick tick tick tick
That’s the sound of a hero up against a ticking clock. Tension mounts and your narrative drive speeds up.
A ticking clock is a great device to use in any journey story because it can help keep the inherent meandering to a minimum. The hero must make a decision soon or else.
The endpoint of time can be built into your story world in the form of a final destination (journey story) or apprehension of the murderer (thriller/mystery) or the ultimate battle (climax of any story).
In this set-up, your hero knows This Is It. They have arrived to their big moment, and after this, there are no more chances. Your story world, at this point, will express a similar attitude in that it might feel bleak, anticipatory, urgent, or frightening—depending on the kind of story you’re telling.
BASICS FOR YOUR STORY WORLD
Even the most complex, fantastical, extraordinary worlds need to have a firm foundation upon which everything can play out logically. It’s always a good idea to start with the basics to make sure that your story world is believable as well as unique.
Consider such elements as culture, weather, architecture, and background characters to help not only define the world but to also create flow, movement, and conflict. While you have a lot of free will with your world creation, you need to stick to your own world’s laws, make sure there are limits to fantastical elements such as magic, and that you evoke emotion and response within your readers.
Start with the big picture arena to help you get a sense of the scope of your world. Then figure out the smaller arenas within that might come up as the story progresses. For example, if your big-picture arena takes place in a town, then perhaps smaller arenas might be the hero’s house, a coffee shop, a street corner, and a lake.
Close in on the big-picture and smaller arenas through sensory details. What do they look, smell, sound, feel, and taste like.
Conflict is a necessary component within your story, so how can you pull it through your story world? What characters clash with each other? Which characters are dissatisfied or disillusioned? What aspects of your story world make bad things worse? How can you use weather, geography, or props to illuminate the conflict?
STEPS TO BUILDING YOUR STORY WORLD
1. Describe your story world in one sentence.
2. Describe the Central Setting and any Secondary Settings.
3. If there are pathways among your multiple settings, describe how they operate. (For example, transportation, magic, time, etc.)
4. Who is your Central Character and what are his/her relationships with all the other characters?
5. Describe the natural aspects to your settings.
6. Describe the man-made aspects to your settings.
7. Describe the technology.
8. Explain how your aspects of natural, man-made, and technology work together or against each other.
9. Describe the people and how they work together or against each other. Include systems, hierarchies, laws, etc. to show the conditions under which this world operates.
10. Describe how your Central Character’s development aligns with your story world’s development.
DO YOU ENJOY WORLD BUILDING?
WHAT PARTS DO YOU FIND TRICKY TO MASTER?
HAVE A WRITERLY DAY!