An Extra Glimpse - Collaborative Planning Project Series - Video One - Settings (Patreon)

Hi everyone, Nai here, and welcome to the first video of the “Collaborative Planning Project Series” (catchy, huh?). Please feel free to watch the video, I’ve just typed it up “blog-style” as well as I know Mishka has the propensity to talk fast!

Mishka and I thought it might be fun and informative to show you her planning process and create a very simple story whereby you can decide where the story goes through Patreon polls on the various decisions!

So, let’s kick this first video off with settings, as this, after genre (which is going to stick with Wayhaven central themes of romance/adventure for this project) is where Mishka always starts with one of her stories. We’re going to keep it simple here for the purposes of time, so we’ll go through the top genre settings starting with Fantasy as an example.

Obviously, each genre setting has many options, we’re just going through some quick-fire options here, though as Mishka says, just because you want to write say, a murder-mystery story, there’s no reason why you can’t also set this on a space cruiser or if you want to write a sci-fi story, you could go slightly Fantasy but that evolved with lots of technological advancements, just as some out-of-the-box options.

So, staying with Fantasy for now, we have:

High Fantasy

- Forests

- Magical cities

- Rapid rivers

Dark Fantasy

- Gothic castles

- Rainy moors

- Battlefields

Light Fantasy

- Bustling towns

- Countryside

- Marketplaces

All of these options can obviously be expanded on again and again, but it’s just a case of giving yourself somewhere to start.

Next up is “Rom-Com”. When Mishka and I have read these books the settings are usually smaller, forcing the characters together more often and with a smaller cast of characters. For this genre we have these (again, short and sweet) setting examples:

Small Village

- Cute cottages

- Village Halls

- Gardens

Vacation Resorts

- Bustling cities

- Hotels

- Beaches

There’s so, so many more options, we’re just giving the “highlights” here.

And to round this off we’re going to go with Adventure settings (anyone else hearing the Indiana Jones theme tune, or is it just me?). Kicking this off we have…

Tropical Islands

- Rainforests

- - Oceans

- Caverns

Historical Cities

- Monuments

- Museums

- Winding streets

Mountains

- Camps

- Snowy trails

- Ice caves

So, that wraps up some of the major genre settings just so you can see how Mishka starts off her projects and hopefully gives you a few ideas on how to get your own story started.

With Wayhaven already being a well-developed world, Mishka gave some examples of how she would breakdown the settings within this established world:

Wayhaven Town

- The Square

- Forests

- Docks

- Parks

The Facility

- Underground bunker

- Tunnels

- Training rooms

- Research facilities

The Big City

- Skyscrapers

- Bustling Streets

- Alleyways

- Shops

Echo World

- Towns

- Noble’s Castles/Estates

- Countryside

- Mountains

- Desert oasis

Now here comes the fun part where you get to decide what settings we’re going to include in this collaborative story – obviously sticking to The World of Wayhaven.

We’ll be putting up a poll for you all to decide where to set our story (as if we can’t already guess…) and make sure you catch the next video where we’ll be running through the next step in Mishka’s process: The Main Character.

Hope you enjoyed the video!