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

Hi everyone! Nai here and I’m back with part two of the Collaborative Planning Project series.

In this video, we’re talking about settings and stories and how they interact. And our setting, which you all voted on in the last poll was…(drumroll please)…The Echo World!

So, sticking with the Wayhaven themes of romance, escapism, and adventure/action as an overall setting, we now need a story idea. How Mishka goes about doing that is one of two ways:

- A story inspired by the setting

- Or adapting the setting to suit the story

Luckily with romance as the main theme, we have lots of options for specific settings.

Most of the Echo World is kind of general fantasy – think DnD ‘you meet in a tavern’ kind of stuff, though there are some more unique areas too just to add a bit of difference.

But saying that, you don’t need to make your setting something new, or try to fixate on something not done before. Many readers, including Mishka and myself, will look for stories with the same settings because it’s comfortable. If there’s a twist on it, great, but it’s not always necessary.

As long as you have a compelling story and characters, then the setting is just the backdrop a lot of the time – though the look of that backdrop can inspire our story.

So, if we take the standard fantasy tavern as our starting point, we can take a look at what I mean by story by the setting, or adapting that setting.

Say we don’t have a story yet, but we have an idea for this awesome tavern for our starting setting. We know we want it there, let’s break it down like we did the setting before:

What’s in a tavern?

Characters – we have the people who work there and the Patrons who frequent it.

Already, we’re thinking our main character could work at the tavern. Maybe their life is overly boring, same thing day in and day out.

Now we can look at the other characters in that setting – the patrons

Perhaps the tavern is always filled with the same patrons the main character has come to know, until one day someone new walks through the door (que the music) – this could be a potential love interest.

Perhaps the stranger has come looking for someone, and due to some exciting circumstances they realise it is the main character they are looking for, and the two take off on an adventure together to discover the depths of the main character’s real past not the one they’ve been told.

…And there we have the start of a story inspired by the setting we use.

For a setting that’s adapted from an already formed idea, Mishka has shared a story idea she has or something she’d like to actually write for the Echo World (HYPE!).

Her original setting was going to be a tavern. The main character would have been left ownership of it through a will but there is someone else who wants the building and uses their charm to try and tempt the main character into an offer.

But the story just wasn’t enough…it wasn’t what I wanted. This was supposed to be a bit steamier and it took me some time to realise the tavern setting was what holding it back.

So the setting had to be adapted and changed to a brothel.

The main character became a helper at the brother, not a courtesan (most of the time in brothers in the Echo World, the courtesans are succubi or incubi, which as you can imagine works as a win-win situation).

A patron of the brothel spots our main character and takes an interest, hoping the main character would switch to the position of courtesan for them.

Then there is complications of possible lover interests from amongst the courtesans and suddenly the setting was working perfectly to help further inspire the story.

Now let’s try something where the setting is a little different.

The sea. Already that setting inspires the thoughts of merfolk because we all love them!

For a story inspired by a setting, let’s break down our setting:

The sea is a vast expanse of water, but also sometimes dotted with mysterious islands. There, islands often hold treasure or other interests.

Perhaps our main character is a merfolk, who watches out for pirates who bury their treasure then swoops in to steal it and sell it to other curious merfolk back in their own kingdom under the sea.

Now to add a potential love interest. We could make them another merfolk, but that limits us a bit. So, how about someone on land. Possibly one of the pirates?

The pirate spots our main character stealing but instead of capturing them, offers them the opportunity to go after a fabled treasure, what with our character’s useful abilities being a merfolk and all…the adventure can ensue.

The characters within the setting once again inspire a story.

For a setting adapted to a story, let’s stick with the merfolk theme.

Our story is a merfolk whose waters have been cursed. We know that we want that as our story – but how does someone curse a whole ocean? It’s not impossible, but it’s a bit difficult, even with the amount of magic flowing in the Echo World!

So, the setting needs to be adapted to something smaller, a more contained environment that could more easily be inflicted by a curse.

The adapted setting now longer hinders us but opens up the idea of where it could lead – perhaps the lagoon if filtered down from a cursed forest, or the waters lead to a sickness that’s infected the land.

Obviously, these are just a couple of ideas and examples, but this is generally how Mishka begins to work out story ideas.

There are so many ways to be inspired by stories, so it's always good to find a way that works for you!

Mishka will come up with some more story ideas for our setting and add them to a poll so we can decide on our story ready to give an example for the next stage!

Hope you’re all enjoying doing this together as much as we are and I can’t wait to see what you choose!