Just the FAQ

 

 

 

 

 

SETTING AND WORLD-BUILDING

 

 

 
StYLe!
 

 

Goethe identified three worlds in which dramatic action takes place:  

  1. The physical setting: the immediate milieu of the characters and the surrounding natural world.
  2. The domain of the mind: Representation of Consciousness of the characters. -- motivated POV and the Phenomena...
  3. The realm of fantasies, premonitions, apparitions, chance, and fate. -- Pathetic Fallacy and Fairy Tale unpremeditated magical realism...

 

Q. What is the importance of setting?

  A. Setting, dramatic space, is among the dimensions and careful details key to any consistent and convincing story. For better or worse, deliberately or by omission, a nowhere nowhen "white room" story or vignette, leaving the reader quite in a fog even as to spatial relationships, perhaps even by way of some convenient False Interiorization, may even unfold sans much or any indication at all of time frame or structures or place, past, present or future, even however generic, and whether the story takes place indoors, outdoors, at rest or in motion, the vehicle or locale at all whatsoever, prosaic as a day in the life nor colorfully exotic milieu as Space Opera. Otherwise, at least so much as a tantalizing or evocative hint, or even just the extreme opposite, there are lengthily descriptive set pieces, unplotted stories lovingly delving into every atmospheric detail of the immediate environs and even elaborate guided tours, from the expository and Didactic to the symbolic and thematic. However, what is generally considered minimally crucial will remain the general tone. mood and physical details critical to the plot and revelation of key aspects of characterization.

Indeed, settings include the generic even jarringly so to the point of the unreal or Surreal, implying that the story could happen anywhere or even to anyone. Indeed, any convenient backdrop may have little or no effect upon the story. Likewise even for the most richly ornamental local color, despite every impression to the contrary.

But then again, atmosphere, tone and mood may reflect the state of mind of the characters. Indeed, setting may be integral to character background or symbolic.

For the multifarious simultaneous aspects and functions of setting are most effective in relation [Wayback mirror] to the other essential elements in the story, all manner of inference or even subtext by the suggestive power of the setting in detail of every reciprocal relationship that exists between beings and their surroundings. Indeed, setting includes cultural milieu such as appropriate not only to geographical location but the era, the historical past or whatever projected future of Soft Science Fiction, cultural context in the embrace of which to avoid separation of character from place, Point of View achieving the full emersion of fictional experience into the setting, to truly Bring Settings to Life beyond just Setting The Scenes.

Or, especially as in the man versus nature conflict, such as a plot that revolves around climbing a mountain, setting serves as obstacle or complication and even at the risk of Poetic Fallacy, a character, the antagonist.

Characters develop out of situation, and plot ideas emerge from characters in different situations and the actions undertaken because of their relationships and conflict on every level, the friction entailed as characters come into contact, every level of dramatic conflict, internal and external, classic reversal as in the estrangement of the bullied idealistic whistle blower.
 Put the whistle blowers in charge!

Fictional characters like real unto real people they generally represent, are wont to associate emotionally to setting via meaningful key "objects," not only real physical props, decor, senses, smell, mood, ambiance, light and sound, but also triggers of memory and motivation perhaps focused thereupon, sentimentality after a prolonged absence, or to heighten or show any range of affect and motivation from tragic loss to pleasant anticipation.

Good writing is akin to good reporting, conveying the level of intensity and other evocative qualities of any scene, or, for example, in the vital details of group scenes.

Setting including whatever stagecraft, design and props unfold better as characters come to notice and interact with their environs. What shows in specific scenes serve to support the story as a whole, even if all such vital considerations are to be deferred as in pod story technique, even collaboratively as in Improv scenework.  For the elements of whatever type of scene or half-scene, in or of whatever time frame or structures, duration, and pacing, need to be well constructed and dramatic for Building Better Scenes.

Behavior from characterization driving plot much as true life interaction, is also in no small part determined by culture, the prism through which impulses and urges are sublimated and reshaped into acceptable behavior in any group or region. Even universal truths and eternal verities are flavored by ambient culture or milieu.

Female culture is distinct from male, young from old, black from white, European from American, artistic from scientific. Individual organizations have cultures all their own, to which people adapt, and adapt quickly, or else find themselves excluded. Small regions, even neighborhoods, have distinct, readable cultures, sometimes from one six-block area to the next, the depth and breadth of two highly different cultures, and then clashing them together, with all the inherent humor of such culture clash, self- awareness gained, reciprocal character development and new accommodation and renegotiation of socially constructed roles of milieu to situation.

Setting and milieu are often important plot points, variously also establishing the tone or even making metaphor, events even foreshadowed by anticipatory imagery , allegory and imagery extending beyond the setting and creative stagecraft, design, props, ambience and other such associations to setting in the memory of any character, the Mise en Scène, visually conveying subtext, theme (essential understanding or recurring concept, often conveyed via some symbolic Objective Correlative motif or topos), and symbolism, or even facilitating cognitive estrangement as in 'Star Trek'.

And, after all,  given that we are each and all, beyond the outcome of genetics, the product shaped by our environment, then setting, milieu and characterization will need to be consistent with one another for plausible and evocative believability, in showing just where as well as how, characters live, work and play. For the plot logic of deconstruction expands and unfurls consistent story elements and variations out from one another. In the rewrites, details reexamined serve as clues to a more rounded story.
 
Strong narrative voice is crucial to Characterization and Subtle Description of Setting, all together comprising The 3 Most Important Elements of Fiction Writing.  And there are many ways to reveal, demonstrate, show and evoke characterization as well as different types and methods thereof. 

Differing viewpoints upon relationships parallel not only the objective and subjective persons of narrative but also communication and the character interaction of plot and growth, systematically. 

Moreover, well rounded fictional characters like unto the real people they generally represent, are wont to associate emotionally to setting via meaningful key "objects" or personal symbols, not only real physical props, decor, senses, smell, mood, ambiance, light and sound, but also triggers of memory and motivation perhaps focused thereupon, sentimentality after a prolonged absence, or to heighten or show any range of affect and motivation from tragic loss to pleasant anticipation.  

Voice and tone afforded any motivated character's response, reaction or willful choice of strategy that will be determined largely by their POV , Point Of View, subjectivity, reflection, situation with Representation of Consciousness, perspective or even entirely mechanistic particular involvement in whatever phase of any process considered, but also defined, guided and constrained by values, into somehow or other principled behavior. Indeed, motivated character POV (Point Of View) upon situation often turns out more definitive to story in TEXT, CONTEXT and subtext, even than plot variation.

Just such Character and setting INTERACTIONS and influence include the Phenomena of POV, situation of Epistemological "Given Circumstances" of information ever available to any given character, plus filtered perceptions superficial or deep Viewpoint with ambiguity and and often value loaded abstraction out of memory association and personal constructs of social cognition built from successive red herrings, innate naturally flawed Epistemological Methodology and elements of narrative even including Pathetic Fallacy, all redolent in theme.   

 

Q. What is situation?

A. On stage or off, every peripheral character remains central to their own personal story, motivated and independent POV, filtered perceptions and Interpretive Turn, and should so behave. Drama is the gripping and engaging tension-laden presentation of conflict on whatever level, whether or not the storyline is even believable. In drama, the conflict inherent to whatever situation, there are four elements of thirteen possible motivations:
What do characters want, goals ever put forth and why, what motivates them? And what aids or hinders whatever their quest? In dramatizing controversy, good motivated and dramatic dialogue makes it hard to tell who is right and who is wrong. "In a good play, everyone is right." But how far would they go? Or will they change and grow?  However, poorly staged or presented conflict on any level tends to lose most of the force of its inherent drama.
 
Any motivated character's response, reaction or willful choice of strategy will be determined largely by their POV, Point Of View, subjectivity, reflection, situation with Representation of Consciousness, perspective or even entirely mechanistic particular involvement in whatever phase of any process considered, but also defined, guided and constrained by values, into somehow or other principled behavior. Indeed, motivated character POV (Point Of View) upon situation often turns out more definitive to story even than plot variation.

In situation analysis or modeling, the causes and symptoms as well as contradiction, Sensitivity Analysis and inherent conflict on whatever level, between harmful and beneficial functions for all concerned, the drama in any given situation or scenario are clarified in relation point by point to a list of known situational factors as compared to a desirable optimum of most sound practices.

Even in situation analysis or modeling of the drama of the writer's striving towards self expression, there are six core polemically  purposeful motivations for dialogue salient to literate understanding or modeling of the rhetorical situation[ism] 

Risk is an aspect of situational factors, property of whatever given situation and determinant the most appropriate risk management strategy and response to opportunity seeking an ideal result. Whereas motivated characterization including relationships will determine the actual response, however sagacious or foolhardy. All manner of complex situational factors contribute to the complexity and uncertainty and therefore drama, of whatever desired outcome. Which is why, to quote Helmuth von Moltke: "No plan survives contact with the enemy." -nor, for that matter, whatever other sort of antagonist, obstacle or complication.

Indeed, in the vast underground that is the alternative school system one of the most well-known and documented forms of learning is in the form of experience:
The Situationalists, following Jean Paul Sartre’s Existential philosophy that life is a series of given situations, figuratively, whatever combinations of conditions and circumstances at a given moment or state of affairs, but literally, the way in which one finds oneself positioned within one's surroundings  that affect the individual’s consciousness and will and which in turn must be negotiated by that individual, invented Psychogeography in order to deeply delve therein.
 
Indeed, while the reportage of exterior observation is dramatic, POV or Point Of View of a participant from inside the action, heightens immediacy. Picking the Right Viewpoint Character or reader surrogate, is among the essential considerations, because, whatever their uses, in some way all narrators, save, perhaps, the authorial spokesperson, remain unreliable, only one among many types of irony bourn by whatever voice in whichever person and by whatever vehicle.
 
Hence, to pique curiosity, the physical realism of Science Fiction may introduce one to whatever world or situation, sans cumbersome instruction manuals telling too much too soon, instead showing from the verisimilitudinous Edge of Ideas like unto the historical subtext of an invented and often far future or otherwise distant world or setting, abruptly, yet unfolding bit by bit, or even in some entirely novel and surprising manner, baiting the all important hook or grabber and more, actually central and unique to whatever the work's special appeal and invitation to the thrill of shared disorientation. For avid readers of Science Fiction are alert to seek out and make note of seeming incoherencies as tantalizing clues to the mysterious and fabulous world beyond the narrative, even somewhat likewise as the true lover of poetry must seize upon narratively inexplicable visual disruptions or conjunctions of sound. 

Indeed, immediate situation is colored by what Stanislavski dubbed the "Given Circumstances," even however socially constructed in milieu, along with setting, characterization and back-story as a Gestalt. Action should clearly reveal what characters do under their given circumstances and the motivation why.

Motivation, after all, is human need defining the human condition, or, in 'Star Trek', the enigmatic and irresolvable "Human equation." Beyond practical interests, identity and principles not easily put up for trade and flaws that threaten all they hope for hold dear, that unique and original well rounded characters, just like real people of any depth, guard even at the cost of practical gain and happiness. Meaning and importance, all conceivable priorities and relevant values, unless they are one way or another decisively intellectualized, profoundly detached and disengaged in the extreme, ultimately emanate from needs and desires, attraction or aversion, fundamental motivations, selfish or altruistic. Otherwise, there can only be apathy and hence no problems to relate to at all. Deeper motivation, even world view, characterization, growth and the philosophical questions of drama, as distinguished by their dramatic gripping inherent conflict on every level, are all contextual function of the human condition or situation that has changed so drastically from the past that is the setting and milieu of historical fiction and into any modern time frame as reflected in contemporary culture, and most certainly will change into the future that is frequently subject matter of Science Fiction and the scenario planning of Futurology.

 

Q. What are situational forces?

A. One of the most important discoveries in social science in the past few decades has been that of Fundamental Attribution Error (also known as correspondence bias or overattribution effect) (even to the point of Hostile Attribution Bias), the finding that all too often people will believe too strongly that personality differences of character are responsible for the behavioral variance and even, therefore, dissimilarity in condition and circumstance, that we all so readily observe between individuals. Whereas, in actuality, instead it may often be accident, the incidental or situational forces, especially manipulation under however relative conditions of captivity, that give rise to variation in individual behavior in response thereto. So, just how powerful are situational forces in pressing and confusing ordinary people into ego-alien behaviors, and under what conditions? The very question presses the drama on the level of inner conflict into the Surreal, even dreamlike, the unreal experience expressed via fantastic imagery and incongruous juxtapositions, seductive, fantastical, to horrific or even humorous effect, in art, fiction and parable.

"Situational variables can exert powerful influences over human behavior, more so that we recognize or acknowledge. Seemingly small features of situations, like roles, rules, uniforms, signs, group identity, can come to control behavior as much as dispositional variables, such as traits. Human behavior is incredibly pliable, plastic. The line between good and evil is permeable and almost anyone can be induced to cross it when pressured by situational forces. Heroes are those who can somehow resist the power of the situation and act out of noble motives, or behave in ways that do not demean others when they easily can. Evil is knowing better, but willingly doing worse." 
 
Professor Philip Zimbardo: The Interview 

Indeed, just as observed by George Eliot, "No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from." 

 

Q. What is Pathetic Fallacy?

A. As coined by the Evangelically trained leading Victorian critic of art and literature John Ruskin in his 'Of The Pathetic Fallacy', the device, trope, even somewhat melodramatic implausible convenience, evocative figure of pathos, irrational distortion, convention or practice related to but somewhat less formal than the rhetorical trope of prosopopoeia or personification  in the Empathic Universe of metaphoric symbolic imagery and perhaps even melodramatic implausible convenience that is Pathetic Fallacy (Also known as Poetic Fallacy) as often used in poetry and in fiction and alas, also in dubious rhetoric and bad science, means ascribing, investment, endowment or false attribution or credit of, or control by or action from, human thought, intention, pathos, feelings, sympathies, responses and characteristics or characterization and motivation, via events even foreshadowed by anticipatory imagery, even in however personally symbolic signs and portents of Synchronicity, to the non-sapient, to inanimate objects or to nature and the outside world, even conceptual entities such as countries, inference or even subtext by the suggestive power of the setting in detail of every reciprocal relationship that exists between beings and their surroundings, projection that effectively convey truths of the inner world or view point, effort at depicting the outside world to Phenomenal inner life of thoughts and feelings, either with more adept subtlety or else, quite the opposite, as for most blatant example, angry weeping clouds as a thunderclap strikes in a moment of great emotion and bleak outlook, "the cutting wind breathed a mournful howl of disappointed fury at its victim's escape" or the friendly sun emerging again even as more hopeful conditions are restored, the palpable fear that lived with us on the frontlines, and books that beg to be read.

Indeed, especially when all manner of faults and quirks seemingly lend expansive personality, attributes of life are easily projected onto machines, especially computers bright enough to mimic and even learn from interaction. Indeed, conversely, living things may likewise assume, for the observer, attributes of machines.

Any motivated character's response, reaction or willful choice of strategy will be determined largely by their POV, Point Of View, subjectivity, reflection, situation with Representation of Consciousness, perspective or even entirely mechanistic particular involvement in whatever phase of any process considered, but also defined, guided and constrained by values, into somehow or other principled behavior. Indeed, motivated character POV (Point Of View) upon situation often turns out more definitive to story even than plot variation.

Hence, pathos of any sort is often best achieved and accentuated by following that venerable maxim of writing style, show don't tell. And, indeed, the symbolism of the Pathetic Fallacy in particular brings to light the entirely subjective, either to character POV or authorial voice. -At least barring anthropomorphic prosopopoeia, or literal personification of Fairy Tale unpremeditated magical realism. Even if perhaps melodramatic and implausibly convenient, the Pathetic Fallacy is an aspect of writing style finding typical particular utilization most saliently pertaining to setting and even situation wherein descriptions are often intended to reveal moral or psychological aspects of character.

Because motivated characterization is shown by external description of physical appearance including physical characteristics often constituting symbolic elements along with meaningful names, setting the scene and more, along with relationships and contrast between characters (foil), perhaps symbolic of any larger abstraction, with development or not, and any better hidden revelation and understanding gleaned from the reactions of others, dialogue and action; but also revelations of any character's own thoughts and feelings, via straight exposition or rhetorical discourse directly providing needed background information from the authorial POV, introspection of any character's private inner most thoughts and feelings from the POV of inner life, even interior monologue attempting to portray or convey, in words, the process of consciousness or thought as a means of narrating a story, even stream-of-consciousness of experience, the entire subjective Phenomena, as it passes by, often quite at random. All of which may be rife with personal symbolism and imagery.

Indeed, deft examples of Pathetic Fallacy, however unreal, indeed, even in the the unpremeditation of magical realism of Fairy Tale animism however Bathetically masquerading as (bad!) science in education, in many aspects are subjectively and Phenomenally  inextricable from subtext of setting and milieu that are often seen to form emerging character, even as in the veritable spontaneous generation of Heathcliff and Cathy out from the wild dark moorlands, and, reciprocally, entering the scene, that characters may likewise affect setting.  

 

Q. What is Psychogeography ?

 Robert Louis Stevenson once said that every adventure should start with a Map

A. Psychogeography is subjective geography, the art that endeavors to record and to understand the influence of the outer environment upon the human mind, as well as, reciprocally, world view, the Phenomenal creative mental emotional process of meaningful association in memory to locale and environment which is so key to the most evocative and thematic or even tone, subtextual use of setting in fiction, more and better developed detail to guide the reader through  character focalization, filtered perceptions from prior experience, of context, bias, Phenomenal and interpretive frame of reference, 'spin', propaganda, or the scarce resource that is Point Of View, superficial or deep Viewpoint, and elements of narrative, each with it's own distinct advantages and disadvantages and often conveying perception, sense or presentation of time frame or pacing, and into the setting. -A reasonable description in character and plausible to the situation, stressing that which whatever such an individual would likely prioritize, react to and notice first under whatever particular circumstances, will help to avoid an unlikely artificial seeming separation of character from place, again, bearing in mind, who's voice?

For fictional characters like real unto the people they generally represent, are wont to associate emotionally to setting and milieu via meaningful key "objects" or personal symbols, not only real physical props, decor, senses, smell, mood, ambiance, light and sound, but also triggers of memory and motivation perhaps focused thereupon, sentimentality after a prolonged absence, or to heighten or show any range of affect and motivation from tragic loss to pleasant anticipation.

Indeed, unitary urbanism striving towards a collective and non-specialized fusion of all art, architecture and urban planning towards a subversive transformation of the urban landscape in tune with the psychological behavior of the occupants the lonely crowd, the Situationists, following Jean Paul Sartre’s Existential philosophy that life is a series of given situations, figuratively, whatever combinations of conditions and circumstances at a given moment or state of affairs, but literally, the way in which one finds oneself positioned within one's surroundings, that affect or even subvert the individual’s consciousness and will and which in turn must be negotiated by that individual, and, in turn, life in an immersive environment, the ongoing spectacle of media and architecture monopoly and manipulation or simply the more traditional pacifying mythology, to entrance the masses deprived of decision and and define modern society, interpersonal relations mediated, trivialized and obstructed by advertisement images and consumption, invented Psychogeography, the study of the precise effects of geographical setting upon the emotions and behavior of individuals, and practiced the dérive, or drifting, an aimless wandering stroll even making use of the cyclical randomizing formulae of twists and turns provided by Algorithmic Psychogeography, to produce complete and utterly abstract Psychogeographal maps, nonetheless uniquely providing concrete walking directions to their idiosyncratic focal points, thereby presenting a social, experiential or existential reality of space as fragmented and discontinuous such that areas which are experienced as distinct are pulled apart on the map with the arrows on Psychogeographal maps serving to connect, locate only relatively, the different areas via the forces of attraction or appealing ambiance and unwelcoming repulsion or exclusion experienced along the resultant path of least resistance, and the abrupt change of ambiance into distinct zones in the course of the dérive.

Tech Guide - Shooting Action Scenes similarly emphasizes setting with space and props for all action scenes no less than for the chase [chart].

 

Q. Of What purpose is Psychogeography ?

A. "Explorers who wander the world as psychogeographers have various motivations — political, artistic, scientific, technological, philosophical, historical. There are those who engage in demographic research, social protest or urban ethnography and the documentation of overlooked spaces [even of the red light district]. Others study patterns of movement and navigation by setting specific parameters for constrained walks. Audio/visual artists and writers who use the landscape as raw material gather objects, data and recordings, and often alter their cities by means of stickers, graffiti, performance or intervention. Some psychogeographers use GPS receivers to locate hidden caches or make drawings in the landscape. High-speed networks and wireless devices are also being used as psychogeographic tools. Areas of related activity include urban planning, cartography, gaming, virtual environments, the creation of mazes and labyrinths and urban code (tagging, warchalking, hobo signs). Finally, there are always those who stroll, drift and wander simply for the pleasure of turning the next corner..."

 

Q. What are the practical applications of unitary urbanism?

A. Theoretical unitary urbanism and field research of the Situationist International was only actually put into practice as audience participatory street theatre combined with graffiti, by the much despised Second Situationist International splinter group.

 

 

Q. What is Literary Psychogeography ?

A. No less than more standard cartography, Psychogeography, perhaps less formal than the stucturalist reading of cultural milieu through semiotics, might serve as a tool that can find useful and creative application to world-building, the authorship of setting or even be redeployed in such various applications as the mapping of Cyberspace and other semantic networks for historiographical purposes in the writing of historical narrative and historical fiction. Indeed, Literary Psychogeography examines the influence of physical surroundings on the instinctive behavior of individuals as recorded in literature in the widest sense rather than as distinguished, narrowly defined and signified by the much vaunted capital "L", bringing history to life and enabling an audience to wander freely, watching, listening and examining the influence of physical surroundings upon the instinctive behavior of individuals as recorded in the written records left behind by a people or an era with crucial accuracy and detail.

Even the very Art of Active Reading is far from passive, intellectual and interpretive participation entailing construction of alternative narratives, imagination and visualization, adjustment of emphasis to suit one's own interests, and assembly of the story or information into whatever the cognitive schemata and context that make up one's own systems of knowledge and belief.

After all, any motivated character's response, reaction or willful choice of strategy will be determined largely by their POV, Point Of View, subjectivity, reflection, situation with Representation of Consciousness, perspective or even entirely mechanistic particular involvement in whatever phase of any process considered, but also defined, guided and constrained by values, into somehow or other principled behavior. Indeed, motivated character POV (Point Of View) upon situation often turns out more definitive to story even than plot variation.

Indeed, in good historical fiction, the past as no less than the future is to be found quite a different world from the familiar present, with motivated characterization to match, no less than in the futuring of capable Science Fiction.

For as Eve Tushnet points out in Eros and Education, even so integral and elemental a vital impulse as sex is meaningful expression of Eros, more than the quest for completion and transformation, the oft frustrated desire for connection, liberating union with alien difference inevitably first demanding resolution out of conflict on whatever level, arising from any dread of the vulnerability entailed.

But "A union in which one partner is not vulnerable is an invasion; if neither partner submits, it is an armed truce. [And] Neither of these experiences frees us from the tyranny [and intrinsic loneliness of self involved banality or the provinciality of present day assumptions and sensibilities of sheer hack!]"  

Guidelines on Writing Backward, A Few Thoughts on Elements of The Art of Historical Fiction and -why?

 

Metahistory: History more drama than Epistemology

 

 

Q. What are shared constructed worlds and world-building? 

A. The venerable old Marvel Comics practice of heroic meticulous cross-continuity now vies for respectability. For much as in the folkloric tradition such as of the olden Arthurian legends of Camelot further appended and elaborated by every bard in turn, shared fictional background becomes the canvas for different individual authors to write stories into the same cannon, milieu and settings. 

Details of setting and milieu may wait for development as needed while the story makes the world to suit. However, conversely, much as all else in the logic of plotting scenes readily follows from pertinent decisions what need be shown regarding motivated characterization and conflict on every level, with dramatic obstacles, likewise, even the world-building details of setting and milieu may derive plot from all manner of practical challenges or even a world