Okay, so you've decided who your target audience is and settled on a genre for your story. Now, it's time for the fun part - building your world, characters, and storyline. Where does the story take place? Who is your main character? What will happen?

This blog post will focus mainly on setting - where your story takes place. Setting can be a specific location (for example, a city, country, world, environment), or time period (time of day, point in history or in the future, or season). What characteristics define this setting? How does your hero interact with the setting? What is the significance of the setting in relation to the story you want to tell?

I'll use an example to better illustrate my point. Let's say you're writing a fantasy story about a dog for middle schoolers (because I like animals). You haven't really worked out all the details, but you know this much - the dog gets separated from her owner and is trying to get back to him (Arguably, this could make a realistic fiction story, but you want the dog to talk with other animals, thus making the genre lean more toward fantasy).

You have a story you want to tell, but you're having trouble deciding where you want the events to take place. Is the dog a K9 unit, loyal to her owner and trainer, a police officer? Maybe the story should take place in the city. Perhaps the dog should live on a farm, protecting the chickens from predators. Your decision primarily depends on the story you want to tell.

Let's say you went with the farm dog decision. Is the location real or fictitious? What climate/weather does the story take place in? You might want to do some research to learn more - and who knows? Research might lead to more inspiration! Even if your setting stems from imagination, with proper description, it can still be believable to the reader.

It's always good to have a general idea of a setting before writing, but as the story unfolds, things may change to better suit the situation your hero is going through!

Thanks for reading! I'll follow up, soon!