The combination of time and place is what a setting consists of. It may include the physical environment your character interacts in and the cultural factors that effect how your character thinks and reacts to situations. When a well developed setting is combined with realistic characters, it will make your short story, novel, or series of novels much more believable to its readers. The plot will come together more naturally, leaving the story realistic to its readers. You never want to dump all the details about the setting out at once. This will slow the plot down. As you develop your story, the setting should be revealed slowly, allowing the reader to get a picture of the time, place and details over the course of the story. You may gather more details about a place than you will ever reveal to a reader. These details will help you to develop the story. The following steps will help you in developing a setting for your story.

First, like organizing your characters profiles, you have to organize the materials you are using to conjur up your setting. Setting up a way to gain easy access to the research material you are using for your setting is important, especially when you are writing a novel or a series of novels. Like with your character profiles, you can use files folders, notebooks, post-its, index cards, or word documents. It may take some trial and error before you figure out what works best for you, but do not get discouraged if one way does not work.

Your background information may change by the time you reach the end of your story, but doing the majority of the setting development before you begin to write will allow the process of writing to go more smoothly. You will be able to focus on the minor changes and smaller details as you write your story.

Secondly, you will need to decide on the broader picture elements. You can accomplish this by asking yourself a few questions. You need to ask what type of mood you are looking for your setting to convey throughout the story. You will need to decide if the mood is going to remain the same throughout the story or will it change throughout the scenes. You will need to ask what your time frame is for the story to take place. You will need to ask about the main location of the story.

A good way to visualize the location is to draw a rough map. You can take the time to create a separate file for each location. To get a feel for everything the character will see, hear, taste, touch, and smell, you will need to imagine yourself in the place. If you are writing a book in the current time frame, then you should take the time to explore the place and take notes on everything you see, hear, smell, taste, and touch.

Thirdly, you will need to take into consideration the physical environment and the biology encompassed in it. These elements can vary from planetary (mainly used for sci-fi books) to the physical layout of an environment (lakes, rivers, mountains, trees, plants, etc.). You will need to ask what kind of plants and animals a character will encounter. You will also need to know how each character will react to those elements.

Fourthly, you must take the time to consider your cultural elements. This area can be very broad. It can include such things as family, social structure, government, law, religion, politics, traditions, occupations, economy, communications, and different types of technology. When you are attempting to go for realism in your stories, you most likely will not have to alter much. You can focus on certain elements throughout your story that will add to it. When you are beginning from scratch, you will need to think carefully about each area. Adding a unique, yet clear, element for readers to grasp without having to have a lot of explanation about the element is important for the flow of the story.

Fifthly, you must consider the impact of the setting on each of your characters. You have to ask where your characters feel safe and where they may feel anxiety or tension. Settings will, often times, impact how a person speaks. When you are creating new words for your characters, you have to think about new ways to bring it into conversations without feeling the need to explain it to the reader. If you want to create a surprise element in your plot, you can use an environment the character generally feels safe in and compromise it. This will have a greater impact on the plot than a setting where the readers will expect things to happen.

Sixthly, you will need to see that your setting and the story you are telling are connected. While you are writing, you will see areas that need improvement. You can take the time to update the setting as your story progresses, but be sure that it does not damage the flow of the story. This will help you with future books, should you be writing a series, and help in marketing the books.