I put a new article on Tutorial section, I'm not sure if it actually fits the text book definition of "tutorial", but it does have something to do with the creative process.

It's about Setting your story in a unique setting.
http://www.drunkduck.com/tutorials/view.php?id=245

Your tutorial has changed my mind about how I should progressively change the settings of my own fantasy comic. At least the Fantasy genre allows the artist to drastically change whatever world they've created.

And yet, the most popular fantasy stories don't use original settings or tropes, and that includes the works of Tolkein. Simply borrowing from a different culture doesn't make a story original. You think the people of India don't have fantasy stories which draw from their own mythology? People have a tendency to write about what they know and that is only possible by either drawing from some real world or past point of reference the person is familiar with or by making it up. Readers tend to find it more difficult to follow stories that are purely the product of imagination or which depict a point of view they aren't familiar with, which is why many people stick to known conventions.

Besides, stories as we see them are about people, not settings. A story is only as original as its characters and scenario. Where that takes place and what the characters look like really has little impact on that.

I've also seen a lot of people push for Star Wars to be fantasy with scifi elements, but it's really the opposite. The force isn't magic, it's psychic powers (telekinesis, telepathy, clairvoyance, and hypnosis being their primary powers). The Jedi don't have the roles of knights within their own society, even though they may be called knights. They don't serve a particular master (even when they are working in the best interests of the Republic, they still must decide on a course of action on their own, they don't take orders from the Senate), they aren't independent land owners or nobles, and their motivations are primarily based on their religion and not the planet or country of their origin (the order comes before the Republic). The main antagonist of the films isn't Darth Vader, but the emperor, a power-hungry dictator who rules through fear by continuing to develop new high tech weapons of mass destruction. And quite honestly, who says a scifi epic can't feature an evil overlord and a fortress. Those aren't exactly elements unique to fantasy.

Really, Star Wars is a scifi epic that draws thematically from mythology, but remains science fiction at it's core. I don't see people making this argument about Dune and that has far more fantasy elements than Star Wars.

I did a fantasy story once that was set in what is basically a fantastical version of Polynesia with transplanted Greek city states... and the invaders were loosely based on Assyrians accompanied by beasts from prehistoric Earth (terror birds, trained saber tooth attack lions, and the like). It was pretty sweet. I might do a revision of it some day.

There are certain patterns in human civilization that happen again and again across the world in areas as different as Europe and Pacific Islands.

The evolution of a culture is like the evolution of eyes or flight among animals. It gets invented multiple times independently to end at a very similar result each time and agarian villages, fortified strongholds and property-owning warrior classes have happened again and again and again.

That happens to describe Achaean Greece, Assyria, Feudal Japan, various periods in China and India as well as the Zulus and various Pacific Islands.

Everytime you re-inevent the wheel it's still round.

Tolkien set out specifically to design a precursor mythology for Britain and Northern Europe. Only natural since he was a scholar on the Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse language and mythology. Saying he'd invent a mythology borrowing from that background is like saying a professor of Byzantine history with a facination with the American Civil War writes and borrows from that.

You write what you know. But if you do write about it; make the effort to get it right and not make ignorant mistakes because of assumptions based on what life is like in the twentieth century. People in pre-modern cultures and ones who never had a Victorian Age have vastly different attitudes on a whole host of things.

isukun
Besides, stories as we see them are about people, not settings. A story is only as original as its characters and scenario. Where that takes place and what the characters look like really has little impact on that.

Not quite, setting somewhat dictates what kind of characters are in the story or at the very least dictates what kinds of characters are plausible. Setting and aesthetic style can also influence the story's overall tone.

Just read your history book or your Bible. There lies a goldmine of possible story ideas.

Not quite, setting somewhat dictates what kind of characters are in the story or at the very least dictates what kinds of characters are plausible. Setting and aesthetic style can also influence the story's overall tone.

You may find minor cultural differences, but characters in stories are defined by their personalities, which are independent of setting and culture. The full spectrum of character archetypes can plausibly exist within any setting. The setting is just window dressing. Changing it doesn't automatically open up new possibilities or make a story original, it's just the same tired story in a different location.

While that is true, Isukun, are you not as sick and tired as I am of seeing artwork depicting yet another Medieval English setting? It's like watching movies that are all taking place in Pittsburgh.

Besides characters who must be relatable to humans and are therefore universal... you can do a lot of things in other locales that you can't do in Pittsburgh. For example, the Venice action scene in Casino Royale, where Bond fights villains in a sinking building.

Isukun I cant really agree with your accessment.
Radically changing your stories location and the society it takes places in will, almost by deffinition radically chagne your story.

Isukun also you seem to be arguing both ways here.
You first say that the setting is not at all important and then proceed to go to great length to tell us Star Wars is not fantasy but science fiction. Strangely during this explanation you basically just change the name of thigns in order to show the difference (the forcce is not magic, it is psychic powers...and the difference between the two is? Bother don't exist!)

The fantasy genre is often painfully tired.
Despite being "fantasy" there is a stereotypical way that elves, orcs and dwarves all behave.
We've managed to some how make our imaginary worlds even more trite and predictable than the real one!
I think the idea of mixing things up and chanigng the setting would be a welcome breath of fresh air.

If people in India are writing fantasy about indian myths, we in the west are not seeing them, and personally I would like to. It sounds pretty interesting.

Isukuns view is somewhat limiting as he places value only in character interaction, which is key to good story telling but not everything. In many cases the story revolves around the setting and is very specific to that.

Yes that's true, Genejoke. I can specifically recount brainstorming on a (unknown/secret) story with another artist, where the original world background is some vague NW Medieval European setting as a default option. I threw a lot of that out, and referred to much less ubiquitous historical periods/locales as inspiration for detailing the world. A lot of which most people are probably not even aware of as actual Earth history.

Doing so drastically affected details of the plot and the cultures of the various nations/tribes. And no, they do not seem "less realistic" due to us "writing what we don't know" (compared to say, writing based on Medieval Europe which everyone knows, or assume they know).

A lot of interesting points in this thread so far.

Settings
When I decided to write a fantasy comic (The Spires yet, you really should. It's a terrific example of how - in the hands of a skilled writer - the traditional building blocks can be used to create something quite refreshing and new!

Genre
This is a bit of an old chestnut. I tend to disagree with isukun on this one. With very few examples, I think the dividing lines between SciFi and fantasy are wafer thin and, for me, categorising Star Wars (or almost any SciFi film) as fantasy is not a big stretch at all. Jedi mind tricks, force push, force pull etc etc are just other ways of describing the powers of a wizard. Light sabres? Only one very small step removed from the traditional magic swords of the fantasy genre. There's a reason why so many bookshops put the SciFi and fantasy books on the same shelves!

Characters
Here, I agree very much with isukun's point that character design and interaction is key. There's a whole bunch of tired and cliched cop movies and SciFi stories and superhero comics out there, for example, but that doesn't mean that there aren't also some wonderful examples of each. The difference very often is not the plotline itself or where the story is set, but whether or not we buy into the characters.

A strong plot and an original setting are great to have and, as patrickdevine said, may to some extent determine your characters and events. Whatever the genre or setting though, unless your characters are believable and interesting, you'll end up with a Jason Statham movie rather than a Jason Bourne one!

Someone
you'll end up with a Jason Statham movie rather than a Jason Bourne one!

I would rather watch a Statham movie any day...

Well maybe not as he has done some rather poor movies. That said for every turkey like Chaos there is a gem like the expendables, the bank job and revolver.

Moving back on to the topic.

I have a cyberpunk style comic in the works and I m absolutely trying to make it my own while at the same time conforming to aspects expected in the genre. A lot of creators go for a type of setting because they like that type of setting, there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with this. However by thinking more in depth about your setting new plot ideas can arise, explore the concepts and conflicts certain things can create. No doubt most will have real world parallels, whether intentional or not is another matter. Spotting those parallels can also be beneficial whether as direct inspiration or as a marker of what to avoid.

I should also add that there is a limit to the amount of detail your world needs to have and how much you should fit into the comic pages.

many creators wisely put it elsewhere outside the actual strip so people can read it or not at their discretion.
You don't need to tell people all about the inner workings of a magical society unless it is essential to the story, and it is easy to get lost in the detail and have it intrude too much into the story.

Isukun also you seem to be arguing both ways here.

No, one is a matter of setting the other a matter of genre. People like to arbtrarily assign alternative terms to Star Wars to try to shoehorn it into a different GENRE. The reason people think they can do that is precisely because the characters are what makes the story, not the setting. You can draw a lot of parallels despite completely different settings and genres.

For example, the Venice action scene in Casino Royale, where Bond fights villains in a sinking building.

Not a great example. That action scene could have taken place anywhere with any alternative dangerous situation and it would have worked just as well. The fact that it occured in a sinking building in Venice had absolutely no impact on the overall story.

Despite being "fantasy" there is a stereotypical way that elves, orcs and dwarves all behave.
We've managed to some how make our imaginary worlds even more trite and predictable than the real one!

Which is an exceptionally easy problem to fix even without changing the setting. Once again, a problem of characterization, not location. I still use elves, orcs, dwarves and such in the fantasy story I've been working on, but they don't fit the typical stereotypes. Fantasy races don't exist in real life, you're free to represent them however you please, there is no rigid restrictions set in how they must be portrayed.

If people in India are writing fantasy about indian myths, we in the west are not seeing them, and personally I would like to. It sounds pretty interesting.

There are reasons stories originating from alternative cultures aren't as popular. It is harder for people to relate to characters who think and act in ways that the reader cannot relate to.

And no, they do not seem "less realistic" due to us "writing what we don't know"

You ARE writing what you know.

Pre-modern Europe has been mined to death as a fantasy setting. Now we're getting early modern Europe under the banner Steampunk.

That being said half the things we think are dead on indication of Medieval Europe are actually assumptions the reader brings to the story as an inhabitant of a culture based on Western Europe descended from the Middle Ages. What are the universals of a pre-modern society? Concentrate on them and creating your own system based on them not aping history. What unites all pre-modern cultures? An awful lot in the end. Even if you just do a convincing portrayal of Ancient Greek or Roman society it'll be vastly different from the assumed Medieval Europe (as different as a Byzantine was from a Frank.) Or even Russian Medieval culture as opposed to always doing the Matter of Britain and Beowulf.

Reading fantasy fiction set in ancient India is like reading any other ancient epics. If you can understand the Illiad or the Epic of Gilgamesh the Mahabarta is not such a huge leap of cultural understanding. The same themes and character archetypes show up in all of them even Polynesian epics (which are also a lot of fun to read) Reading Beowulf can be harder because at least the Mahabarta has airplanes and nuclear weapons. ;)

Wish I could just recycle all the crap I wrote on this a few years back on the Anti-shu'tugal and Urubaen forums. This is the third or fourth time I've been down this road. Every time you reinvent the wheel the wheel is still going to be round.

isukun
Not a great example. That action scene could have taken place anywhere with any alternative dangerous situation and it would have worked just as well. The fact that it occured in a sinking building in Venice had absolutely no impact on the overall story.

Where are you going to have a sinking building and the heroine drowning in an open elevator, in Pittsburgh???

The manner of death of the heroine was extremely important for Casino Royale. "Absolutely no impact/difference"???

This is like saying the hotel action scene in Inception would be just as cinematically effective "with any alternative dangerous situation".

Fantasy races don't exist in real life, you're free to represent them however you please, there is no rigid restrictions set in how they must be portrayed.

You're just agreeing with the OP, then.

You ARE writing what you know.

That's true... I do know a lot. :)

I think that problem of many fantasy writers is that their touch with the genre seems to ends on Tolkien. C'mon, tell me that kid who wrote this shitty Eargorn books ever was in the same room with any book from Chronolicles Of Amber series, or Chronolicles Of Black Company, I dare you.

The problem is not really with settings but how writers use them. And they all use it the same way. Orcs ale always chaotic evil, elves are always beautiful, and nature-lowing, nad better at everything, Dark Lord is always evil, and demonic, and insanse and so on.

I really like how Andrzej Sapkowski takes many of those cliches in The Witcher Saga (if you think about famus game named the Witcher - it's a sequel to five books, currently published in England), and turns them around. For example, Elves in Witcher are racists who tolerate other races only because they need their help against humans, who conquerd them, but other races aren't so happy about it, they still remember how Elves were threatening them before humans came along. Humans aren't much better anyway. Evil Empire may be monstrous military force, but they have several improvements ahead of their time and their ruler is propably one of nicest and most reasonable people in the book, especially among bad guys.

I think that every person who works on fantasy should check out those rants [tvtropes.org]

Where are you going to have a sinking building and the heroine drowning in an open elevator, in Pittsburgh???

The manner of death of the heroine was extremely important for Casino Royale. "Absolutely no impact/difference"???

You're missing the point, entirely. That scene did not need to take place in a sinking building and she didn't need to die in that manner. What was important in terms of the story wasn't the elevator. It makes for a cool action scene, but as I said before, the fact that it took place in a sinking building and that she drowned in an elevator had ZERO impact on the overall story. She could have shot herself in a hotel room in Pittsburg and the scene would have had the same meaning and impact on the story.

You're just agreeing with the OP, then.

No, because how you choose to portray the characters is characterization, not setting. As I've said, you can use the same Middle Ages European setting with the same familiar races and still create a unique story, just as you can change the setting completely, use new or unique cultures, mythologies, and monsters and still make something completely derivitive. It all boils down to characterization and scenario in the end and both are pretty open and independent of setting.

isukun
It makes for a cool action scene, but as I said before, the fact that it took place in a sinking building and that she drowned in an elevator had ZERO impact on the overall story...It all boils down to characterization and scenario in the end and both are pretty open and independent of setting.

What exactly are we (or you) talking about here? That a tired setting is unimportant, and that you can make up for it with brilliant characterization and writing?

Yes, that's true. But the fact that you have to "make up for it" already marks it as something wrong.

What would be better, a 007 movie taking place around the world, or a 007 movie of the same relative quality taking place entirely in Pittsburgh?

Mlai has a point here especially as comic are a visual medium, the setting may not have such an impact on the core story but the visuals re a different matter entirely. Yes it is almost entire;y aesthetic but that is a large part of the appeal of comics anyway.

mlai
What would be better, a 007 movie taking place around the world, or a 007 movie of the same relative quality taking place entirely in Pittsburgh?

This.

I agree with you Mlai that setting IS important, this is why a 007 movie would be much cooler and far more interesting if it "took place entirely in Pittsburgh" instead of the boring cliché tourist travelogue destinations it usually uses.

I know that's not how you intended your example but it works better this way and you are right. Genejoke too. Settings aren't just important for comics because they're visual, they're important for everything, they can have a huge influence on where you choose to go with your story and the sorts of writing choices you make. They're also important for readers too because they help to differentiate your project for them and provide another reason why they'll check your stuff out.

Perhaps Isukun is just too caught up in his own professional perspective of making comoditised creative projects for the entertainment industry?
That's understandable, the perspective is different there: Generic settings and characters are bread and butter. Isukun just tends to be reluctant to acknowledge that there could be other ways of looking at things.

ozoneocean

mlai
What would be better, a 007 movie taking place around the world, or a 007 movie of the same relative quality taking place entirely in Pittsburgh?

This.

I agree with you Mlai that setting IS important, this is why a 007 movie would be much cooler and far more interesting if it "took place entirely in Pittsburgh" instead of the boring cliché tourist travelogue destinations it usually uses.

Then it wouldn't be 007 but George Smiley.

Same genre but a different approach that it can argued can have boring settings because it has deeper characterization.

What exactly are we (or you) talking about here? That a tired setting is unimportant, and that you can make up for it with brilliant characterization and writing?

I'm talking about the original subject of this thread, here, you're talking about something else. I'm not saying you need to make up for a tired setting, I'm saying changing the setting doesn't make up for cliche and bad writing and THAT'S the real problem. I'm talking about coming up with an original blueprint for the house and you're talking about changing the curtains.

Perhaps Isukun is just too caught up in his own professional perspective of making comoditised creative projects for the entertainment industry?

No, the lack of originality in the entertainment industry is one of the things I hate most. I've just seen enough from both the entertainment industry and the web comics community to know that changing something superficial like the setting does not open new opportunities for originality in storytelling, especially in the fantasy genre.

Trying to come up with something original is near impossible, in fact most of the time people claim something is original they just haven't seen the multitude of things that it is just like.

isukun

Perhaps Isukun is just too caught up in his own professional perspective of making comoditised creative projects for the entertainment industry?

No, the lack of originality in the entertainment industry is one of the things I hate most. I've just seen enough from both the entertainment industry and the web comics community to know that changing something superficial like the setting does not open new opportunities for originality in storytelling, especially in the fantasy genre.

Really? Because setting isn' a superficial aspect, at least not in many story projects out there. -The setting is an essential part of the story and the story writing process in many cases.

That's like saying a skeleton is superficial to a body for them. Everyone creates in different ways, but many use there setting as their armature to build around. In the entertainment industry it's a little different though- usually all aspects of a creative projects must be open to change, projects are far more modular, they have to be since they have to be overseen by many different people and at every single stage of development.

"Originality" or "being original" is a simplistic way of looking at things, it's really just about the hard slog of creation and creating something novel enough to be interesting.

The problem with the entertainment industry is that their version of originality is basically the same as yours. Rather than offer new stories, they simply change the setting and use the same tired character archetypes and scenarios. And from what I've learned about writing, people who use the setting for the underlying base of their story are poor writers. Stories are about people, not places. When you start writing your characters around the setting and scenario, you tend to end up with poorly realized characters and a story that doesn't hold up.

You have completely bypassed the point being made no one has said that characters and people don't matter. The point you are so doggedly trying to make is irrelevant to the OP's tutorial.

Good characters are a key part of story telling but you can get that anywhere, if people want a flight of fantasy then two well written characters in Peterborough arguing over a pint of milk isn't going to cut it no matter how well written.

As stated before stories are NOT just about people, a story can be about anything and a talented writer will make it work regardless.

As stated before stories are NOT just about people

And that statement is still incorrect. The root driving force behind a story is the characters. The location is just window dressing.

Nobody is arguing that characters can't be written poorly. I'm simply stating that changing the setting does not make a story original, which is precisely what the tutorial was claiming. Any story can be transplanted into any setting and still work, but not all characters can be transplanted into any role and have a story make sense.

This debate is pointing out a very serious problem in fantasy. The setting becomes the story all too often. Authors come up with these inedibly detailed backgrounds that are often forced down the throats of the unsuspecting reader in huge asides and wordy panels that constitute the Info Dump.

The author loses sight of what the fantasy story is supposed to be about and that is ordinary people in extraordinary situations.

At the end of the day LOTR is still about a rather ordinary little fellow who finds great inner strength and does extraordinary things when put in an extraordinary situation. You could have him be the tail gunner in a Lancaster bomber in World War II with much the same story (the ring would be a bombsight, ring wraiths Nazis, etc, etc..) but that setting would fundamentally change the story even is Frodo(Freddie?) and Sam were the exact same characters in nearly the identical situation but on a mountainside in Southern France with a crazed hermit as their guide.

To create a successful fantasy story the writer has to balance the setting and the characters. The setting can't overwhelm the story or eclipse all attempts at characterization until the people in the foreground become the window dressing for the titanic vistas of Neverwhere.

That's also one reason why fantasy epics are so long and usually trilogies. The first book is the setting, the story doesn't intrude until book two and the characterization doesn't intrude until book three.

A great way to create a fantasy world would be to come up with a character and then create the world that made her the way she is.