Writing a Novel – The Setting

 Hello. C J here. This is the second of the two posts I have planned for today about writing a novel. These ones go in order so I’d recommend reading the first one from earlier today first. Before actually writing a novel or a series of novels you need a good grasp of the setting, characters and plot you are going to be working with. I listed those in order, by the way. Setting first then characters then plot. Characters have to represent the setting in that you only ever see it through their eyes. The plot should be based on the actions, motives, desires, goals and personalities of the characters or it doesn’t really count as a plot.

Regardless of how you plan that out the setting comes first. That’s why I did that job first and am still doing it. The setting I write in is huge. It’s a whole galaxy named Creation. The specific region of it I focus on at present is the Astral, a nebula of the same name where there is air in space and ships float but people sink. The Astral isn’t the whole of Creation but still it’s an entire nebula full of life-bearing planetoids and cultures built around magic and science together. It’s unique. It’s also repeatable.

Most settings that exist in storytelling and media are eventually used up. The setting in these stories is written around a plot or a group of characters and once they go everywhere in it once and do every magic thing in it once that it can do then the plot is over and the setting, narrative and characters are used up forever. Harry Potter works great so long as the main villain is alive. Harry Potter doesn’t exist as a story after he’s defeated in the last book. Spin-off do, but not the main series.

I knew this going into the craft and the profession of writing. So I fixed it. My setting is done first and it doesn’t run out. There isn’t a rule that each location can be used once. There isn’t a limit on how many characters it can support and the characters it does have are meant to be reused. The setting is reusable. So much so that I have a partnership and licensing system that I am still working on setting up. The setting is perfect. It’s taken almost twenty years to make so far. Do you want in? I can lend it to you. I don’t care who you are or what your goals are, you can have a piece of it so long as you use it properly.

The rules for this will be on the About page here when I have them done. The short version is that fan fiction and fan art are allowed so long as they are not for profit. If you want to do for profit work set in the Astral or regions around the Astral you can sign up for the Patreon. All Patreon members at the $15 a month payment tier or above get permission to use my setting for anything they want from novels to art to music to video games to cookbooks. So long as you remain on the $15 a month payment tier or higher you have permission to make money on it. Just let me know what you’re doing so I can make sure it isn’t a repeat of a project someone else is doing.

Then there’s one last point I want to make here. Movies. I’d love to have a movie deal for my novels. Impossible Skyline, which you can find a free sample of in the Books page here, is designed to be turned into a movie eventually. Impossible Skyline though is innovative and fast paced. I don’t know if anyone would ever offer me a deal. I don’t know. It would cost a lot of money to film it. I can draw though. I can draw fast.

Patreon has rewards that all members get once a certain amount of money is contributed in total. I’m setting the $950 a month Patreon goal as creating a movie. If I get to that amount of money in total per month I will personally hand draw and animate the entire book myself word for word, line by line. It will happen but only if I have the funding for it. And if you want into the novel writing craft, if you want a piece of this, then start practising. I started off this journey back in school and I sucked at conjugation, spelling, typing speed, characterization and storytelling. And that’s the list of everything I tried to do. I got better. There isn’t luck in this profession. You put in the time then you get paid for it.

C J Mcpherson