OK, so this question from @braxifen actually touches on some of the stuff I discussed with @TimClarePoet, and it's a problem that's really familiar to me - how to go from a cool setting idea to a story people might want to read. Here's a hamfisted guide to solving it:
For years I was convinced I had no hope of writing a compelling story, because my primary interest was in describing settings I had in my head. I thought of characters as a necessary evil - an excuse to describe places - and felt worried that I had things that way round.
I suspect this is an anxiety particularly common to genre writers; I at least had a fear that 'proper' literature should involve endless, nuanced description of dysfunctional families, interspersed with extended contemplation of the theory of colour or the history of flutes etc
In actual fact, it turned out I absolutely *loved* writing stories anchored on characters, and I was surprised at how little I had to change my mindset in order to start telling them this way, rather than just using characters as mannequins to justify tours of a setting.
(As an aside, there's nowt wrong with setting-first fiction. I LOVE writing 'fictional non-fiction', in which you approach fictional realities with non-fiction writing styles - eg academic, chronicle, travel guide, review, etc - and I'm writing a big book of it right now.)
HOWEVER, this is a thread about conventional extended fiction, where it's generally accepted that you need a story driven by characters, rather than by your desire to describe the world/culture/spaceship they might live in. And frankly my best advice here is... erm... to cheat.
To make a setting into a story, think of the rules or quirks that make that setting interesting - the features you would highlight to a tolerant drinking companion with dizzy enthusiasm - and then extrapolate the shit out of them until you hit something that would cause drama.
Let's work through an example, maybe? Someone reply with a fairly solid, single-tweet idea for an SFF setting, and we'll work out some character stories that could drive a good plot in it. Don't offer one you want to use for yourself unless you don't mind me mucking about with it
OK I got some straight up brilliant answers to this but I have been called away to look after my family and stuff. Will resume and have a play with some of the suggestions tomorrow!
OK, it's a new day so let's return to that last tweet, like sturdy fishermen trudging back to a hole in the ice, to see what's on the hook and make it into a nice fish breakfast. I'll be adding to this thread in drabs today, and hopefully going through a couple of exercises.
Let's start with this heavygoing SF concept from @seanFsmith. Nothing much to hang characters on at first glance, but let's try what I mentioned yesterday, and work by inference & extrapolation from first premises until we hit a reason for drama:
So the first thing that setting says to me is 'maths'. That would be some intense geometry to live in & it's probably an artificial environment. We might presume that the people engineered to live there would have their spatial cognition cranked up to terrifying baseline levels.
Now let's use this premise as the root of an imaginary back cover synopsis, and stick in a protagonist: "In the sprawling celestial megastructure of Novum Caelum, even the simplest mind has a prodigal command of geometry. But for Jasper Jetboots..."
So who is Jasper Jetboots? First, let's work out what drama the setting causes them. Simplest thing to do is make them different - Jasper either can't perceive polygons like everyone else, or sees them in a whole new way. Let's say the latter, but let's not worry about the detail
We could have Jasper born with this ability, but having them acquire it gives us a good excuse for an inciting incident. Let's say Jasper's a space archaeologist, and was investigating a tomb of Novum Caelum's builders when the change befell them.
What happens now Jasper can see the world differently? Perhaps they realise the whole setup is a sort of grim human formicarium, and only now can they see the entities looking in through the spatially folded 'glass'. Jasper is now embedded in a classic conspiracy/paranoia story.
So: "In the sprawling celestial megastructure of Novum Caelum, even the simplest mind has a prodigal command of geometry. But for Jasper Jetboots, an archaeologist moonlighting as a privateer, a chance find in an alien tomb provides too much insight into their dizzying world."
Now we've got that basic structure, there's enough of a scaffolding in place over the setting to start building characters, and plot. We know what the intrinsic drama is, we know where the story begins, and we have an idea where it's going.
The scariest part for me in turning a setting into a story driven by characters, is that you're trying to transfigure a big liquid soup of interconnected ideas into something linear - it's like poor old Jasper, trying to comprehend the nightmare world-lattice of Novum Caelum.
When you've got a setting in your head, you want to say EVERYTHING about it AT ONCE, and it's panicky trying to find a place to start. A character story is a blessing here, as it provides an orderly queue of which worldbuilding elements become relevant at what point.
This is probably a good point to caution about infodumping. If you're using a character's story as a timed release system for dispensing your world, be wary of the urge to frantically hump the reader's leg like an ailing hound when you get an opportunity to provide backstory.
Be patient & sparing with detail. When Jasper sees the alien tomb, we don't need an essay on its builders - just some hints. The rest may or may not come later. I wrote an essay on this for @sffworld, on the principle I call "Chekhov's Gundark": sffworld.com/2017/08/guest-…
OK, time to take a breather to work. (In the meantime, can I recommend you follow - and read the work of - @jeannette_ng? She has done many superb threads on worldbuilding, which are far more coherent than mine - you will learn a lot!)
(Also, I hope this thread is of some actual use and isn't coming across as some dreadful, patronising ramble... like most authors, I am consumed with a horrible fear that I have no idea what I'm doing, and this becomes piercingly apparent when I attempt to explain how I do it).
Might not add to this today as I've got a lot of work on, but here's an ace contribution from @TimClarePoet, who's like wesley snipes in blade, since he has the vampire curse of genre fiction but can walk in the light of litfic without getting burned:
