Your Setting Needs a Job Too #Shorts

Story setting needs to do more than give your characters somewhere to stand. In this video, I talk about white wall syndrome and why I care more about what a location contributes than how much description it gets. Using places from Loaded as examples, I explain why I ask where my characters are, why they’re there, and how that place affects the story before adding a new location. A forest, laboratory, or kingdom should help carry the action rather than feel interchangeable, and even a flashback can use its setting to make the shift clearer. If the description adds nothing, I would rather leave it out. This connects with my thoughts on world building before or after starting your story.