# Where
What in tarnation? Was I going to write another writing encouragement? Indeed I was. So lets see what we're up to today. Oh yes, "Where".
I'll keep this one brief. I need to get back to writing my own stories, you know?
## Where does the story happen?
It's a basic question, but it can lead you in a lot of different directions. On Cosmic Voyage we have stories from spacecraft of various types. Generation ships to solo craft are at play. There's more at play than that, however. We have stories at outposts and on other planets. We even have at least one story from the point of view of a consciousness stuck in interstellar space without a ship. Neato!
The setting you choose can be as important as a character in some stories, but not all.
## Is the setting essential or is the story timeless?
The movie Clueless (1995) is a remake of the Jane Austen novel, Emma. In that book the setting wasn't essential to the story. The characters, motivations, and desires drove everything along nicely and so it was ripe for transport to a modern era.
Some stories are indistinguishable from their setting. Discworld, for instance, is all about the setting. In fact, science fiction tends to have more emphasis on setting as part of the genre than other types of literary fiction. Fantasy, likewise, is often intimately entwined with the worlds it creates.
What about your story? Is every part of the setting vital, or is it backdrop to something more important? Will your story take place in just one locale, or will you hop around. Thinking of Star Trek it's easy to see how a mixture of a familiar setting (like the Enterprise) and unfamiliar settings (like the planet of the week) can make for interesting storytelling and give the author a lot of choices.
## Does the location change the characters?
So why does it matter what setting you choose? How does it affect things, most notably the characters? If you set your fantasy adventure in a run-down merchant ship in the 1700s how does that change your lead? What if you had her captain a modern destroyer in the Chinese fleet?
Perhaps you're not considering such a wide shift of settings, but try to think of some variations in your default locations and bounce them around in your head a bit. If you were going to write about a generation ship and the senior crew managing an interstellar ship of thousands of people what can you change up? Is the ship well kept or disorderly? Is the captain the original one or has this crew been born here, perhaps generations removed from the original? What elements of a modern city do you bring to life in your ship? Have groups segregated either voluntarily or through some force? Is there commerce?
This is all world-building 101 except the next part: Take a minute with your choice and run over a few of your main cast and try to think of how those world-building choices have formed them or made them different in some way. Being born on ship vs first generation may have some physical effect, but also could change the priorities vs a planet-centric person. What are their goals and dreams?
## Do the characters change the setting?
Then it's time to do the reverse. Settings are inhabited (mostly). The things that live there affect the world. What are people doing to your city? Or to your farm house in the country? What affect does your gentleman doctor have on the sleepy hamlet he has moved to after the war?
Characters move the plot and make waves in the settings. Let their actions tell us about them by how the setting reacts and is changed. It's one of the techniques to use in "show don't tell."
Good luck!