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Currently my wife is working on writing a fantasy novel, she has been doing it on and off for ~5 years, and just recently (last few months) has really gotten back into it. Now I have given her some help and she has a friend who she can bounce ideas off but she has hit a sorta roadblock with part of the story.

She knows what she wants the characters to be like and do, she also knows how she wants the plot to be like and progress.

The problem exist with her creating a location, she has specific wants for it, and turns out she may need to simply create one from scratch. The problem is she doesn't know exactly a starting off point, or where to research how to create areas such as city/town etc. Does anyone on here have any experience in either creating a setting from scratch or using a preexisting area and do you have any tips?

Also her novel involves the elements so she would need to know at least a tad bit of the vegetation that would exist in the area of her choosing/making. Does anyone have any suggestions related to that endeavorer either?

I can usually create surrounding on the fly (do a lot in my gaming group) even with NPCs and all. I just need a basic idea. or she can email me if she wants to bounce idea back and forth.

What techniques/tricks do you use to help you create an environment. I think she has the basic idea of what she wants, but is unable how to implement it in both a micro and macro sort of way.

I come up with ridiculous amounts of detail when I create settings (whether for an RPG session or for a story I'll never write).

I flesh out everything imaginable, topography, geography, maps, economics, politics, history, religions, factions... the whole shebang. I end up with pages of stuff and piles of maps. It provides excellent fodder for the story and helps keep continuity erros (and deus ex machina) to a minimum.

I actually enjoy this stage more than writing it seems.

Do you have any tips or techniques for coming up with all the details?

Tips?

Well, since I travel a lot a few years back, I usually use the places I have been as a base. I also watch a lot of movies (I love movies) of different genre so I can pull those as well.

So lets say she needs a fantasy place, you start with basic idea. Where? woods? castle? plains? mountain? ocean? you kinda start with a basic template.

Now lets go with wooded areas (good generic one) now, you can start with what kind of wooded areas. Dark? scary? spooky? bright? fun? sun? There is a different in my mind between dark, scary and spooky.
Dark, to me, means it is generally dark. Hard to see type of wood. This also means a lot of the trees are tall and cause many many shaded area where the sun does not shine. You can further tweak on how much sun it actually shine into the wooded area. How tall are the trees? a "canopy" style forest would usually have 50-100 feet tall (imagine redwood or pine forest)
Scary - this could be weird noises, insect, creatures
spooky - ghost? mists? haunting place?

Do you see where I'm going? start with a basic place and just start adding little by little. You be surprise how much detail you can add (do write them down) as you create more elaborate stuff. After a bit of brain storming, you could have a full luscious forest fill with at least basic animal noises and possible actual animals in them. Do the forest have vines? moving tree? leaves? pine needles? etc etc

How I sometimes do it is I just make stuff up as I go along. If, in the situation I'm writing, it works best for a certain thing to be a certain way (provided it also makes sense in the setting) I make it that way, and make note of it.

Then, I go back to earlier in the story and hint at those details before they're needed, so it doesn't seem like I'm making stuff up as I go along. I've only really done this for short stories, though... it probably wouldn't be that effective of a tactic for novels.

When trying to weave together a place like a town you need to consider what the town is about. What is it's main industry, and what kind of culture/society is it based in? Most larger centers, for example, are built on something that can act as a waterway, and if it's in a wooded area, could it possibly have started as a logging camp? Or maybe it rose up from a crossroads between several logging camps.

Regarding flora and the like, I've never found myself in a position that I would need a whole lot of detail like that, but if I did find myself there I would start by deciding what kind of climate the location has. Then, based on that climate I might see if I could find a plantlife guidebook for a real-life location with a climate that matches my fictional town. The more magical or otherwise irregular the setting, though, the less reliable this could be.

At any rate, I certainly wish her luck!

---------- Post added at 01:29 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:25 AM ----------

Also, maybe if there were more specific desires for the location, we could help. One of my favorite settings (which I hope to make use of in a short story soon) came about from a single idea that got bounced around a chat-room until we had an entire political system, ancient history and culture. All the same, if they're too plot-centered or specific, I realize that she might be uncomfortable sharing the intimate details of her work.