I've been writing more often now, and I've begun to

I realize maybe my statements about lotr and got were a bit wrong, but I hope the point got across

>>9494888
I just use the real world

>>9494888
>wasting these trips on genre fiction

Anyway. Like other anon said, I just use the real world. If you're writing a fantasy story and want to set the world apart but haven't done the legwork of actually building it into something special, you have been derelict. A GOOD setting doesn't just emerge, it is carefully planned.

In the past, I've chosen a setting to complement the story being told. It must be almost a character itself, and tie into the moral and psychological journey of the main characters in many ways. The best way to do this imo is to brainstorm / daydream about the setting itself, apart from the characters, and imagine what weirdo unique circumstances, traditions, objects or tools, geographical features, cultural peculiarities, architecture, wildlife, et cetera might exist. This leads to more daydreaming about scientific stuff like the water cycle and availability, flora, questions about material strengths, food sources, etc that might affect the shape/size of the local and larger civilization.

>Did you choose or did it just come naturally with time?

Significant brainstorm frontload. Followed by scenes/vignettes created during the story that elaborate on the setting.

>>9494960
i wouldn't call myself a derelict lol, i just started writing because i suddenly got the urge to, and i didnt want to stop it for fear of losing it. now that i've gotten something i really like established, i want to create everything else around it. i guess ive been neglectful in that sense, but it was a necessary evil for me.

thank for you the advice, though :)

>>9494988
derelict* not "a" derelict

My world started with influences of various other media. But the very first thing, the one that placed the first dot down, was a single character. Although his background wasn't the first-of-its-kind and cutting edge of innovation (since I was a fuckin' teen afterall), the world around him started from him, but was not defined by him. What little I had thought of him was then built upon by the world I worked on, so the world infact turned out defining him. Two themes, one minor but still very influential, and one major and prevalent, were what then helped me build the world up from there, and three of the races were already decided from them, and then other themes which I took interest in (going back to the mention of those media that influenced me years before I started any of this) were added, but with my own twist. And then I actually started to write the story, but found myself needing to make more plot devices that would make it work. I found myself tacking in random details, ideas that struck me from out of nowhere, but I swear they came from God because they seem so perfect. But then plot holes showed up, and I kept filling them in; Hell, filling these plot holes and solving paradoxes turned into such a joy in the work. And the world just got bigger, and more details were thrown at it as I wrote more of the actual story's plot down. As for cultural style? Well, there is some cultural aspects that I took out of the real history, but then I ended up wanting to add more. So, what seems like a nation of, let's just say for the sake of not bleeding out any of my actual work, let's say this one people's military is based off of the element of seppuku of the samurai. But let's add to them that they were actually nomadic nocturnal samurai that worshipped the moon and dug out small caves to sleep during the day. Combinations like this, but that seem so much better, would come to me on days where inspiration would hit me.

How do you start a story?

>>9495097
i started listening to the Breaking of the Fellowship OST and just forced myself to start typing words and keep going along with what i started with, shaping it into what i felt like as i went on. go back and revise later if you come up with new ideas, but this will give you something to work with.