I hope you don't mind if I ask a few more questions (I really liked your advice on villains): Do you have any advice on creating the setting for a story?

There are two distinct realities of this question.

On one, a setting for something original and on two, a setting for something FOE related. Both are quite relevant here. I’ll address the second one first because it’s easily the simplest to explain with three simple words.

Reduce your scale.

The world of FOE is the one we met in the original story. That was the “build up” of world creation to form a setting and took the place of a journey to tell the story of an entire land. What we do as side story writers takes place within that and I see too many stories trying to recreate the same massive world of their own creation…inside a world that’s already made.

That makes no sense to me, not from a promotional standpoint anyway!

It’s certainly possible, some well known stories did so. But in general, reduce your scale. Pick out a place to delve into. An area to investigate and be a part of. Somewhere that can be defined by your story on a more personal level and become a realised and known “theme” of the area. Like how Pink Eyes chose a highway for example or how Gardener chose Gardener’s…um…garden. That leads to stronger narrative and more meaningful locations. Much more helpful than trying to make a massive world beside the one we know and usually more iconic too.

Now the second part blends into that first question now. How to make a setting (I feel, anyway! I’m no expert!) that may also be original entirely (although this helps with the first one too). The biggest focus I’d say is to have somewhere iconic. Somewhere that is a known centre that you can use as a memorable compass point to the reader. For example, in MN7 I use the Mall as that for the majority of the story. Titanicus used the central Mechanicus hub. Fellowship of the Ring used Rivendell. A core location that things can be told where they are in relation to it helps the reader vastly in crafting an “image” of your world.

Having memorable buildings and art styles to locations helps a lot too. A random building is nothing. A skyscraper is nothing. But look at the Citadel in Half Life 2 for example. Consider in FOE how we had a train depot town, then a cliffside prison, then a metropolis, then a pink misted castle ruin. Varied and easy to define are the cornerstones of any location in a setting. Think of their histories, what unique elements they had and how that might affect realities inside them.

To talk of “world building” would be an essay unto itself. But the best advice I can give is to ensure that each location (and the areas within each location) are clear, have a distinct appearance and are easy to remember. I used a Mall, a Metro, a Crater, a Hospital. Things anyone will have a good idea on a rough look for rather than just buildings, y'know? Thats what I thought might work (Not saying it always did, cough Ministries cough) but that sort of thing helps people put the pieces together a lot.

Last piece of advice? Make a map! You’ll know where everything is consistently then.