Let's talk about BUILDING YOUR WORLD.

So what exactly is this concept? It's exactly how it sounds — creating the world in which your story takes place. This doesn't just apply to the setting of your fanfiction. Building your world is designing the blueprint of your protagonist's universe. You are the engineer, calculating a world in which your readers will hopefully dive straight into.

✖ SETTING.

We'll begin with an easy task: the setting of your story. I've mentioned this in several previous chapters of this guide, but the setting is where your fanfiction takes place. Identify your setting and then identify if it's a real place such as Seattle, Washington; a completely fictional town you've made up, or an existing world that's part of a specific fandom, like Star City in DC's Arrow.

          ↳ REAL PLACE.

Let's dive into building your world when the story's setting is a real city in today's time. I'll use Seattle, Washington as the main example in this exercise.

If you've decided to set your story in Seattle, then you're in luck. The setting has already been built for you. If you refer to the past chapter on "Research," you can look up all things Seattle. In your story, you can throw in actual street names, landmarks, local eateries, and more. Even if your story takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where Seattle is in shambles — similar to Divergent's dystopian Chicago community — you can still use articles, Yelp, Blogs, and more to get a feel for what Seattle once was.

I always emphasize the importance of making your story relatable in some way. Characterization is the main way you can establish relatablility, however setting is another amazing approach. You never know who reads your fanfiction, and using setting (especially if a real place), can add excitement in a reader if they're immersing themselves in something familiar.

Here's examples of reader interactivity within the comment section from my fanfiction:

In the previous chapter, I showed you how to create your Story Portfolio. As you do research of Seattle (or wherever your story takes place), save photos, maps, and links to YouTube videos showcasing the city. Put all this in your portfolio and use it as arsenal to write your story with.

          ↳ EXISTING WORLD.

Let's talk about pre-existing worlds. Worlds like Star City, Hogwarts, or Narnia. These are places created by other authors where your fanfictions may also take place in. If you're writing a Harry Potter fic, your story could take place in areas known in the Potter universe; spots like Hogwarts, Dragon Alley, or The Burrow.

Bigger fandoms have websites upon websites catered to these worlds and these online fan sites are perfect for research. Think of these established dwellings as cities that DO exist. I sound like a broken record, but do research. Even if you make up a new bar that opens in Hogsmead, do research of the surrounding area of the bar. What other businesses are open in Hogsmead? How do those shop owners feel about this new bar?

Of course, this is your story and you can do anything you want, however, if you're building a world within another pre-exsisting universe, always try to do the original author justice.

          ↳ FICTIONAL TOWN.

If your story takes place in a fictional place, whether it's a major city crafted to be 20 miles west of San Francisco, or a thriving, futuristic city on Saturn, creating a fictional town can be both fun and demanding. I know I always have lots of fun creating a new city because there are no limitations to what I can do with it. However, do use slight caution whenever creating a new city or town.

          ↳ EX. For example, let's say you're building a small town called "Ivy Beach" that's in the middle of Idaho. In case you don't know, Idaho is land-locked, which means it's surrounded by land and its borders don't touch the ocean. Why is this place called Ivy Beach? Maybe it lays on a dried up lake where a beach once stood? These are some of the things you have to think about.

          ↳ EX. Let's also say that your protagonist is an Asian woman originally from Laos and she just moved to Ivy Beach with her parents. When you look at the demo of Idaho, there isn't a large Asian population. Because of this, finding an Asian grocery store will be difficult. In 2020, Boise City, Idaho is the #1 city with the highest Asian population. BUT don't let that #1 spot fool you — in a population of 224,300 residents, ONLY 3.09% of that is Asian, or 6,937 residents.

          What if your Asian protagonist is really missing home and wants to create a traditional Laotian meal for herself and her family but needs specific ingredients? What if she travels an hour away to Boise City from Ivy Beach to get those ingredients because that's the closest Asian market to her?

If you've read or seen "To All The Boys I've Loved Before," the protagonist is a half-Korean teen girl living in Virginia. There's a specific scene ***SPOILER*** in which her love interest drives across town to a Korean market and buys her Yakult. This special product is a delicious probiotic yogurt drink that is very popular in Asian households. This scene makes great impact on the protagonist and any Asian audience members who can relate. I remember seeing that scene and freaking out because I felt like I was seen. 

Trust me, it wouldn't hit as hard if Lara-Jean were a white girl and Peter Kavinsky drove to the corner Walmart to buy her some Capri-Sun. Though the Capri-Sun thing would still be cute, the impact of Pete getting Yakult is 10 times more jolting BECAUSE Lara-Jean lives in a place where Korean markets aren't as prevalent.

Here's a little tip for building your world. This is what I do and I hope it'll help you too! Create your city, but seek inspiration from existing cities.

          ↳ EX. In my fanfiction "Drunk Words, Sober Thoughts," the story takes place in fictional coastal town, Percival Shores, California. This made up town is supposed to be part of the Orange County cluster of beach cities. I developed Percival Shores by merging some of the OC cities I grew up around. By picking 3 Orange County cities, I took parts of those places I loved and used it as inspiration to build Percival Shores.

When I mention places like Percival Shores Pier or The Pier Pressure Seafood Shack, those spots were inspired by actual Orange County establishments. I also let demographics inspire my world-building too. While the OC is quite diverse, there are a couple of OC cities that tend to be predominately Caucasian. I used that as conflict arsenal for my protagonist because 60% of OC's population is white, and my main character is of Filipino descent.

✖ CULTURE.

Part of building your world, is creating the culture in which your protagonist resides. There's culture within the home of your protagonist, and then there's the culture outside of it.

As you create your world, keep in mind that culture plays an integral aspect in the way people move. Whether it's religious culture, ethnic, financial, class, or whatever, culture should always play a big part in your protagonist's world.

          ↳ EX. In the book (with film adaptation) "The Hate U Give," the protagonist is Starr Carter who comes from a poor neighborhood. Within that low income, gang-infested neighborhood, is a strong culture of community and loyalty. Starr also attends an elite private school where its students are predominately caucasian. Within that school, Starr must adjust and code-switch to fit the culture of her high school. In this book/movie, Starr almost has two separate lives — the fun, slang-using Starr, and the pristine white-washed version she presents to her classmates.

          Starr is faced with several conflicts, and the different types of culture her life is exposed to, governs the way she deals with them. When her black best friend is gunned down by a police officer, people in her neighborhood band together to march for the equality of black lives. But when she's at school, her friends have a harder time understanding her situation. It's not because they're racist, it's because as caucasians, they're exposed to a different culture that makes them lead their life in certain ways, thus frustrating Starr.

This is why culture is imperative — it moves the characters along. It gives them motive, and dictates the way they address conflict because of certain viewpoints they're exposed to.

Figuring out culture can be easy, but at the same time can be a difficult task the more complicated you decide the story's culture becomes. And how important you make it within your story.

          ↳ EX. Let's bring it back to Seattle, Washington. What if your story's setting takes place in Seattle where the culture is forward-thinking? Seattle harbors hipsters, open-mindedness, and a community where veganism thrives. Then let's say your protagonist is an Indian woman who is also gay. Within her home is a traditional Indian family where being gay isn't always accepted. While she can prance around Seattle, being open about her sexuality because her city accepts her, once she goes home she must hide who she is.

Culture can vary from place to place too. The culture in Hawaii is very chill, laid back, and family-oriented. While the culture in New York City, is fast-paced and competitive. 

Even if your story takes place within a pre-existing world like Hogwarts, there's still culture there. Culture within the different houses, the kitchen elves and students, the teachers themselves have their own academic culture that differs from the culture of the headmaster.

I truly believe that spending a little time on the culture of your world, can help you write a thrilling story. Anyone can write culture into their story, but what's important, is writing culture with such provocativeness, it allows readers to think and to engage. Later in this book I'll talk about Show vs. Tell, which is an important and top-par writing technique to master.

✖ SETTING WITHIN YOUR SETTING.

So we've already dived into the setting of your story. But wherever your fanfiction takes place, whether it's Seattle or Gotham City, that city is the umbrella to many other settings. When you've established your umbrella setting, think about other important settings within your story. These are recurring spots in your fanfiction such as a school, the protagonist's bedroom, the local cafe, or their workplace. These settings also don't have to be frequent, but maybe an area that holds great impact on your protagonist. Places such as a car accident spot, where a character was sexually assaulted, or a traumatic foster home.

Create a simple list of the places your protagonist visits within your story. It doesn't have to be ALL the spots. Just start with a 3-5 items. Then quickly jot down what it is and a brief description of what you imagine this place looks like.

Here's an example:

As you can see, within my list I've mentioned some spots that actually exist like MILK and Griffith Observatory. If you decide to mention real places within your story, take the time to read through their official websites. Check out their Yelp page and read about everything there is about that spot. What's the parking like? Best selling items? Locals on Yelp love to dish little secrets like menu hacks or the best time to visit. Educate yourself to the best of your ability.

I know it seems like a lot of work, and honestly it is. But it should also be a fun experience! Writing fanfiction should be enjoyable for the most part. You're taking characters from a fandom you adore and molding them into a story you create.

I've mentioned this before, but part of getting reads is giving QUALITY work. Of course good writing comes with practice and we're all amateur authors when we first start. However, it is possible to write a dynamically awesome book your first try.

Trust me!

There's tons of fanfics here on Wattpad that are fucking dope and it's the author's first story! And let's use me as an example too. My first Wattpad fic called"Drunk Words, Sober Thoughts" has been a Wattpad Featured story, has garnered 6+ million reads, won a 2015 Watty Award, and its reader interactivity has been through the roof aka more comments than votes.

So put in the work. Don't be a lazy, complacent author. Have some grit. Have fun. And write something you're genuinely proud of!