Cenonn's How to Holofic and Writing in General

Characters need a place to live in

Okay... We talked about characters in the last few chapters. Now let's talk about the setting aka world building.

Your characters need a place to live in so that means it's your job to create it. But I'm not talking about just the physical place. I'm talking about the setting.

If the characters are the actors, then the setting is the stage. You have to create an appropriate setting for your characters and your plot. After all, you can't write about sea creatures in a desert, right?

Now then... What counts as a good setting? There are three elements you need to look out for and these are Specificity, Novelty, and Familiarity. A good setting has a good balance of these three elements and I'll discuss what each means.

First is the Specificity. This is where worldbuilding kicks in. Specificity talked about the details of the world. The time period, geographic location, culture, climate, history, and whatever needed information about the story's world. A good Specificity is something that answers all the questions a reader could have. Be very careful in how specific your world is. You don't want to info dump your readers.

Next is the Novelty. Novelty is the scale of "how unique and interesting" your world is. After all, we need an interesting and unique world. And I've said this before and I'll say it again, being unique doesn't mean interesting. For example, you can write about a sci-fi where instead of aliens, fantasy creatures like dwarves and elves take command of spaceships. It's unique but it all depends on your execution to make it interesting.

Last is the Familiarity. We are humans who feel comfortable when we are familiar with something. That's why most fantasy stories have technology on par with the Medieval Era or how sci-fis takes place in space since we are "familiar" with that concept. Also, you would notice that some stories take place in real settings like Tokyo, New York, and Paris since it gives a sense of familiarity for the readers.

Balancing Novelty and Familiarity is a bit tricky. You don't want to be too unique that your readers would feel lost on your new concepts. However, you also don't want to be too plain that your readers would be bored because of your recycled information. Finding the balance between these two elements is crucial and will definitely take the most time of your worldbuilding.

There are three types of settings you can do and these are fictional, semi-fictional, and historical.

Fictional means a totally brand new world created from scratch. Most Hololive fics are like this, especially my fanfiction, From Another World, and Rushiaboinboin's Kusamonogatari. Fictional worlds have no relation with the real world and the author is free to decide anything about it. You decide the races, culture, and everything in the world. This kind of setting needs a lot of work in worldbuilding but it gives the most freedom.

Semi-fictional means taking an existing place and adding a twist on it. For example, we got Phanzuru's Holonatural Occurrences and lightningstormtc's Kiara Fried Phoenix: A Hololive Story which takes place in Japan. However, there are a few twists like having supernatural creatures and stuff. This kind of setting needs to have the author become creative to add believable twists to the already existing places.

Last one is the historical type of setting. Now... I don't think this kind of setting is applicable for Holofics but I'll still explain this anyway. A historical setting is creating a fictional story in a real event while keeping track of what's possible. For example, you can write about a soldier's life in World War 2 and make a story out of it. However, you can't write anything impossible like magic and supernatural creatures because you gotta keep a sense of realism. This kind of setting needs intense research because you have to keep your facts right.

Alright... Before you say anything, there's a difference in the historical type of setting and the semi-fictional. Historical is about realistic stories that happened in a certain time period. I'm pretty sure I got that part down. If you're going to say that you're going to write Abraham Lincoln being a vampire hunter or Pekora being a notorious criminal in World War 2, that's already a semi-fictional world.

Semi-fictional worlds don't only apply to the current era. You can have a semi-fictional feudal Japan or a semi-fictional futuristic world. Go wild.

If you've decided on your type of setting and balanced out the Novelty and Familiarity, you work on the Specificity. These are the following you should take note of when building your world.

The country, region, city, or town your fanfiction takes place in. This one's pretty important since it's the stage where your fanfiction is going on. You have to be able to paint a proper picture in your reader's imaginations to actually pull this one off.

Next is the time of the year. Is it summer? Is it during the Christmas season? The events that will happen in your Hololive fanfiction will be decided on the time of the year.

After that is the climate. Does the place your characters live in have a rainy climate? Does snow fall there during December? The climate would dictate the character's clothing and would affect the architecture of your city.

Then you have the geography. Does your place have mountains? Is a river nearby where your characters can hang out? The geography could affect what kind of plans your characters will have.

Historical events are also one of the things you need to build on. Did a war happen a long time ago that caused a rift between two factions? Does an important person in the past affect the status of the characters in the present?

After that is the social, political, and cultural environment. In Hololive fics, are supernatural creatures like onis and beastmen accepted by the populace? Are they integrated into society? Are there significant differences between each race's culture, values, and morals?

And lastly, the population. Is your place a heavily-populated city or a scarce rural town? This would affect what kinds of characters would appear in your story and how your MC would meet them.

Now that I'm done with talking about how to create a setting, I'll discuss how to create Fictional Words like Fantasy and Sci-Fi and Semi-Fictional Worlds like Modern Worlds in the next few chapters. I'll start off with my specialty which is Fantasy. Thanks for checking out this guide!