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Your Protagonist's Homeworld

Emissarius

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If your protagonist is set to leave her home planet/ city/ village/ town early on in the book (say, at around 20% of the book/ chapter 4-5), how much would you invest in that place? Some examples, like the Wheel of Time's Two Rivers and Star Wars' Tatooine invest a lot of detail and history into the place despite the MC spending more time elsewhere. Then you've got places like Harry Potter's Privet Drive which, imo, is so scantily-described that there's hardly a sense of place at all. I assume the rich and hilarious character of the Dursleys' household makes up for it, though.

What would you consider the best approach? I admit I'm currently grappling with this issue in my space fantasy ms. I've planned and outlined extensively for all parts and locations of the story except for the MC's homeplanet, and I don't mind telling u that I've still got no idea if it's going to be an island, a town, or a countryside. How do you make the choice? Do you take into consideration how the MC feels about the place? For example, both Privet Drive and Tatooine were drab and boring in their own way, that's how Harry and Luke saw them, and that's why they wanted to leave. Yet still, one place was given a rich history and details while the other was technically glossed over.

On the other hand, Bilbo's Shire and Rand (from the Wheel of Time)'s Two Rivers are beautiful places and I guess it's no coincidence that both MC was forced to leave instead of wishing for it. My MC is in the Luke/ Harry category. He can't wait to get off-world. Should I aim for a depressing kind of setting, then? Does that mean mountains and greenery are out? What about Edwardian/ Gaslight settings? Both are personal favorites of mine, and none of them will feature on the planet the MC travels to after the fifth chapter (that one will be technologically advanced and full of skyscrapers). I thought that having him live in a green countryside homeworld or a Victorian one with no tall buildings whatsoever would actually be a nice contrast to the other planet and would fill him with awe. But is it really feasible to write about a setting you love like a green countryside/ village and have your MC despise it?
 

ChaseJxyz

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Should I aim for a depressing kind of setting, then? Does that mean mountains and greenery are out?

I grew up in New Hampshire and now live in California. I wanted to get out of NH because there were no cities, no people, there was nothing going on. Wasn't a huge fan of the cold, either. But there's people in California that would love to live in a place that's calm and quiet, that has 4 seasons, where they don't feel rushed all the time. Most people would hate to live on Tattooine since most people don't want to be a "moisture farmer" on a desert planet. But some people would love that! However, the Dursleys were abusive, so Harry had a reason to want to leave that no one can really argue with.

Your MC could be living on the nicest city on the nicest planet in the entire intergalactic empire but if they live in an abusive household or an orphanage or something they'd still want to go far, far away. They may want to be a sea captain and go to a planet that has oceans, they may want to discover uncharted areas, which isn't feasible on a planet that's fully developed. What does your MC value? What do they want to do with their life? How does their home reflect that?

How different is this home from the other places they go, as well as our reality? The Dursleys is a regular person house, and the readers are regular people, we don't need to be told that they normally don't get mail by owl. But Tattooine is a foreign planet, a biome (desert) most people don't live in, there's intelligent robots, there's all these aliens, there's two suns! When SW tells us about the planet, they're also telling us about the universe. This is a universe made up of all sorts of people, some good, some not so good. There's an oppressive military all over the place, there's lots of smuggling and secret stuff going on. There's space magic. It's better to tell us all this in the beginning because Luke already knows this, so when Luke learns new info, we're learning it, too, and we have some base to compare it to.
 

Chris P

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I hate to fall back on the old "it depends" cop-out, but it depends.

I would include only enough detail to inform the decisions/choices the character makes based on their frame of reference. Of the examples you mentioned, the homeworld was used for different purposes. Privet Drive and Tattooine were horrible, stifling places the characters couldn't wait to leave. The Shire (I've not read Wheel of Time) is an idyllic place the characters can't wait to get back to and leave all this outsider foolishness behind. Bilbo even named his book "There and back again," as there is really only "Here" that matters, and coming back to it. Think of how different Star Wars would have been if Luke was constantly mooning over Tattooine and shooting swamp rats in Beggar's Canyon? Or Bilbo spitting contemptuously on the ground every time The Shire was mentioned? Luke's not looking back drives the story as much as Bilbo's looking back does.

So, it depends on what you want to do with it as far as the character's motivation.
 
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neandermagnon

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If your protagonist is set to leave her home planet/ city/ village/ town early on in the book (say, at around 20% of the book/ chapter 4-5), how much would you invest in that place? Some examples, like the Wheel of Time's Two Rivers and Star Wars' Tatooine invest a lot of detail and history into the place despite the MC spending more time elsewhere. Then you've got places like Harry Potter's Privet Drive which, imo, is so scantily-described that there's hardly a sense of place at all. I assume the rich and hilarious character of the Dursleys' household makes up for it, though.

The Dursley's house doesn't need to be described because we all know what a middle class suburban home looks like in our world.

The thing that I go by for description (settings, objects, beings etc) is that the less familiar they are likely to be to the reader, the more you need to describe them. If your characters are humans, you probably only need a few basic details. If your characters are some alien species that look very unusual (i.e. not just blue/red/purple humanoids with unusual limb proportions) then you will need to describe them in more details. Same with settings. If it's a boring middle class suburban home in Surrey, you don't need to describe it. The more unusual it is the more you'll need to describe it.

It's not just about what the reader needs to know to understand what they're reading about, it's also that the more unusual a thing/character/setting, the more interesting the description will be, so have fun with it.

As to whether or not your character likes their home before they get uprooted into the new place, do what works for your story. Is the new place a fantastic adventure and welcome break from a miserable place they lived in before? Or is it an unsettling and traumatic wrench from a place where they were happy? That's going to depend on what sort of story you want to tell.
 

FletcherHavarti

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On the other hand, Bilbo's Shire and Rand (from the Wheel of Time)'s Two Rivers are beautiful places and I guess it's no coincidence that both MC was forced to leave instead of wishing for it. My MC is in the Luke/ Harry category. He can't wait to get off-world. Should I aim for a depressing kind of setting, then? Does that mean mountains and greenery are out? What about Edwardian/ Gaslight settings? Both are personal favorites of mine, and none of them will feature on the planet the MC travels to after the fifth chapter (that one will be technologically advanced and full of skyscrapers). I thought that having him live in a green countryside homeworld or a Victorian one with no tall buildings whatsoever would actually be a nice contrast to the other planet and would fill him with awe. But is it really feasible to write about a setting you love like a green countryside/ village and have your MC despise it?

It might be a worthwhile exercise to try writing about a place that a reader would think is extremely cool -- someplace we would *want* to be -- and then see if you can plausibly show why the main character hates it there. On the other hand (depending on what the story requires), it could be very effective to create the most miserable, stinking cesspool of a planet that makes the reader just as eager to escape as the character.

As to the question of how much to invest in the place, I would think of it as how much you want to invest in the character's origin. Since that's going to drive a lot of what he does, it's worth the investment -- but only to the extent that it helps you develop who this character is and why he wants to leave. Is it the place itself that he dislikes, or experiences he's had there?

Either way, if you're asking the reader to spend the first several chapters there, hopefully some very interesting things are happening right from the start.