Writing Basics: Setting

A setting can be just as crucial as the characters within it. Different environments invoke different connotations, provide different challenges and can provide characterization details. .
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However, just as we discussed when making characters, the time and energy you spend on a setting should be directly proportional to its importance to your characters and stories. .
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Let's say your story revolves around someone in school. You could list the staff, the classes they teach, the layout of the building, the specific times classes dismiss. But before you create this entire school and the laying of its first bricks and mortar, ask yourself if that is pertinent to you, your character, or your readers. .
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If your story is about a mystery rooted in the school's dark beginnings, we want to know everything we can. If your character is just talking to a friend at their locker before going off to thwart an evil werewolf, we really don't need to know that the school's west wing was added in 1985. .
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I will do another post about worldbuilding for fictional settings, but if your story takes place in our "world", even if there's a few things that are different, use that assumed knowledge to your advantage. It's safe to assume your reader will know students go from one class to another with small breaks in-between, they know that there's a lunch time in a cafeteria. Let your settings do the work!