There are many different landscapes for your characters to inhabit and traverse to!

Over the years of checking out other peeps fanfics, I have taken notice of the different places stories take place in, and ones that I have never seen or are rarely used that I think would be real cool to see, and even use myself. Like a desert for example. Recently within the past months I came up with a story idea that kinda took inspiration from the movie Mad Max: Road Rage, and so I planned to have the setting be in either like a desert or some type of rocky wasteland, or both of them! And that got me thinking, not many peeps use deserts to my observation, and there are probably a ton of others not used too.

So, I am here with this list of different settings that you could potential use when planning out your stories. Whether it be a specific type of setting, a temporary location, time period or certain time of the day, I have it written down.

Here we go!

• ALTERNATE UNIVERSES/REALMS – And I’m not talking about AUs here as others like to use, I mean for real actual alternate universes within your already built upon story setting. So, say, you have your characters and their location established, and the whole deal is that, maybe some type of portal or vortex opens and they get transported to another version of their world or life, or maybe even multiple. Maybe they might run into their alternate self, or alternate versions of their frens? Or, just a totally new different realm that lives side by side it. For example, a human realm and a supernatural realm that are separate but connected through certain means that allows peeps to pass over.
• COMMUNITY – The typical people filled places that you and I usually live in. So, of course, that is places such as cities, towns, villages, a country side, districts, a suburb, etc. A society.
• DESERT – Ah, the great and vast sandy plains. Filled with sand dunes, mirages, sand and even more sand. Throw some type of city out there, work with pyramids of some kind, drink up that cactus juice! Anything!
• ERA – You could choose to go with some type of specific era from a past or futuristic setting. What I mean by that is having an environment resemble something like a Victorian look, possibly go with Steampunk (a big fav of mine here), or kick it in the Wild Wild West! I know one that many like is Historical settings, back during like feudal times and all that. That’s another good one to go with, along with many others.
• INDOORS – Maybe you might want to have your story take places inside somewhere, like a standard house or something. Either it be something like, your characters just never leave, or the only scenes you write are when they are in some place. Now, indoors could also mean and can be seen as inside while still being outside. Say, your characters are confined to a place like a city because of walls that surround the whole place or whatever. Or it can be inside an outdoor place, like a cave. This one probably sounds kinda confusing, but I’m sure you can figure it out.
• OCEAN/SEA – If you are a fan of water, how about a large body of water? You can have an underwater civilization like the City of Atlantis, or if you’re gonna work with mermaids. Maybe something to do with a group of scuba divers, those in a submarine, on a ship/boat (whether it is a Navy one or Pirate one), or a cruise ship for a luxurious trip story. Other water things you can implement or have are rivers and lakes, plus waterfalls are a thing. You could also have your location be beach side or something. An island is another option to go with, and it can be the home or destination (vacation trip or business, you decide).
• OUTDOORS – Why not get in touch with the side of nature and use the great outdoors! There are plenty of places your characters can reside in or go to – a few basically being the same thing or different ways to refer to a place as – say, for a trip. Or maybe for some other not so wonderful reasons. We’ve got the forest/woods, a rainforest, swamp, up in the mountains (rocky, snowy, etc.), a cave (maybe filled with rare crystals along with stalagmites and stalactites), hills, valley, a great plateau, and possibly so many others that I’m not even sure about!
• SKY – How about up in the clouds, or above them, or under them, in the bright blue sky. Of course, you don’t have to roll with blue, use whatever color and shade you want! The sky has been known to change its color and shade. Maybe your characters live up in a flying city? Or possibly a really tall structure that reaches ALL THE WAY UP! Or how about on an airship? Is there a rainbow up there somewhere? Could it be a source of life or transportation? Flying could work for that too, with wings or no wings. Or possibly peeps who are riders on some sort of flying creature. If your story has anything to do with airplanes, jets, hot air balloons and more like it, the sky only makes sense.
• SPACE – If the sky is not your thing, why not go beyond that? Head on up further into outer space! The universe is HUGE and EXPANDING, containing many different galaxies, planets, and suns out there. Use them. You could write about galactic battles, space pirates, humans visiting different worlds or another race and life on their planet, hot alien babes, shooting star milkshake bar. Space is endless!
• TIME OF DAY – Of course we’ve got the different times during the day. There is day and night. Then we’ve got morning, afternoon, evening, and night. And even more into that is dusk, dawn, and twilight depending on how much light from the sun is shining when it is still visible.
• TIME PERIOD – Do you want to have your story take place in a Past, Present, or Futuristic type setting or environment? You can role with each one individually (present day 21 century or roll with the old school and go 80s), maybe combine them together (a present day setting with advanced technology but not fully futuristic enough to be considered the future imagined in sci-fi movies), or use multiple but split a part (if you want to write about time travel, you could show many different time periods throughout).
• UNDERGROUND – Doesn’t an underground city sound kinda cool? It probable may seem terrible to live in such conditions, but you can give it a try. It can be where your characters live, or maybe they discover some type of crazy secret underground sanctum.
• WASTELAND – An area of land that is barren and hasn’t really been populated. With this, the first thing that comes to my mind would be that of a post-apocalyptic like world. Or maybe just an area during the current time of your story that has just been deserted? Your pick.

Here are some references and examples for more inspiration:

• Attack on Titan – An anime about humanity on the brink of extinction because of the titans. This shows us community, indoors, and underground setting. Indoor since all of the people live within districts that are secluded within walls for their safety. Also, there is the underground area that resides within the inner most wall IIRC.
• Ender’s Game – A movie about how there is an alien race that comes and attacks the people of Earth, so what they do is take children/young teens and train them in a special military program. This shows us space, as the hub of where this all goes down, the training and eventual fight, takes place up there.
• Fallout – A series of videogames. War…war never changes. This one shows us the wasteland setting, as the Fallout series is all about being post-apocalyptic.
• Maze Runner – A movie about a bunch of boys, and one girl, who have been trapped within an area that is surrounded by walls, and the only way out is through the maze. This shows us indoors, because of the wall and maze, but also outdoors because where they are has a forest.
• Miss Peregrine – A book and movie about a boy who finds out that he is a peculiar, better known as a person with a unique ability or thing about them. This shows us two things, alternate universe and time of day. Jake, the main male lead, has to go through a certain place to reach the realm where the others live, plus it is a time loop, so the day resets every 24 hours.
• Sky High – A movie about a group of teens attending a special school for those with powers where they will learn how to utilize them and use them properly so that they may become superheroes one day. This shows us a sky location as the school, which is the same name as the title, floats up in the sky thanks to a gravity mechanism.
• Suite Life on Deck – A TV show from Disney Channel about the twin boys Zack and Cody continuing their sweet days from the hotel and moving onto a cruise ship. This obviously shows us a water setting, as they are mostly seen on the boat pretty much, stopping by other places from time to time.
• The Purge – A series of movies about a day where crime is legal. I’m not sure which one it is, but I do know the one I’m thinking of shows us indoors. You can see the family stays within their home and doesn’t go outside ever I think, as other people are trying to murder them.
• Zathura – A movie about two boys, brothers, who play a board game called the same as the title, and once they start to play, their whole house gets transported into space and the effects of the game happen for real. This is another space example, as well as an indoors one, as the boys never leave their house.

You can pretty much use any one of the genres listed and more! Those don’t really have to do with setting choices.

If anybody else has something they want to add to this page, like more settings or examples, pliss go ahead and tell me!

If you decide to use any of this, let me know and I’ll add it to the list of created stories!