Fantasy Vs Real World Settings

Where do you like to set your stories and what do you think are the pros and cons of fantasy and of real world settings?

I'm currently writing my first story and so far I've set the first two chapters in a fantasy setting.

On second thought, I'm close to deleting it all and rewrite it again to put it into a modern setting. What I like about a fantasy setting is how easy you can introduce slavery and slavery as a socially accepted and established institution. "Slaver" can be a real job in a fantasy setting and you can have your characters simply being sold.

This is obviously more complicated in a real world setting where you'd have to make up a criminal underworld or maybe a dystopian future etc. Or I was thinking about a secluded island of some rich people etc.

I like the possibilities of a fantasy setting (ACTUAL slavery not private roleplay etc.), but to me, fantasy isn't really as sexy as a real world (or near future) setting.

Hm!

I prefer fantasy, mostly because of the sheer control that it gives me over the story. I can tailor the setting to whatever the story needs, right down to the smallest detail.

Adder4321 said:

I prefer fantasy, mostly because of the sheer control that it gives me over the story. I can tailor the setting to whatever the story needs, right down to the smallest detail.

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You have a link to some of your stories?

RedShambhala said:

You have a link to some of your stories?

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https://www.literotica.com/s/magic-mischief-and-money-ch-01

I've done four chapters of the same story. I've mostly just been doing it for practice though, I'm currently working on a more realistic story for the Valentines Day contest.

So far, all my stories have been set in the real world, modern day. It's easier this way for me to focus on the characters and the story.

All my stories have, or should have, a disclaimer that they are set in fictional locations.

But many are set in realistic modern day, or realistic past time, locations and scenarios.

Creating a fantasy world can need an information dump, no matter how cleverly disguised, to set the parameters of the different world. That can be boring for the reader and has to be kept consistent. If the readers buy into the fantasy and become fans it is easier. Examples are Discworld, Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter.

But starting a fantasy world from scratch is sometimes awkward to write. I think too many Lit authors go too far creating worlds and have too much information compared with the storyline.

Most of my material is "here and now" or "back there and then", ie: reality based. I have one shaggy story that is less tightly grounded in the real world, but all its locations are real places.

I'm working on a long myth thing where I'm doing some world building, set before clocks were invented - that gets interesting, describing how time passes without the notion of minutes or hours. I'd not thought of that before, it's all moments, mornings, dusk, night - finding broader temporal words.

Fantasy and or real world settings?

Actually, I prefer Texas.

I wanted to set my story in a Gorean-inspired world. Problem is that for this I have to first describe what Gor is (in the introduction and/or sometimes in clauses explaining vocabulary such as "kajirus", "ubar", "kajira", etc.) and describe where I move away from Gor and alter it, introduce electricity, etc.

Maybe I should simply go for a more simple "mystical kingdom"-setting; like in Anne Rice's "beauty" books or in "Familiar of Zero", etc. Hm.

All of mine are set in the real world and usually in the past , hence my user name. The only story I have set in the present day was a fetish series called 'My Best Friend's Crazy Fat Sister', which takes place in Melbourne, Australia.

Two of my stories do have supernatural themes, but even they take place in the real world. One is called 'The Night Louise Left The TV On', which takes place in London in 1966, the other is a Lesbian story called 'The PTA Queen Bee & The Teen Rebel', which is set in New York in 1988. Although the second story isn't strictly supernatural, it features a house rumored to be haunted and cursed, and the lead female character who works as a real estate broker cons a naïve newlywed couple into buying the house without disclosing its troubled past.

Making up fantasy worlds is extremely challenging, and it is difficult to get it right and capture your readers' imagination.

RetroFan said:

Making up fantasy worlds is extremely challenging, and it is difficult to get it right and capture your readers' imagination.

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Yeah.

I guess what's really easy is making up a world where one sex is enslaved, period. A while ago, I've read such a hot maledom story set one some planet where women are all slaves etc. Sadly, I don't find it anymore.

But I don't really want to write such a story myself, I want to be more complex with both maledom and femdom elements, etc. So ... yeah.

If the fantasy setting doesn't float your boat, then don't use it. If you're not excited about writing it that way, that's probably going to come through to the reader, and they're not going to be excited either.

Rule #1 should always be write what you like.

RejectReality said:

If the fantasy setting doesn't float your boat, then don't use it. If you're not excited about writing it that way, that's probably going to come through to the reader, and they're not going to be excited either.

Rule #1 should always be write what you like.

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Yeah ... I've already deleted it from wattpad again and here on literotica it was sent back recently anyway, saying that I should break up my paragraphs and switch to American punctuation rules with the commas inside the quotation marks, etc.

But I feel like it doesn't make sense to write a sex story set in an environment in which your actual sexual fantasies do NOT take place. I think I'll try to come up with a near-future-setting that is pretty much a normal world but somehow has slavery built in, or maybe some very decent elements of futuristic technology or whatever.

Maybe a secret society that has grown all powerful and now pretty much controls whole cities and territories where there is also slavery or something.

Let's see...

...hm, maybe: the usual secret society of rich people etc. But this society gains control over a new kind of technology. Due to this, they obviously gain more power and end up controlling an actual territority, an actual new "country" from where they dominate. And in this new country, there is also slavery. And my main characters are the members of the "Council" that rules this country like in a medieval / early modern age city, Gdanks, Venice. And ... yeah.

Red Shambhala, after reading your comments my guess is that the following would not be an idea for one of your stories, but maybe it could be interesting.

A while ago I wrote up a scenario of a fantasy world that women dominate. The men would not be slaves, but second class citizens. Since one can be certain that a woman’s child is her own, but that is not the case for men, wealth is only inherited through mothers and therefore women control the wealth. Since men are stronger they are only consider good for menial work. Instead of menstruation being something to be embarrassed about it is actually considered a “Red Badge of Honor.” A celebration is held at the time of a female’s first menstruation and women wear red jewelry or allow blood to show through their clothes when they menstruate. Women generally wear clothes to cover most of their bodies, except when they are pregnant in which case they allow their bellies to be exposed through a slit. Also woman are considered to have more sexual feelings than men since men lose the ability to have an erection after orgasm.

On the other hand, men wear very little clothes and at times go naked such as for athletic events which both female and males watch. The custom is that when a male reaches adulthood he is paraded in the nude through the town so all could see him. Sex education is taught to both sexes by women. Males are taught through masturbation to delay their orgasms, while women are taught how to best reach orgasm, with the most pleasure, through masturbation. Both sexes enjoy cunnilingus.

Moonlight and Roses,

In chronological dimension, I tend to set my stories in a real, given world--either the here/now or the then. I think this is because I don't want to take the time to recreate a different chronological world (although I've done a bit of that).

In another dimension, though, many of my GM stories are set in another contextual world--a largely GM world, where, again, I don't have to spend a lot of effort showing that the situation is believable in context and I can put my effort to developing other aspects of the story.

MoonlightandRoses said:

Red Shambhala, after reading your comments my guess is that the following would not be an idea for one of your stories, but maybe it could be interesting.

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Thank you!
This is an interesting idea.
I've come up with something on the way to the supermarket now, though, that might be good for my idea about a world with both male and female slaves (I want both maledom and femdom elements):

A secret society of the usual suspects developing a new technology, maybe a new source of energy + new medicine; almost cyberpunkish. Due to this new technology, they get a lot of power - so much power, in fact, that they end up controlling a part of the USA, roughly from New England to Florida. "New Albion" is then controlled by a Council, who will make up my main characters. The rest of the USA then turn to shit and "New Albion" is then new world power ... maybe they are waging war and capturing slaves. Or: they allow immigrants if they are useful AND willing to become slaves. Like, the immigrant slaves then receive their revolutionary modern medicine that renders them almost immortal and gives them perfect bodies - but in return, they have to be slaves and maybe get a kind of control chip implanted. They are then sold to citizens of "New Albion"

sr71plt said:

In another dimension, though, many of my GM stories are set in another contextual world--a largely GM world, where, again, I don't have to spend a lot of effort showing that the situation is believable in context and I can put my effort to developing other aspects of the story.

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What's GM and a "GM world"?

RedShambhala said:

I wanted to set my story in a Gorean-inspired world. Problem is that for this I have to first describe what Gor is (in the introduction and/or sometimes in clauses explaining vocabulary such as "kajirus", "ubar", "kajira", etc.) and describe where I move away from Gor and alter it, introduce electricity, etc.

Maybe I should simply go for a more simple "mystical kingdom"-setting; like in Anne Rice's "beauty" books or in "Familiar of Zero", etc. Hm.

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Don't get bogged down in the description. Work it into the story as you go. Read some of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover novels and see how she does it, she's a master. You don't need to overdo it, just have a good sense in your own mind of the setting and work in the details. I always like an example Robert Heinlein used to help explain. "The door dilated." You immediately get the idea that it's somewhere different.

GM = Gay Male

RejectReality said:

If the fantasy setting doesn't float your boat, then don't use it. If you're not excited about writing it that way, that's probably going to come through to the reader, and they're not going to be excited either.

Rule #1 should always be write what you like.

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Quite right. And let the story go where it will. If the story needs a weirder (or simpler) world than we have here, so be it. But much fantasy (other than people behaving unrealistically) can be worked into our consensus reality. That's a bit less work than creating whole new worlds.

Hypoxia said:

Quite right. And let the story go where it will. If the story needs a weirder (or simpler) world than we have here, so be it. But much fantasy (other than people behaving unrealistically) can be worked into our consensus reality. That's a bit less work than creating whole new worlds.

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A small difference from our world can make for some interesting story lines. It doesn't have to be much of a change but exploring the implications of the difference can be fun.

Depends on the story. Sci-fi stories are almost always in a "fantasy" world as that world doesn't exist in the here and now. But they are mostly in a world we would recognize as what our world today might become.

Other stories are always set in the here and now. In some I might pick a location that I have lived or visited or been stationed at. Or I might pick a spot and do some research and place the story there.

But as most stories take place in an indoor location, like a bedroom, there is much need to describe anything...they got on the large ornate bed and fucked their brains out...see what I mean.

Most of my stories are in the here and now, many are set in a fictional town in Northern Iowa, or have people who are from there. While my fictional town of Woodston may be physically similar to the town I lived in, the people in my fictional town, and the things they do are purely fantasy.

RedShambhala said:

What I like about a fantasy setting is how easy you can introduce slavery and slavery as a socially accepted and established institution.

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Probably the best series I have read on this site is "The Rebellious Slave" by HisPet21. https://www.literotica.com/s/the-rebellious-slave-ch-01

It's set in a fictional world, but one that seems not that much more foreign than, say, certain countries in Central Europe. The existence of slavery and the traditions responsible for it are only revealed within the action of the story. There is no information dump or arcane vocabulary. The author just tells the story, flat out, guns blazing, and leaves it to the reader to be smart enough to keep up. It's a pretty effective technique. I'd encourage you to read at least the first chapter, linked above.

oggbashan said:

A small difference from our world can make for some interesting story lines. It doesn't have to be much of a change but exploring the implications of the difference can be fun.

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An old hard-SciFi trick: Keep all constant but one variable. See what results.

As suggested above, chattel slavery can spew many plot bunnies, and not only the usual monochrome racist stuff. Debtors, prisoners, migrants, unruly offspring, dole recipients, election losers, vagrants, grad students, may be purchased in open markets and used as their new owners (legally) wish. Can convicted hookers be bought to staff brothels and corporate lounges?

Slight variants: fantasy worlds where women totally dominate men or vice-versa, or the old own the young. Devising new hooks may be difficult. Yawn.

Another slight fantasy: Theocracy, with or without divine power. Leaders of established faiths run their communities' secular lives, likely in competition. Who has the best benefits? Will you be better-rewarded financially, socially, sexually, by joining Mormons, Quakers, Scientologists, Discordians, Sufis?

What other slight social changes can we explore? Mandatory bondage or harems (any genders) or exhibitionism ("National Nude Day: It's The Law!") or hijabs or incest or temple whoredom (any genders) or conformity or scapegoating. Flip or extend any custom or taboo. Fun fun fun.