# Craft tip #4: Be the tourist in your own city ### On Setting and creating magical worlds [Alex Eos](https://substack.com/@alexeos) Mar 10, 2026 We briefly talked about setting with _The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind_—which is less "a place you visit" and more "a mood that stares back." Alien. Mysterious. Slightly judgmental. Exactly what setting should be. And yes. I can hear you. “Shouldn’t this be craft tip #7, Alex? Didn’t you just finish three articles on video games?” To that I say: craft tips are not a linear curriculum. They are a spiral staircase in a haunted library. Sometimes you think you’re going somewhere new and you end up back at "setting," because setting is the thing quietly doing half the work while characters take credit. Setting is one of those craft muscles you can’t really “finish.” You just keep discovering new ways it can humble you. Also, for the record, I have honorable mentions I’m absolutely going to drag into this newsletter at some point: _Quest for Glory_ and _King’s Quest_ for fairy-tale retellings, and _The Secret of Monkey Island_ for the Hero’s Journey dressed up as a four-act structure (plus insult swordfighting, which should be a required life skill). Here’s the thing: _Morrowind_ works because it doesn’t just look alien—it behaves alien. The setting has rules. It has consequences. It has opinions. And that’s what we’re doing today: two ways to make setting pull its weight: 1. how to steal from real places without writing a travel brochure, and 2. how to take a familiar place and evolve it into something new— _New New York_ in _Futurama_ style: recognizable bones, exaggerated flaws, and one illegal future stapled on top. I’m writing this with a mug of caramel chamomile next to me—sweet, floral, and aggressively domestic—which is a nice reminder that setting starts the same way: with one specific, physical detail that tells the reader what kind of world they’re standing in. ## **Take photos of buildings without judgement** At night, my neighborhood is neon Chinese characters, BBQ stands, crowds, and that one godawful stretch of stinky tofu that could legally qualify as a chemical weapon. It makes me feel like I’m living in _Blade Runner_. Not the sequel—the original 1980s one, when the future still looked damp and disappointed. To be fair, we’re halfway there already. We just need the rain, a morally ambiguous detective, and—of course—my favorite: flying cars. Use your environment to your advantage: the taste of the local cuisine, the smells, the noise, what you see, and how it makes you feel. Sure, what I describe sounds totally dystopian. But your setting builds mood, raises stakes, creates obstacles, and reveals something about your character. Take photos of things that inspire you with your camera (or camera phone) so you can review them later and pull details when you’re writing. If it’s a place you’re visiting—or if you have time—dedicate ten minutes to researching on Google what the city or place you’re describing looks like. When all else fails, use ChatGPT to help you describe a scene. Like, if you need to know what a dead body smells like, it’ll give you a pretty accurate description. The craft is still yours—AI just fills the research gap most writers would fill some other way anyway. The people who are against AI often don’t know how LLMs work, or how to prompt correctly to get what they want, and then they shit on people who write novels with it. End rant. ## Use judgment, not neutrality Another way to steal from real places—besides loading up on five-sense details—is **judgment**. Your characters have opinions on everything, including the weather and food. In other words: travel brochures read as neutral. Your voice isn’t. Example: “godawful stretch of stinky tofu that could legally qualify as a chemical weapon.” And for the record: I’ve eaten a lot of food in my life. I love the food pics, the recipes, the borderline pornographic noodle close-ups people send me. I’m not anti-adventure. I just can’t do the smell of stinky tofu—which is tragic, because it tastes unbelievably good for something that announces itself like it’s trying to commit a crime in public. That’s the whole point: judgment is a setting shortcut. One opinion can imply culture, density, routine, and mood—without you ever having to list “local attractions.” Here’s a prompt to get you writing: “This place is ___, and I feel ___ about it.” Another version of this exercise: pick one detail in your setting and let your narrator be unfair about it. What do they love? What do they hate? What do they pretend not to notice? Then flip it: what do they love, want, and notice? ## How to remix a familiar place into something new (a.k.a. New New York rules) If you want to take a familiar place and evolve it into something new, don’t reinvent a brand-new city. Start by committing a small act of creative zoning fraud. I’m using _Futurama_ for this example because it pulls this off so well—better, frankly, than _The Dresden Files’_ modern-day Chicago. _Futurama’s_ New New York works because it keeps the recognizable bones of New York, then cranks the dials on what New York already is: density, spectacle, attitude, bureaucracy, capitalism, chaos—now with a thousand years of bad decisions stacked on top like unpaid parking tickets. How did Matt Groening and David X. Cohen do it? Simple. They kept the unchangeable elements that make New York City iconic. For New York, that might be: - vertical skyline - too many people - public transit that feels sentient - neighborhoods that change block by block - the city’s ability to ignore your personal crisis You don’t need a map. You need anchors. If you remove these bones, readers won’t recognize the remix. Next: choose one flaw to exaggerate until it becomes **worldbuilding**. This is where the place becomes “new.” Take a real trait and ask: what if it got worse in 200 years? Or funnier. Or more corporate. Or more illegal. ## Show consequences in daily life (so it feels real) This is where you avoid “cool concept syndrome.” Ask: - Who benefits from this future? - Who gets screwed by it? - What new problem did it create? - What does the average person complain about? If the future thing exists, it should change: - the commute - the economy - the slang - the rules of safety - what people fear / want / tolerate ### Finally, name it like it’s a bureaucratic compromise Part of why “New New York” is funny is that it’s not poetic. It’s administrative. People don’t name cities like poets. They name them like committees. Try: - “New ___” - “Greater ___” - “___ Prime” - “___ Annex” - “___ District 12” - “Lower ___ (Now With More Lower)” It signals history and bureaucracy without an exposition dump. ### Your homework Take your hometown (or your favorite city) and do this in five minutes: - Write 3 bones (unchangeables). - Pick 1 flaw and exaggerate it 100 years. - Add 1 illegal future feature. - Write one sentence about how it changes an ordinary Tuesday. That’s a setting. That’s a remix. That’s how you get “New New York.” As we approach our destination, I want to quickly thank [Trashlett](https://open.substack.com/users/443717443-trashlett?utm_source=mentions) for suggesting our next topic. If you want to suggest topics I should cover in future craft articles, be sure to subscribe, share, and refer an enemy to this newsletter/Substack. I try to put out an open call in my subscriber chat—be on the lookout when I do.