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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/37688
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I've always been told there are two ways to deal with setting:

1. write the story and the setting will follow, or not, several of the best pieces of writing I've ever been privy to are all character and dialogue and could be happening literally anywhere without the setting changing a letter. This is a methodology I understand you'd like to avoid.

2. write the setting and the story(s) will follow, this appears on the surface to be a useful approach for you to take in this situation. Take the theme or message you wish to write about and build a setting to convey that theme, the story(s) will flow from that process.

Please note that neither of these approaches lends itself particularly well to formulation, in both cases the process is pretty organic. There are some formula based methods for building settings that can help to codify the process, in this case the steps look something like this:

1. theme, what you want the world to speak to.
2. world, physical geography, where you want to speak from.
3. genre, will give you a guide around things like magic, technology etc... that you can use to tell the tale and begin to create;
4. society, most of the work on your theme/message is done here, technology and magic are nailed down at this stage as are governments, family structures, gender roles, and a very long list of miscellaneous details that go into fleshing out the people(s) from which you will be drawing;
5. Characters, the actors that tell the stories you want to tell.

You should be able to tell by part way through part 4 whether or not you have succeeded in creating your thematic setting as for helping you to write thematic settings I can't really help there, worldbuilding is always a hit and miss process. There is the [Worldbuilding](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/) Stack if you need help pinning down some specific details.

Original score: 1