We were in Kansas? - setting/where you are
There’s no Dorothy without the Land of Oz, no Pooh Bear without the Hundred Acre Woods, and there’s no story without a place to set it in.
Maybe I’m getting a bit more crass as these progress, but setting is so so soooo important to a story. Worldbuilding especially. If you have a message you want to convey, whether that be about the world or some other reason, the world around your characters is crucial to their progression.
Say you have a piece about the importance of nature with a contrast to modern technology taking it over, you want the reader to be able to visualize how that looks. How skyscrapers have dwarf tree-tops, how concrete replaces erosion-paved dirt roads, and how life feels as if it’s been sucked out with the landscape.
Not just in the visual sense, but also in the historic worldbuilding is important. You want a background to how these people and places got to where they are today, why their world is the way they are. A major war broke out between factions that leave the entire society in a story weary? A beast of old came from the south, so the southernmost border of your cityscape is most fortified? All of this can help with setting up what story you want to tell.
Within my own story, it’s been crucial to have the worldbuilding done out first, even before developing characters inside a story. Having there be a deep-suited reason why non-government-issued power usage is illegal, instilling decades-old ideals into a generation of people. Giving faults in that system by design–such as over-control of people–just so my characters shine in that limelight.
As someone who’s also been writing for a while and struggles a bit with worldbuilding, I love to use this one age-old technique. Research. Hear me out, it’s great for when you want to take a look into what another author has put into their world, and pull apart details that add that up. Sometimes even trying to set your characters in a world pre-made by another author can help, with you getting a feel for what aspects influence character, and how you as a writer can do that too!