I find the constraints of drama actually freeing: It brings everything down to character and action.
Whatever story you're telling in Louisiana, the landscape is going to become a character in it.
Killing characters on television has become an easy short cut to cathartic emotion.
For me as a storyteller, I want to follow the characters and the story through what they organically demand.
If landscape is a character for me, then it helps if I'm familiar with it and I already have a take on it.