Settings - how do you? (OMG Writerly)

[Jenny_Jackson]

I'll tell you how I write my settings. They are all real places or combinations of two or more real place that I have been. That doesn't stop me from changing the setting around, moving it or whatever, but it does give me a pretty good mental image of the setting before I begin.

As a for instance... Harry is in lower New York, but my mental image is Upper Wacker Drive in Chicago.

 

[Liar]

I make mine up on the fly. As long as they suit what I try to tell, and I don't contradict myself whithin the universe of the story, settings don't bother me much. They're props.

 

[Bianca_Sommerland]

Imagery at the get go is usually somewhere I've been, but after, when I get into real detail and want to put the scene somewhere other then my backyard (although that could be fun too...one of my Urban Fantasies goes between New York and Montreal) I try to do tons of research, talk to people who've been there and try to create a solid, but not too long, description.

Paint a mental picture without getting lost in the picture. Usually have too much going on

 

[Austin8]

my nude day story was set in New Zealand I've never been to New Zealand but the story just begged to be there, I had no idea the amount of research it would take just to get through 3 to 4k words, holy crap it was soo labor intensive.

 

[Darkniciad]

I steal settings from everywhere. I've roamed around ancient three story orphanages that have been abandoned for twenty years. My grandparent's house had a hand-dug basement, and indoor plumbing added as an afterthought. I've been in mines, caves, cornfields and graveyards at night, on islands in Minnesota almost in the Great White North, and on the top of mountains in New Mexico.

What I can't lift from somewhere I've been, I steal from movies/documentaries/video games and even floorplans. Then I incorporate what I can from things I've actually seen and touched to flesh them out, wherever possible.

Then I visualize, and walk through the virtual environment with the characters. The loose boards, the gopher holes hidden in waist-high grass, the yawning chasms that pop up right next to you around a bend in the switchback.

That's what I'm trying to convey. Whether I pull it off or not is another thing *laugh*

 

[Bianca_Sommerland]

I steal settings from everywhere. I've roamed around ancient three story orphanages that have been abandoned for twenty years. My grandparent's house had a hand-dug basement, and indoor plumbing added as an afterthought. I've been in mines, caves, cornfields and graveyards at night, on islands in Minnesota almost in the Great White North, and on the top of mountains in New Mexico.

What I can't lift from somewhere I've been, I steal from movies/documentaries/video games and even floorplans. Then I incorporate what I can from things I've actually seen and touched to flesh them out, wherever possible.

Then I visualize, and walk through the virtual environment with the characters. The loose boards, the gopher holes hidden in waist-high grass, the yawning chasms that pop up right next to you around a bend in the switchback.

That's what I'm trying to convey. Whether I pull it off or not is another thing *laugh*

Floorplans. Gods that reminds me of when I spent hours looking for some of a ship. I'm pretty good navigating the internet but finding the right search terms drove me nuts.

Hey, speaking of settings, anyone ever been to The Church of Peace in Germany? I could use some info

 

[michchick98]

I usually use real places and toss in fictitious stuff, like in one story I wrote, I referred to an alley behind Hockeytown Cafe. There is a Hockeytown Cafe. I've never been there, so I don't know if there's an alley behind it or not.

I think using real places brings the reader further into the story.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

I usually use real places and toss in fictitious stuff, like in one story I wrote, I referred to an alley behind Hockeytown Cafe. There is a Hockeytown Cafe. I've never been there, so I don't know if there's an alley behind it or not.

I think using real places brings the reader further into the story.

That's right. In the story Hunting Dead Man's Hill this hill actually exists in southeastern Montana, however the road at the bottom of the hill exists in Idaho as does the barn in the middle of the right of way with the road making a sharp left then a sharp right to go around it. Both locations I have been too a number of times.

 

[lance gt]

I've used several of the methods mentioned, but for a real life view of a place, I use GoogleEarth and navigate the place just like I'm there. I can see landmarks and roads, buildings and sights, without leaving my computer. Takes so little effort to use and makes a world of difference in writing. Need a detail, just bring up the site and look, then go back and write.

 

[Darkniciad]

The house in Finding Karen is a period reconstruction miner's cabin from that trip to New Mexico, while the exterior is my grandparent's house in Indiana, and the surrounding environs are from some Western or Little House on the Prairie.

When I wrote my first chapter of Laresa, I used a few real locations, reconstructed as best as I could from knowing a bit about the area, checking out photos, etc.

Just depends upon the situation, but most of my settings are a Frankenstein's Monster of several different locations.

 

[Bianca_Sommerland]

I've used several of the methods mentioned, but for a real life view of a place, I use GoogleEarth and navigate the place just like I'm there. I can see landmarks and roads, buildings and sights, without leaving my computer. Takes so little effort to use and makes a world of difference in writing. Need a detail, just bring up the site and look, then go back and write.

I love google earth. I used it to write about a place in Australia. Was able to zoom in to street level in the middle of a desert! Awesome stuff!

 

[cloudy]

I've used New Orleans as the setting for several of my stories....Savannah, too. They both just ooze the right atmosphere for the spooky stories I like to write, especially the Garden District in N.O. It helps that I'm familiar with both cities, but then, that Southern gothic thing is just made for an eerie atmosphere.

 

[_Lynn_]

Most of the time, I make up settings to fit the story. Names of cities, clubs, restaurants, etc., I get from the assorted generators available online. When I begin a piece, I have most of it pictured in my mind already. Often I take details from places I've been, then mix it all together.

 

[TE999]

I've traveled through and stayed in about 21 states in the US...big cities, small towns, the works. I take lots of pics so I have a file or twenty of them. I love museums, historic homes and buildings and attractions like Colonial Williamsburg VA, Westville GA and Old Salem NC. Plenty of settings there.

I also like to create imaginary settings in the Sci Fi & Fantasy genre. Your creativity can run amuck in those stories.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I too, like TE have been to many places in and out of the US. In the Walker Brigade I have them in New York City, Central Park to be exact. Now I have been to New York but I have never been to Central Park. That Chapter in the book took a lot of research to get place and street names correct.

Otherwise I either make them up or they are places I know intimately.

 

[Austin8]

TxRad wrote a story set on a river, we live close to one another, Id spent lots of time on that river, he didnt name the river in the story, but the description was so damn familiar. I knew that river, it personalized the story so much I went back and read that story several times, he captured it perfectly, and really personalized the story.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

TxRad wrote a story set on a river, we live close to one another, Id spent lots of time on that river, he didnt name the river in the story, but the description was so damn familiar. I knew that river, it personalized the story so much I went back and read that story several times, he captured it perfectly, and really personalized the story.

I think that's what I'm getting at, Austin. Write something you are intimately familiar with and that comes through to the reader. I did a Halloween story in 2007 to took place in Lake Oswego. I got emails from people around here telling me they knew exactly where the location was from the story. Was there a mansion there? I have no idea. I've driving those streets many times, but never seen the mansion I discribed.

 

[penandpaper]

I'll tell you how I write my settings. They are all real places or combinations of two or more real place that I have been. That doesn't stop me from changing the setting around, moving it or whatever, but it does give me a pretty good mental image of the setting before I begin.

As a for instance... Harry is in lower New York, but my mental image is Upper Wacker Drive in Chicago.

I use the same device. Fiction, but something I've actually seen. Probably happens because I wrote so many travel essays early on.

 

[TxRad]

TxRad wrote a story set on a river, we live close to one another, Id spent lots of time on that river, he didnt name the river in the story, but the description was so damn familiar. I knew that river, it personalized the story so much I went back and read that story several times, he captured it perfectly, and really personalized the story.

Thanks, I really enjoyed writing that story. Actually, it was the second story I ever wrote so I was still learning as I went and used a place that was very familiar to me. I've floated that section of river in the daylight and the dark so I know it well. The couple are also familiar but that's for me to know.

What I found interesting was adding all the things I'd learned about in the last ten years or so to that story. It was a complete edit almost to the point of rewrite in places. Very interesting indeed.

 

[DeeZire]

I do use real settings in my stories, but when you're peeking through your neighbor's window, and all you can see is the far wall, you have to rely on your imagination to fill in the details.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I use Savannah, Tallahassee, Tampa, and a composite rural county along Florida's Gulf Coast. Other stories are set on Long Island.

 

[driphoney]

I've only written one story! I'm such an expert. But because the area isn't written about much, nor the people, I used where I grew up. The mental images I used were pretty much real, but there are so few people, and in one piece of dialogue I used a local route. Well, in Ohio routes can be pretty specific. I poured over Wiki to come up with a route number that isn't used! Thought it would be easy. Not!

I have bad luck. I do NOT need the wrong one person to read my story, realize only 3 people populate x Township and go: "OMG! Driphoney must be Becky Jones! I went to high school with her!" (One thing for my family to know I write some sort of smut, for a few friends to know my moniker, and something else entirely for my tiny high school to know!)

Thankfully, my latest chapter mostly involves a table.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

As a note, Urlula LeGuinn's novel, Lathe of Heaven is set in Portland, Oregon, even using street names and landmarks. She is from Portland and the setting is perfectly clear.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

Not really off-topic, but a tangent.

If you've got first-hand experience of some quite snazzy locations, I dunno, say Venice or Africa or China or something, is it a negative to use those as settings to what (being brutally realistic to myself) are just short, simple erotic romances or comedies.

I mean, with 'thriller/adventure' type fiction it's fine to chase the world, but with relationship stories is it better to base them solidly in the US (or Australia, UK or wherever).

For example, I used to quite like Patricia Cornwell, earthy stuff set in Virginia, Quantico etc , then she blew it for me by taking her feisty heroine round Rome's fountains and hotels.

Confess an interest as I've got a story set in Botswana I'm scared to put into public gaze.

 

[driphoney]

I think it must depend on the story, how it's portrayed. A while ago I read a wonderful Lit story set in (hold the gag!) Paris. Paris just happened to be the surroundings and you could tell the person knew his environment. Maybe if Cornwell had created an Italian coroner, and knew Rome as well as she did Richmond, it would have worked.

Not really off-topic, but a tangent.

If you've got first-hand experience of some quite snazzy locations, I dunno, say Venice or Africa or China or something, is it a negative to use those as settings to what (being brutally realistic to myself) are just short, simple erotic romances or comedies.

I mean, with 'thriller/adventure' type fiction it's fine to chase the world, but with relationship stories is it better to base them solidly in the US (or Australia, UK or wherever).

For example, I used to quite like Patricia Cornwell, earthy stuff set in Virginia, Quantico etc , then she blew it for me by taking her feisty heroine round Rome's fountains and hotels.

Confess an interest as I've got a story set in Botswana I'm scared to put into public gaze.