Get Started on Settings

Today’s Tiny Task in preparation for StoryADay May is to make another list, this time of places where you might set your story.

Answer these questions quickly, without thinking too hard:

  • List 5 Big-Picture Settings (e.g. Contemporary USA, Mars settlement in the early days, cargo ship in the age of sail, cargo ship in the far future when space travel is relatively routine, fantasy kingdom with dragons…)
  • List 5 Close-Up Settings (e.g. the engine room, an open-plan office, the back of an Uber, the throne room, walking the Yorkshire dales).
  • For each, write down what thrills you about that setting, what possibilities do you see (could be: ‘I don’t have to do any research, or ‘I can mash up Star Trek and The Expanse’ or ‘I finally get to hang out with Heathcliff’)
  • For each, write down one physical detail that springs to mind about your setting
  • For each, write down one detail that might not be so obvious on a first glance.

Circle (or highlight) the three that you think will work best for the fast-drafting world of StoryADay May (hint: the ones that require lots of research might slow you down too much).

P. S. Check out this roster of wonderful writers who have already given us writing prompts for StoryADay May, with more to come!

with writing prompts from guests: P. Djèlí Clark, Mary Robinette Kowal, John Wiswell, Lori Ostlund, Kim Coleman Foote, Sasha Brown, R. S. A Garcia, Jennifer Hudak, Tim Waggoner, Rachel Bolton, Julia Elliot, Kai Lovelace, Anglea Sylvaine, Rich Larson, F. E. Choe,Emma Burnett , Patricia A. Jackson, Allegra Hyde, and more...

Guest prompters include: P. Djèlí Clark, Mary Robinette Kowal, John Wiswell, Lori Ostlund, Kim Coleman Foote, Sasha Brown, R. S. A Garcia, Jennifer Hudak, Tim Waggoner, Rachel Bolton, Julia Elliot, Kai Lovelace, Anglea Sylvaine, Rich Larson, F. E. Choe,Emma Burnett , Patricia A. Jackson, Allegra Hyde, and more…

DISCUSSION

Did your choices have more to do with your current life, or your current reading tastes?

[Write On Wednesday] Go To Town

I’ve reached the age where people have started to make TV shows about my childhood and teen years (and yes, I know I should be watching Stranger Things; I just haven’t got to it yet…)

It got me thinking about how we capture not just a place but a time as well.

Rob Roy Bar, Govan 1976, I couldn't find copyright info for this picture. If you own it, let me know!

The Prompt

Do an image search for the place you grew up in a year from your childhood. Write a story set in that town/street.

Tips

I didn’t search for the place I grew up but for the part of town my grandparents lived in. (Govan, 1976, when I was really too young to remember it, to ensure it would look as foreign to me as possible).

Part of me thought I might find the exact street I used to walk along with my Gran to get bread rolls for the obligatory after-church bacon rolls. We’d get them from the newsagent’s — the only shop open on a Sunday morning in Glasgow. I didn’t find that street, but I found one nearby, that felt familiar enough.

  • Really look at the picture. What do you remember? What didn’t survive in your memory?
  • Does it look idyllic or more run-down than it is in your memory?
  • What do you see in the picture that a stranger wouldn’t notice? What kinds of stories does it suggest?
  • In my picture I see the Tennant’s Lager sign outside the Rob Roy bar, and the fact that the doorway on the corner is marked ‘public bar’, but I know that what that really means is ‘men only’. (There’s a good chance my own grandfather is in there, now that I think about it, and what a thought that is. My lovely Granda, alive and well, and chewing on his pipe behind the yellow facade in this picture? There’s some emotion I can use in a story!)
  • Look at the shop-fronts, the road signs, the aged cars, whatever is in your picture that speaks of the era.
  • Maybe your picture has a fresh new housing development with saplings in the front yards and a single car in each driveway. What does that neighborhood look like now? What would today’s stranger never know about life on that street when you lived there?
  • Pick a moment and allow two characters to interact. It doesn’t have to be anything earth-shattering, because the third character in this story is going to be your setting. Do everything you can to capture the sounds, sights, smells and tastes of life in that moment.
  • Did everyone still smoke? Was the air quieter because nobody was running an air-conditioner? Did everyone barbecue on a Saturday afternoon? Were the buses more noxious? Was there more litter? Less? Why do the windows look different?
  • Allow your two characters to interact for a moment, perhaps foreshadow the changes coming to the neighborhood, perhaps grousing about a change that they’ve already seen.
  • Short stories revolve around a single moment. Go to town with that today—literally! Your town. Paint me a picture of a moment in the life of your childhood home.

If you share you story somewhere (and here’s why you might not want to) post a link here so we can come and read it.

Leave a comment to let us know what you wrote about today, and how it went!