The usual advice given to fiction writers is “write what you know”.
There are several excellent reasons for setting your story in a place you know well. Here are seven of them:
- If you close your eyes, you can be there
- You know what the place smells like, feels like, sounds like
- You know about the people who live there – their culture, beliefs, fears, dreams and aspirations
- You know exactly what it looks like during the day, at night, and every hour in between
- You know where the animals roam, where the rubbish goes, what happens in the park, the streets, the fields, the community places
- You know the history of the place – its near and distant past, and its secrets
- You can write about it with feeling from your gut.
Have you set your story in a place you know? I’d love to hear from you! Please add your comments below. 🙂
Love to you all,
Janet
P.S. Next week we’ll be taking a look at some reasons why you might not want to set your story in a place you know… You can subscribe here, to make sure you don’t miss it!
A while ago (correction: a long time ago) I wrote a short story  ‘Morning Coffee’ which was published in Woman Alive. It was set locally in an ordinary situation -( Importers coffee shop in Bromley High Street ) The plot concerned a rather lonely woman having coffee, with various musings and incidents and flashbacks.
So the story meandered on in a very localised and well known setting but proved far-reaching as the plot-within-plot unfolded …… and ended with a question …….
This may or may not be helpful!
Jan Godfrey
If you can take your readers there, you’ve done a great job! It also helps, for a short story, if your readers are also familiar with the setting, don’t you think? So you don’t have to do to waste too many words on description!