7 Reasons to Set Your Story in a Place You Know

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:

  1. If you close your eyes, you can be there
  2. You know what the place smells like, feels like, sounds like
  3. You know about the people who live there – their culture, beliefs, fears, dreams and aspirations
  4. You know exactly what it looks like during the day, at night, and every hour in between
  5. You know where the animals roam, where the rubbish goes, what happens in the park, the streets, the fields, the community places
  6. You know the history of the place – its near and distant past, and its secrets
  7. 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!

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2 thoughts on “7 Reasons to Set Your Story in a Place You Know

  1. Mrs Jan Godfrey

    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
     

    • Janet Post author

      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!

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