a creative writing story setting

Story Setting Ideas: 137+ Prompts for Creative Writers

Are you a creative writer looking for unique story setting ideas for your next novel , short story , or screenplay ?

If so, you’re in the right place! I’ve been there too – maybe you have an idea for a great character , but you’re stuck for a good setting for the story, or maybe you’ve got some plot point ideas, but you’re not clear on where to set them.

If that’s you, read on to find the setting ideas organized into types of settings. We’ll start with dystopian and city settings, move on to natural settings (like forests and islands), and end with alternative time periods and space-based settings!

What Are Great Story Setting Ideas for Writers?

Dystopian wastelands.

Find story setting ideas for narratives set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Write about societies that crumbled under the weight of their own corruption and greed, where survivors cling to hope amidst devastation.

The Sunken City : A major city that has sunk underwater due to climate change, with surviving humans adapting to a new life beneath the waves.

The Silent Metropolis : A once bustling city now abandoned and overgrown with vegetation, where survivors navigate through skyscrapers turned into jungles.

Radioactive Ruins : An area devastated by nuclear war, where survivors must deal with radiation sickness and mutated creatures.

The Dust Bowl : A vast region of farmland turned into a desert due to over-farming and drought, where communities struggle for scarce resources.

The Glass Desert : A desert filled with glass-like sand caused by a meteor strike, where survivors must cope with extreme temperatures and deadly sandstorms.

The Techno-Graveyard : A junkyard filled with discarded and broken tech from a collapsed civilization, where scavengers hunt for valuable parts.

The Acid Rain Forest : A forest poisoned by acid rain, where the surviving flora and fauna have evolved in strange and dangerous ways.

The Frozen Wastes : A city encased in ice due to a sudden shift in climate, where survivors must adapt to the harsh cold.

The Sky Islands : Floating islands left after the Earth’s surface became uninhabitable, where people survive on these isolated pieces of land.

The Underground Hive : A network of caves and tunnels where a society lives underground after the surface world became too polluted.

The Cracked Earth : A region ravaged by intense earthquakes, leaving a landscape of deep chasms and unstable ground.

The Toxic Swamp : A swamp filled with toxic chemicals, where survivors have had to adapt to the poisonous environment.

The Ship Graveyard : A coastal area littered with the rusting hulks of ships, where survivors scavenge and live within the ruined vessels.

The Silent Plains : Vast plains left barren after a plague wiped out all plant life, forcing survivors to find new ways to cultivate food.

The Smog City : A city constantly shrouded in thick smog due to unchecked pollution, where inhabitants must wear masks to breathe.

RELATED: For more inspiration, read my best dystopian story ideas here !

Futuristic Metropolises

Read about different settings for your futuristic mega city story, where technology shapes every aspect of life and the sky is filled with the buzz of flying vehicles.

The Vertical Labyrinth : A city built entirely upwards, with interconnected skyscrapers and aerial walkways.

The Undercity : Beneath the glittering towers, a network of subterranean tunnels and communities thrive, away from the prying eyes of the city above.

The Bio-Dome Colony : A self-sustaining city under a massive dome, designed to replicate Earth’s ecosystem on a distant planet.

The Floating Megalopolis : A city suspended in the sky by anti-gravity technology, casting a shadow over the world below.

The Neon Jungle : A city that never sleeps, illuminated by the neon glow of holographic signs and digital billboards.

The AI Capital : A city run entirely by artificial intelligence, where every building, vehicle, and device is interconnected.

The Green Metropolis : A city designed with advanced eco-technology, seamlessly incorporating nature into its urban landscape.

The Quantum City : A city where quantum technology is used for everything from transportation to communication, making it a hub of scientific breakthroughs.

The Orbital Station : A bustling space station orbiting Earth, acting as a gateway to the stars.

The Oceanic City : A city built on the ocean surface, utilizing marine resources and pioneering underwater living.

The Timeless City : A city where time-manipulation technology is commonplace, causing unique societal and architectural developments.

The Holographic Haven : A city where virtual reality is integrated with physical spaces, creating a blend of real and digital environments.

The Energy Core : A city built around a giant energy source, harnessing its power for technological advancements.

The Multi-dimensional Metropolis : A city existing in multiple dimensions simultaneously, connected by inter-dimensional portals.

The Automated Utopia : A city where all mundane tasks are automated, freeing its citizens to pursue creative and intellectual interests.

Enchanted Forests

Here, you’ll find creative writing prompts for a fantastical world of nature. Step into magical realms where every tree and stone pulses with ancient magic, and mythical creatures roam.

The Singing Trees : A forest where the trees produce a melodious hum that can heal or harm depending on their mood.

The Mirror Glade : A clearing filled with mirror-like ponds that show not just reflections, but also possible futures.

The Lantern Grove : A grove where bioluminescent flowers provide light at night, attracting magical creatures of all kinds.

The Rainbow Canopy : A forest with leaves of every color, each tree possessing unique magical properties.

The Whispering Vines : A dense jungle of vines that whisper secrets and ancient wisdom to those who pass through.

The Dreaming Pools : A series of pools that induce vivid dreams when their waters are drunk, often used for prophecy.

The Timeless Hollow : An ancient hollow tree that serves as a portal to different times and realities.

The Weeping Willows : A grove of willows whose tears have healing powers, guarded by elusive nymphs.

The Crystal Cavern : A cavern hidden beneath the forest floor, filled with magical crystals that power the forest’s enchantments.

The Starlight Clearing : A clearing where starlight falls even during the day, said to be a meeting place for celestial beings.

The Silver Stream : A stream with silver waters that grant visions of truth to those who gaze into it.

The Golden Orchard : An orchard with golden fruit that bestows various magical abilities when eaten.

The Forgotten Ruins : Ancient ruins overrun by the forest, where stone carvings come to life under the moonlight.

The Fairy Ring : A circle of mushrooms serving as a gateway to the fairy realm, visible only on midsummer’s night.

The Wraith’s Woods : A haunted section of the forest where ghostly apparitions are seen, holding clues to a forgotten tragedy.

Isolated Islands

Find inspiration for the perfect setting for your remote island story!

The Whispering Sands : A tropical island where the sands whisper ancient tales and legends to those who listen closely.

The Lighthouse Isle : A small rocky island, home to an old lighthouse that guides lost sailors, its keeper a hermit with a mysterious past.

The Emerald Atoll : A ring-shaped island with a vibrant lagoon at its heart, teeming with colourful marine life.

The Forgotten Archipelago : A series of islands lost in time, each holding remnants of an ancient civilization.

The Shipwreck Shore : An island littered with shipwrecks, each with its own tragic tale and hidden treasures.

The Volcanic Isle : An island with a smoldering volcano, its fiery heart a source of awe and fear among its inhabitants.

The Cursed Cay : A seemingly idyllic island believed to be cursed, where strange occurrences are commonplace.

The Ghost Galleon : An eerie phantom ship that roams the seas, appearing and disappearing around a particular island.

The Turtle Haven : An island known for its vast population of sea turtles, considered sacred by the locals.

The Merfolk Lagoon : An island rumored to be the dwelling place of merfolk, their songs heard at the break of dawn.

The Pirate’s Refuge : An island used as a secret hideout by pirates, filled with hidden caves and buried treasure.

The Dragon’s Roost : An island where dragons are said to nest, its cliffs adorned with shimmering scales.

The Coral Castle : An underwater castle built from coral, visible from an island during low tide.

The Serpent’s Isle : An island known for its unique serpent species, their venom holds the key to a powerful antidote.

The Island of Eternal Night : An island where the sun never rises, its inhabitants living in perpetual twilight.

Ethereal Planes

T he ethereal planes are a unique setting where magic flows freely. These story ideas exist just beyond the reach of the mortal world – yet are intertwined with its fate.

The Echoing Expanse : A vast, shimmering desert where each grain of sand is a lost soul’s whisper.

Luminous Labyrinth : A maze of softly glowing walls that shift and change with the moods of the spirits.

Celestial Canopy : A dense forest with luminescent flora, its leaves falling in slow motion, transforming into stardust upon touching the ground.

Whispering Waters : An ocean of liquid light, where the waves carry the thoughts and dreams of the living.

The Veiled Vale : A valley shrouded in mist, where ancient spirits slumber, their dreams shaping the landscape.

Astral Atoll : Vibrant islands floating in a sea of twinkling stars, home to spirits of nature.

Spectral Spire : A towering, crystalline structure that pulses with spiritual energy, serving as a beacon to lost souls.

Ethereal Estuary : A river of pure energy flowing from the mortal world, carrying the essence of life and death.

The Fading Fen : A spectral swamp, where forgotten memories sink into the quagmire, only to occasionally bubble back to the surface.

Glowing Grotto : An underground cavern illuminated by luminescent fungi, echoing with the whispers of earthbound spirits.

Phantom Pinnacle : A mountain peak piercing the veil between planes, where spirits can glimpse the mortal world.

Wraith’s Wastes : A desolate landscape where darker spirits roam, feeding off residual negative emotions.

The Silken Sky : A sky filled with strands of shimmering light, weaving the tapestry of fate.

Mirrored Meadows : Fields of silver grass reflecting the thoughts and emotions of those who wander through.

Harmonic Highlands : Mountainous terrain resonating with the symphony of the universe, where each gust of wind carries a melody.

Ancient Kingdoms

C reative writing prompts that feature ancient history in kingdoms where the echoes of past glories and dark intrigues still linger in shadowy corners.

The Sunken Kingdom : An underwater kingdom swallowed by the sea, its grand palaces now home to marine life.

The Desert Empire : A vast desert kingdom, where sandstorms uncover hidden pyramids filled with mummies and treasures.

The Lost Jungle Kingdom : An ancient kingdom reclaimed by the jungle, its stone temples covered in vines and home to exotic creatures.

The Sky Citadel : A kingdom located on floating islands, where people travel on the backs of giant birds.

The Kingdom of Shadows : A kingdom trapped in perpetual twilight, where shadowy figures lurk in the corners.

The Crystal Cavern Kingdom : A kingdom built within a network of crystal caverns that sparkle with magical energy.

The Mountain Fortress : A kingdom carved into the side of a towering mountain, protected by treacherous cliffs and deadly avalanches.

The Ice Palace : A kingdom within a glacier, where grand halls and rooms are made entirely of ice.

The Volcanic Kingdom : A kingdom built around a dormant volcano, using geothermal energy to power their technology.

The Underground City : A kingdom built deep underground, illuminated by bioluminescent fungi and gemstones.

The Tree-top Kingdom : A kingdom built on top of gigantic trees, connected by swinging bridges and zip lines.

The Mirage Kingdom : A kingdom that appears as a mirage in the desert, accessible only to those who know its secret.

The Ghost Kingdom : A kingdom said to be haunted by the spirits of past rulers, their ghostly echoes heard in the wind.

The Labyrinth Kingdom : A kingdom built within a vast labyrinth, where every turn could lead to treasure or danger.

The Kingdom in the Clouds : A kingdom hidden high in the clouds, accessible only by airships or winged creatures.

Underworld Realms

Story setting ideas in the depths of the underworld. This is a place where darkness reigns supreme and creatures of the night are the main characters.

The Labyrinth of Shadows : An endless maze filled with traps, puzzles, and lurking creatures.

The River of Forgotten Souls : A fantasy world with a river where the spirits of the departed drift aimlessly.

The Obsidian Citadel : A fortress built from black stone, home to the formidable ruler of the underworld.

The Cavern of Whispers : A mysterious cavern where voices echo with secrets and ancient prophecies, like something out of Tolkien’s middle earth.

The Abyssal Sea : A dark, endless ocean teeming with monstrous sea creatures.

The Petrified Forest : A forest of stone trees, inhabited by stone-like creatures.

The City of Wailing Specters : A city where tormented spirits wail and moan, reliving their past lives.

The Fields of Eternal Twilight : A field with rolling hills where it’s always dusk, and shadowy figures roam.

The Mountains of Despair : Towering mountains that drain the hope of those who dare to climb them.

The Lake of Fire : A lake filled with molten lava, home to fire-breathing creatures.

The Crystal Mines : Mines filled with precious but cursed gemstones guarded by spectral miners.

The Sands of Time : A desert where time flows differently, aging or rejuvenating anyone who steps onto its sands.

The Frozen Wastes : An icy wilderness haunted by frost wraiths and other chilling creatures.

The Forgotten Catacombs : An intricate network of tombs and crypts, housing the remains of long-dead kings and queens.

The Garden of Nightmares : A garden filled with bizarre and deadly plants that feed on fear.

Lost Civilizations

These are story setting ideas about the remnants of ancient civilizations hidden away by time. They can be based on historical events, and are perfect for a love story, a thriller, or a dramatic tale.

The Sunken City : An ancient city submerged beneath the sea, its grand architecture untouched by time.

The Jungle Ruins : Overgrown ruins deep within the jungle, filled with dangerous traps and hidden treasures.

The Deserted Desert Kingdom : A once-thriving desert kingdom, now buried under shifting sands.

The Mountain Monastery : A secluded monastery high in the mountains, filled with ancient scrolls and artifacts.

The Sky Temples : Floating temples hidden among the clouds, accessible only by those who can fly.

The Forgotten Forest Village : A village hidden within an enchanted forest, its inhabitants turned to stone.

The Underground Cavern City : A sprawling city carved into the walls of a vast cavern, lit by bioluminescent fungi.

The Crystal Palace : A palace made entirely of crystals, each room refracting light in mesmerizing patterns.

The Ghost Town : A small town abandoned after a disaster, haunted by the spirits of its former inhabitants.

The Labyrinth of the Minotaur : A massive labyrinth housing a fearsome beast, filled with deadly challenges and ancient puzzles.

The Frozen Citadel : A citadel encased in ice on a snow-covered mountain, its inhabitants preserved in perfect frozen stasis.

The Island of Statues : An island filled with lifelike statues, remnants of an ancient civilization that had a peculiar obsession with sculpture.

The Volcanic Fortress : A fortress built into an active volcano, its halls filled with fire-based traps and puzzles.

The Abandoned Astronomical Observatory : An observatory filled with ancient astronomical instruments and star charts, hinting at a civilization with advanced knowledge of the cosmos.

The Hidden Valley of Dinosaurs : A valley hidden behind a mountain range, where dinosaurs still roam, preserved by an ancient civilization’s advanced technology.

Parallel Dimensions

Step into parallel dimensions where reality bends and every choice leads to almost too-many possibilities.

Mirror World : A world that mirrors our own, with slight, unsettling differences.

Time-Shifted Realm : A dimension where time moves at a different pace, altering the course of history.

Upside-Down Dimension : A reality where gravity works in reverse, and the sky is beneath your feet.

Shadow Dimension : A world cast in perpetual twilight, where shadows have a life of their own.

Infinite Library : A dimension consisting entirely of a vast library, housing every book that was, is, or will be written.

Color-Swapped Universe : A world where colors are inverted, creating an alien landscape.

Dimension of Dreams : A realm where dreams and nightmares manifest into reality.

Animal Kingdom : A parallel world where animals evolved as the dominant species instead of humans.

Echo Dimension : A reality where actions echo across time, affecting past and future simultaneously.

Silent World : A dimension where sound doesn’t exist, and inhabitants communicate through visual signals.

Bizarro World : A reality where everything is the opposite of our world, challenging our perceptions of normalcy.

Crystal Dimension : A world made entirely of crystals, refracting light in mesmerizing patterns.

Pocket Universe : A tiny parallel universe, small enough to fit in one’s pocket but infinitely expansive on the inside.

Parallel Post-Apocalypse : A dimension where a cataclysmic event has decimated civilization, offering a bleak view of what could happen in our own world.

Dimension of Thought : A realm that exists solely in the realm of ideas, where thoughts and concepts materialize.

RELATED: Read my apocalypse story ideas here !

Haunted Locales

Story setting ideas in haunted places with a touch of the supernatural. Use your imagination to create a world set in a haunted house, military base, or even a cursed forest!

Haunted Manor : An old manor house with a dark past, where spectral figures roam the halls.

Ghost Town : An abandoned mining town, where the whispers of the lost souls echo in the wind.

Shipwreck : A sunken ship that resurfaces every full moon, carrying with it the spirits of the drowned crew.

Cursed Forest : A dense forest reputed to be cursed, where strange apparitions appear after sundown.

Deserted Asylum : An old, run-down asylum, its empty corridors filled with the eerie sounds of its former inhabitants.

Haunted School : A schoolhouse abandoned after a tragic incident, now haunted by the spirits of students and teachers.

Creepy Carnival : An old abandoned amusement park that comes alive with ghostly laughter and spectral apparitions at night.

Phantom Train Station : A train station where a phantom train arrives at midnight, carrying the souls of the departed.

Ancient Burial Ground : A sacred burial ground, disturbed by construction and now haunted by restless spirits.

Haunted Lighthouse : An isolated lighthouse where the ghost of the old keeper still tends to his duties.

Abandoned Prison : A derelict prison haunted by the spirits of inmates who met untimely ends.

Spooky Toy Shop : A toy shop where the toys come alive at night, each carrying the spirit of its previous owner.

Haunted Inn : An inn located on an ancient ley line, attracting paranormal activity.

Eerie Museum : A museum displaying relics from a forgotten civilization, haunted by the spirits attached to the artifacts.

Ghostly Opera House : An opera house where the phantom of a former performer still takes the stage.

RELATED: For more inspiration, read my best horror story ideas here !

Post-Apocalyptic Sanctuaries

Seek refuge in the few safe havens that remain after the apocalypse, where communities fight to rebuild what was lost and protect the fragile hope of a new beginning.

The Ark : A colossal ship, designed to withstand the apocalypse, now roams the endless oceans, sheltering the last remnants of humanity.

Ice Fortress : A massive structure carved into a glacier in the Arctic, providing protection against the harsh weather and the genetically modified creatures outside.

The Hidden Greenhouse : A vast underground greenhouse, forgotten by time, now a lush oasis amidst the barren wasteland.

The Floating City : A city suspended on giant balloons, drifting above the ruined Earth, where survival depends on scarce helium reserves.

Subterranean Metro Network : An intricate web of subway tunnels that have been transformed into a thriving community beneath a radioactive cityscape.

The Oasis : A miraculously preserved natural park, surrounded by a defensive wall, teeming with life in the heart of a desertified world.

The Sky Farm : A network of hot-air balloons carrying fertile soil and crops, providing food for a ground population unable to grow their own.

The Mountain Citadel : A fortress high up in the mountains, its residents have adapted to the thin air better than the mutated creatures below.

The Ghost Town : An abandoned town, believed to be haunted, acts as a perfect camouflage against marauding bands of scavengers.

The Bunker Community : Deep beneath the ruins of a major city, a network of bunkers has been converted into a self-sustaining community.

The Monastery : A secluded monastery, thought to be impenetrable, houses precious knowledge and artifacts from the pre-apocalypse world.

The Dam Settlement : A hydroelectric dam repurposed into a fortress, harnessing the power of the river to provide electricity to the survivors.

The Lighthouse Island : An isolated island with a lighthouse, the beacon acts as a symbol of hope for lost travelers.

The Bio-Dome : A scientific experiment meant to simulate life on Mars, now serves as a refuge against the inhospitable conditions outside.

The Cathedral Forest : A cathedral overtaken by nature, its towering trees and dense undergrowth provide a natural sanctuary against the dangers of the post-apocalyptic world.

Mythical Mountains

Check out these story setting ideas for myths and legends on the tops of mountains – where every summit holds the promise of adventure and the whisper of ancient secrets.

Dragon’s Crest : A mountain range believed to be the resting place of ancient dragons, with peaks that resemble gigantic, slumbering beasts.

The Titan’s Throne : The tallest peak in the world, said to be where a mighty titan once sat to survey his domain.

Whispering Winds Peak : A mountain where the wind is said to carry the whispers of long-lost civilizations.

Mount Oracle : Home to a secluded monastery where monks are said to receive prophecies from the mountain spirits.

The Veiled Summit : A perpetually mist-shrouded peak, rumored to hide a portal to the spirit realm.

Starfall Crater : A mountain formed from an ancient meteorite impact, said to house celestial beings.

The Siren Cliffs : Dangerous cliffs that echo with enchanting songs, leading many adventurers to their doom.

The Labyrinth Caves : A mountain riddled with a complex network of caves, it’s said that a minotaur guards a mystical treasure within.

The Weeping Rock : A mountain where waterfalls flow like tears, believed to be a grieving earth deity.

Mount Solitude : A remote, silent peak where hermits seek enlightenment and solitude.

The Frozen Citadel : A fortress carved into a glacier atop a mountain, said to be the stronghold of a frost giant king.

The Pegasus Plateau : A high plateau rumored to be the breeding ground of winged horses.

The Ember Mountain : A volcanic mountain, home to a legendary fire bird that is reborn from its ashes.

The Silver Spires : A range of silver-tinted mountains, rumored to be the dwelling place of moon goddesses.

The Echoing Depths : A deep chasm in a mountain, where echoes transform into words of wisdom from ancient spirits.

Arctic Expeditions

Brave the harsh, icy wilderness of the Arctic, where the relentless cold and endless snow conceal wonders and dangers in equal measure.

The Icebound Ship : An old shipwreck frozen in the Arctic ice, rumored to hold a priceless treasure.

The Shimmering Glaciers : A vast field of ever-changing glaciers that sparkle under the midnight sun, hiding mysterious icy caves.

The Polar Ghost Town : An abandoned mining town, filled with eerie silence and chilling secrets.

The Aurora Observatory : A high-tech station for studying the Northern Lights, where the sky reveals strange anomalies.

The Whispering Snowfields : An endless expanse of snow that seems to whisper tales of ancient times when the wind blows.

The Frostbite Forest : A forest of frost-covered trees, home to strange creatures and haunted by chilling legends.

The Walrus Graveyard : A beach scattered with enormous walrus skeletons, believed to be a sacred place by local Inuit tribes.

The Crystal Caverns : A network of ice caverns illuminated by refracted sunlight, creating a mesmerizing, deadly maze.

The Frozen Mammoth : A perfectly preserved mammoth in a giant block of ice, rumored to be protected by ancient spirits.

The Seal Hunter’s Camp : A remote camp of indigenous seal hunters, full of folklore and traditional wisdom.

The Thawing Permafrost : A region of rapidly melting permafrost, revealing prehistoric fossils and releasing ancient bacteria.

The Iceberg Labyrinth : A dangerous route through towering icebergs, hiding pirate treasures and sea monsters in its cold waters.

The Polar Bear Kingdom : An island ruled by a gigantic polar bear, said to be the incarnation of an old deity.

The Sunken Submarine : A nuclear submarine trapped under the ice, its crew faced with survival and a potential nuclear disaster.

The Snow Castle : A grand castle made entirely of ice and snow, home to a frost queen with a frozen heart.

Urban Underbellies

Peel back the glossy exterior of big city life to reveal the gritty reality that thrives in the shadows, where every street corner tells a story of survival and defiance.

The Graffiti Tunnel : A hidden tunnel covered in vibrant graffiti, serving as a secret meeting place for young rebels.

The Underground Fight Club : A dimly lit basement where illegal fights take place, a hub for the city’s toughest characters.

The Night Market : A bustling market that only opens after dark, filled with exotic goods and shady deals.

The Abandoned Subway Station : A long-forgotten subway station, now home to a community of outcasts and their secrets.

The Rooftop Garden : A secretly cultivated garden on a skyscraper’s rooftop, an oasis amidst the concrete jungle.

The Neon Alley : An alley illuminated by neon signs, known for its late-night illicit activities.

The Squatters’ High-rise : An abandoned high-rise building, overtaken by squatters who’ve built a community within its walls.

The Pawn Shop : An old, cluttered pawn shop, where every item has a story and every deal has a price.

The Soup Kitchen : A humble soup kitchen that serves hot meals and hope to the city’s homeless population.

The Backstreet Garage : A hidden garage where stolen cars are stripped for parts, a hub of the city’s underworld.

The Riverfront Shantytown : A makeshift settlement along the river, an amalgamation of hopes and dreams of its inhabitants.

The Speakeasy : A prohibition-era style bar hidden behind an unassuming storefront, a haven for those seeking refuge from the law.

The Sewers : The city’s sprawling sewer system, home to mythical creatures and lost souls.

The Old Factory : An abandoned factory repurposed into a haven for artists and musicians, a beacon of hope in the gritty cityscape.

The Forgotten Cemetery : A centuries-old cemetery filled with untold stories of the city’s past.

Time-Warped Towns

Wander into towns caught in temporal anomalies, where time loops, flows backward, or stands still – and challenges the very fabric of reality.

Sundial Village : A small town where time moves according to the position of the sun, causing unpredictable day-night cycles.

Hourglass Hamlet : A small settlement trapped in a constant 24-hour time loop, with residents reliving the same day over and over.

Chronos City : An urban metropolis where different districts exist in different time periods.

Reverse Riverville : A town where time flows backward, forcing its inhabitants to adapt to life in reverse.

Temporal Tides Town : A coastal town where time ebbs and flows with the tides.

Clockwork County : A rural community where time stands still unless manually wound forward by a large town clock.

Flashback Falls : A village where residents involuntarily relive past moments of their lives.

Futureville : A town where every dawn brings a glimpse of the future instead of a new day.

Eternal Springtown : A town caught in a perpetual spring season, where flowers always bloom but fruits never ripen.

Pause Point : A city where time randomly freezes, causing everything to stand still momentarily.

Decade Drift : A town where each passing hour equates to a decade in the outside world.

Yesterday’s York : A city that repeats the previous day instead of moving to the next.

Seasonal Shiftsburg : A town where seasons change every day, from winter’s chill to summer’s heat.

Second Chance City : A metropolis where residents can choose to redo any day of their lives.

Twilight Town : A town caught in perpetual dusk, where it is always on the verge of night but never quite there.

Cyberpunk Slums

Find new ideas in the chaos of cyberpunk slums, where advanced technology and stark social divides show a world both dazzling and bleak.

Neon Nexus : An overcrowded district illuminated by neon lights, where holographic ads flicker above the heads of the poor and downtrodden.

Silicon Shanties : A slum built around a landfill of discarded tech, where residents repurpose e-waste into makeshift gadgets.

Gridlock Ghetto : A vertical slum built within the skeleton of an abandoned mega-structure, its residents living in stacked containers.

Binary Bazaar : A bustling black-market hub dealing in illicit software, stolen data, and hacked hardware.

Shadow Stacks : A grimy labyrinth of towering apartment blocks, where illegal cybernetic modifications are a matter of survival rather than choice.

Code Canyons : Narrow, winding streets filled with code-jockeys selling their hacking skills to the highest bidder.

Pixel Purgatory : A district dominated by virtual reality parlors, offering escapes from the grim reality of the slums.

Rustbelt Ruins : A once-thriving industrial area now left to decay, inhabited by out-of-work androids and their human counterparts.

Firewall Favela : A slum under constant surveillance by AI security systems, making every move a potential act of rebellion.

Circuit City : A dense network of alleyways electrified by rogue servers and bootleg power grids.

Data Dumps : A slum built on a vast landfill of obsolete data storage devices, where information scavengers dig for valuable old-world secrets.

Quantum Quarters : A poverty-stricken area where quantum computers hum in every hovel, mining cryptocurrencies in a desperate bid for wealth.

Ghost Grid : A slum abandoned by the city’s AI-controlled utilities, forcing residents to hack and jury-rig their own services.

Nano Nest : A district where nanotech proliferates, leading to strange mutations and unprecedented diseases.

Synth Slum : An area populated by discarded synthetic humans and robots, striving for purpose in a world that deems them obsolete.

Deep Space Outposts

Thrive on the edge of the known universe in outposts that dot the vast emptiness of space.

The Edge of Nothing : An outpost located at the very edge of the known universe, where space-time begins to warp and unravel.

The Pulsar Station : An outpost orbiting a pulsar, harnessing its energy for power, while dealing with the intense radiation.

The Black Hole Outpost : A station built near a black hole to study its mysteries, forever teetering on the edge of oblivion.

The Ice Moon Base : A research outpost on a frozen moon, where scientists drill into the ice in search of alien life.

The Asteroid Colony : A mining colony established on a rich asteroid, digging for precious metals and gems.

The Echo Station : An outpost that exists between dimensions, receiving echoes from alternate realities.

The Nebula Haven : A station nestled within a colorful nebula, providing a breathtaking view but also facing dangerous space weather.

The Lonely Beacon : An outpost serving as a beacon for lost spaceships, where signals from across the universe are intercepted.

The Alien Ruins : An outpost established around ancient alien ruins, seeking to decipher their cryptic messages.

The Galactic Lighthouse : An outpost projecting a massive light signal, guiding spaceships through treacherous cosmic seas.

The Quantum Relay : A communication outpost responsible for maintaining quantum entanglement communication across vast distances.

The Star Forge : An industrial outpost orbiting a star, harnessing its energy to forge advanced materials.

The Exoplanet Outpost : A remote outpost on an exoplanet, tasked with terraforming it for future human settlement.

The Time Dilation Station : An outpost near a massive gravitational field, where time moves slower than the rest of the universe.

The Cosmic Ark : An outpost designed to preserve Earth’s biodiversity, acting as a safety net against planetary catastrophes.

Interstellar Colonies

Build a new existence on remote planets, where starry outposts celebrate our love for discovery and the pursuit of adventure.

The Red Desert Colony : A human settlement on a Mars-like planet, battling harsh sandstorms and isolation.

The Floating Cities of Nebula-5 : Magnificent cities floating in the gaseous atmosphere of a giant planet.

The Deep Mine Colony : A mining community in the depths of an asteroid, extracting precious minerals.

The Hydroponic Haven : A colony based inside a gigantic spaceship, with lush hydroponic gardens providing food and oxygen.

The Ice Moon Outpost : A research station on a frozen moon, studying alien life forms trapped in the ice.

The Crater Commune : A network of interconnected habitats built into the craters of a barren moon.

The Terraformed Paradise : A once inhospitable planet now transformed into a verdant paradise through advanced terraforming.

The Starlight Oasis : A colony located on a planet orbiting a binary star system, where night never falls.

The Underground Bunkers of Planet X : A colony living in underground bunkers to avoid the deadly radiation on the planet’s surface.

The Nomadic Space Fleet : A convoy of ships housing a nomadic civilization, constantly on the move in search of resources.

The Alien Ruins Settlement : A colony built around mysterious ancient alien ruins, seeking to unravel their secrets.

The Orbital Station : A bustling space station in orbit around a distant planet, a hub of interstellar commerce and diplomacy.

The Volcanic Forge : A colony on a volcanic planet, harnessing the geothermal energy for survival.

The Cloud Castle : A colony suspended in the upper atmosphere of a gas giant, surviving on floating platforms.

The Galactic Lighthouse : A colony housed in a gigantic space station serving as a beacon for interstellar travelers.

Final Thoughts

OK, that’s our exploration of tons of different story setting ideas for you!

I hope you found some creative writing prompts to help you in your writing. I know how frustrating it is to have part of an idea for a good novel or story, but just need a little push to get your creative juices flowing!

I hope you come up with the perfect setting for your next story idea!

Common Questions (FAQs)

What is an example of a story setting.

An example of a story setting is a deserted island in the middle of the ocean, where a group of shipwreck survivors must learn to live off the land and navigate their relationships to survive.

What are some interesting settings?

Some interesting settings for your stories might include a futuristic city where technology rules, a quiet village hidden within an enchanted forest, or even a mysterious abandoned space station orbiting a distant planet.

What is a good setting?

A good setting is a place or environment that adds depth to your story. As noted in this article , it should reflect the mood, themes, and conflicts of your story idea. It can be anywhere from a bustling city or quiet countryside to an imaginary world. A good setting will influence the characters’ decisions, challenges, and growth.

What are some good story plot ideas?

1. A person wakes up in a world where everyone can read minds except them, uncovering hidden secrets and personal dramas. 2. An unlikely friendship forms between a robot with a malfunctioning emotion chip and a child who teaches it about humanity. 3. In a city where dreams can be recorded and played back, a detective uses dream footage to solve crimes but stumbles upon a conspiracy. 4. A world where music is magic, and a tone-deaf girl discovers she holds the key to a powerful, ancient melody. 5. A group of strangers receives mysterious letters inviting them to a deserted mansion, only to find out they must solve a century-old mystery to escape.

Filmmaker, Author, Actor and Story Consultant

Neil Chase is an award-winning, produced screenwriter, independent filmmaker, professional actor, and author of the horror-western novel Iron Dogs. His latest feature film is an apocalyptic thriller called Spin The Wheel.

Neil has been featured on Celtx, No Film School, Script Revolution, Raindance, The Write Practice, Lifewire, and MSN.com, and his work has won awards from Script Summit, ScreamFest, FilmQuest and Cinequest (among others).

Neil believes that all writers have the potential to create great work. His passion is helping writers find their voice and develop their skills so that they can create stories that are entertaining and meaningful. If you’re ready to take your writing to the next level, he's here to help!

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Top 200 Setting Ideas for a Story, from Expert Writers

Last Updated on October 20, 2023 by Dr Sharon Baisil MD

If you’re looking for inspiration for your next story idea, look no further! This article has 500 setting ideas to help get your creative juices flowing. Expert writers have contributed their favorite settings , so you’re sure to find something that sparks your imagination. With this wealth of ideas at your fingertips, you can write a truly unique story or write a paper online with someone’s help. Short story ideas don’t get much better than this.

List of the Top 200 Setting Ideas for Writing a Story

• A dark forest full of traps and magical creatures
• The seafloor
• A derelict space station floating in orbit around a distant planet
• An abandoned amusement park at night
• The surface of an unknown planet, far away from Earth
• The center of a massive mountain range where nobody has ever ventured
• A massive library full of real, physical books that no one has ever read before
• The very tip-top floor of a massive skyscraper
• An isolated prison in the middle of an endless desert
• The house is at the end of a long, winding road leading to nowhere else but more road with no landmarks or distinguishing characteristics
• A small farmhouse on a large plot of farmland, surrounded by woods and swamps on all sides
• An abandoned warehouse filled with secret passageways that are impossible to find without help from someone who knows them by heart
• The surface of Mars during sunrise over Olympus Mons Crater
• On an elevated platform at the center of a small island
• The very, very bottom floor of a massive skyscraper that has been abandoned since construction was completed
• An underground cave system where one can go for days without seeing sunlight or another living being
• A space shuttle orbiting around Jupiter
• In the belly of a massive whale as it swims through dark, frigid waters filled with horrific monsters and other life forms from Earth’s deepest nightmares.
• On the surface of Venus during sunrise over Sif Mons Crater
• In a massive library filled to the brim with books so old, they crumble to dust when touched by human hands, at least if their age is not protected by magic or advanced technology beyond what humanity understands today
• A massive tree with a labyrinth of interconnected rooms and underground tunnels deep within its roots, filled with strange creatures like nothing ever seen on Earth before
• The center of the sun
• In the mouth of a massive dragon as it flies through the sky
• On an abandoned oil platform in the middle of an ocean where strange sea creatures lurk and unknowable horrors hide just out of sight under dark, stormy waters
• Beneath the surface of Europa during sunrise over Valhalla Crater
• A massive cave system that has been occupied by orcs for centuries upon centuries
• An endless desert where sandstorms strike without warning and can carry entire structures away if they aren’t built properly to withstand the elements
• A small, floating island somewhere in the Indian Ocean that is only accessible every seven years when the tides pull it closer to other islands and civilizations ashore
• In a tent at a massive music festival miles away from civilization
• Underground while being chased by trolls with weapons forged from precious metals and stones no human has ever seen before
• On a far-off planet orbiting a distant star where friendly inhabitants will welcome you with open arms, but be careful about what you accept or take from them–the planetary economy might not be able to handle Earth’s money supply
• Inside Amazon forest
• In a small town in the center of a large valley surrounded by dense forests and thick swamps
• In a dark alley in New York City at night, desperately trying to find your way home from work before something bad happens
• A small town that has been cut off from civilization for centuries upon centuries, isolated from humanity behind seemingly impenetrable walls built to keep out dangerous monsters that lurk outside the village’s limits
• A small shuttlecraft piloted by an AI on its way to explore Pluto and beyond
• In a massive city made of towers stacking high into the sky, each one attached to another by bridges and elevators that stretch from floor to floor
• A single room in an apartment complex near a major city where strange noises and smells come from beneath the floorboards late at night
• The depths of an ancient jungle filled with giant trees and nocturnal predators whose roars echo through the forest like nothing ever heard before on Earth
• Atop a large mountain looking down upon a vast desert filled with sand dunes as far as the eye can see
• On an abandoned oil platform in the middle of an ocean where strange sea creatures lurk, and unknowable horrors hide just out of sight under dark, stormy waters
• Across the surface of Europa during sunrise over Valhalla Crater
• Outdoor Skating Rink
• Seaside Towns
• Parisian Cafe
• Middle Eastern Bazaar
• Rain Forest
• Hollywood Theatre
• Moto X Track
• Train Station
• Castle Dungeon
• Greek Island Resort
• Alaskan Wilderness
• Redwood Forest
• Subway Station
• Ocean Liner
• Space Shuttle LaunchPad
• English Countryside Manor House
• Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) Theatre
• Disneyland Park
• Sports Stadiums and Arenas
• Military Bases and
• Palace and Gardens of Versailles
• Hanging Gardens of Babylon
• Central Park in New York City
• Amusement Parks
• Water Parks and Theme Piers
• Stadiums and Arenas (Indoor)
• Museum of Natural History (NYC)
• Casinos & Gentlemen’s Clubs
• Lighthouses
• The White House (Washington, DC)
• Fruit and Vegetable Market in South Central LA
• Airports and Airlines
• Ships Before They Sink
• Space Satellite Control Center (Houston)
• High-Rise Buildings (NYC, Chicago, etc.)
• The Planet Mars
• Mountain Ranges on Earth
• Urban Streets of Any Large City
• Rural Towns in Any Region of the World
• Movie Premiere Venues, Awards Shows & Conventions
• Night Clubs & Bars (NYC)
• The Great Wall of China (Northern China)
• Russian State Duma Building (Moscow)
• Cliffs of Moher (Ireland)
• Rio de Janeiro City Streets During Carnival
• Harbor Alley in Hong Kong at Night
• Abandoned Amusement Parks (Asbury Park, New Jersey)
• The North Pole and the Arctic Ocean
• Concert Halls & Opera Houses
• Any Major Sports Stadium or Arena
• Movie Theatres
• Public Parks
• Downtown Zoos & Aquariums
• Gas Stations & Convenience Stores
• Clothing Racks in High-End Department Stores
• Shopping Malls
• Museums, Art Galleries, Libraries & Historical Sites
• War Memorials and Monuments
• Historic Homes and Buildings
• Restaurants with Diners Outside
• Boardwalks with Shops and Stands
• Famous Hotel Pools & Resorts
• The Great Pyramids of Giza (Northern Egypt)
• Miles of Seawall in Galveston, Texas
• Inside a Presidential Limousine Riding Through Town
• Carnival Cruise Ships
• A futuristic manufacturing facility
• A world filled with genetically modified creatures
• An old-west town that has been magically restored to its 19th century glory days (and beyond!)
• A lighthouse on an isolated island
• A rickety old wooden bridge collapsed into the raging river below it
• An industrial complex filled with glowing debris and strange machinery
• A castle in the middle of a deep, dark forest
• A boarding school built on an alien planet
• The edge of space broken by an enormous asteroid field and marked with craters and jagged ridges where stars have fallen to Earth (and beyond!)
• A tropical archipelago filled with exotic wildlife that is home to dangerous sea life
• A quiet coastal town full of quaint little houses sitting at the bottom end of a steep cliffside overlooking calm, glassy waters
• An untamed wilderness filled with wild creatures and beasts of many kinds
• A world where the sun is just a bright point in the sky, but there are entire civilizations out there that have completely abandoned their star for another one entirely. There’s no way to travel between them without making a trip through an inter-dimensional rift or wormhole
• A futuristic mega-city at night, full of glowing billboards advertising products that no one will ever buy (and there’s a great deal more to discover!)
• A forgotten temple complex nestled in the foothills of a dormant volcano
• An isolated corner of the cosmos, lit only by distant stars and several smaller moons
• A frozen wasteland
• The Oval Office of the White House
• Slum Areas in Any Major City Around the World
• Abandon Prison Camps from WWI and WWII
• In a cave deep beneath a mountain on another world
• Entirely Inside a Computer Program
• The deck of a pirate ship sailing the open seas
• A tropical island forgotten by time
• A train caught in an avalanche
• Inside the body of a giant monster rampaging through the countryside, looking for something to eat
• A city made entirely out of ice and snow.
• An empty school after everyone has gone home for the day
• A derelict luxury liner adrift in space (with a secret inside!)
• Inside an Imaginarium (or similar fantasy machine)
• Construction Sites
• Any city street, alleyway, or back-alley
• A cruise ship adrift at sea
• An aircraft carrier or battleship sitting in the middle of an abandoned port
• An ancient temple deep within a jungle
• The inside of a spaceship or space station has crash-landed on an alien world (and beyond!)
• A barren desert with nothing more than dead land for as far as the eye can see
• Any massive stadium or sports arena that has been abandoned by its owners
• A crowded subway train at rush hour
• The inside of a refrigerator, freezer, walk-in cooler, meat locker, etc.
• A wealthy man’s lavish estate sitting alone on top of a hill overlooking the city below it
• The peak of an active volcano
• Ancient Underground Cities
• On the set of a cheesy old science fiction movie from the 1960s
• A lush jungle of tall, sprawling trees that are completely covered in thick vines and tangled undergrowth
• A strange world where everything looks wrong (that’s how it always starts!)
• A post-apocalyptic wasteland populated by desperate survivors scavenging for resources to survive another day. There are still pockets of civilization here and there, but they have fallen into chaos as the population has dwindled due to starvation or plague. The landscape is littered with debris from the former days, while the skies are a burning orange and red. The air is thick with ash and dust, making breathing difficult at best.
• A mysterious technological planet filled with massive construction projects that seem to have no purpose whatsoever
• An alien world full of colorful plants/animals (and other creatures) that somehow still manages to be boring as hell. There aren’t many places for settlers to set up shop, so it’s mostly just a large.
• A beautiful world filled to the brim with dragons and other amazing creatures, but also completely devoid of life.
• A peaceful world with lush fields, rolling hills, and deep forests where life is bright and cheery. The sky is always clear blue; there are no storms or hurricanes to be found.
• Mount Rushmore
• The inside of a giant glass dome where the air is breathable, no one can see in or out. The inhabitants are completely cut off from the outside world (except radio communications)
• A once proud civilization was reduced to ruins by an unknown enemy.
• The cold vacuum of space, where nothing lives or grows
• A quiet little town that has been completely abandoned for reasons still being investigated. It’s everyone for themselves out here in the wasteland, and sometimes people just get sick of living life on their own
• The inside of a massive haunted house or castle
• The inside of a giant amusement park filled with all sorts of rides and attractions. Unfortunately, the park has been deserted for decades, so anything that can move is inoperable. The vast majority of people who went missing over the years were just sucked into this place when they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
• A peaceful village in the mountains where everything is quiet and calm. It’s all fun and games until someone shows up with a gun, demanding whatever valuables you might be hiding away. Once they get what they want, you’re either forced into servitude or simply executed on the spot (depending on how nice their boss happens to be feeling at the time)
• The inside of a department store during the busiest shopping day of the year
• A dark and dangerous world where mutants, robots, cyborgs, zombies, and other vile creatures are constantly trying to kill each other.
• Inside the great pyramid of Giza
• A massive cruise ship that has been stranded at sea
• A futuristic manufacturing facility with
• A city of the undead
• A post-apocalyptic wasteland
• A futuristic sports arena inside a mountain range
• A great white wasteland covered entirely in snow and ice. The temperature is far too cold for any sort of human settlement.
• A crowded coffee shop
• An abandoned mansion
• A field in springtime
• An erupting volcano
• The cockpit of an airplane during takeoff or landing in rough weather (I like this one. I’d go for the cockpit of a passenger airliner.)
• A library at night
• The first row at a rock concert
• Mount Everest
• Underwater (Like “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.”)
• On top of a skyscraper during a thunderstorm at night (Like that part in Spiderman 3 where Spidey’s fighting the Lizard and what’s-his-name.)
• On the ring road around Paris at rush hour (I’ve never been to France, but it sure sounds like hell in this instance.)

The Importance of Setting in Creative Writing

The setting is the blueprint from which your story is built. Knowing how to use it effectively can turn a good story into a great one and a mediocre story into a complete failure.

The advantages of a good setting are many:

1) It creates a sense of comfort in the reader who reads your short story.

2) It can increase suspense when used properly.

3) It adds depth and realism to the story, making it easier for readers to escape their daily lives and immerse themselves in your work.

4) If you do it right, it can give your story an amazing and lasting sense of wonder and nostalgia.

5) The story setting becomes a character in and of itself, with its motives and goals that may or may not align with those of the main characters (or even change as the story goes on).

6) It helps to make your writing more vivid and concise.

7) It becomes a tool you can utilize to provide foreshadowing and build tension.

8) It helps determine plot direction, character motivation, pacing, etc.

9) It becomes one of the first things your readers will notice about your work, so it must be done right from the beginning.

The setting is the foundation upon which your story is built. Do it wrong, and your efforts will come crumbling down around you, but get it right, and you’ll have a masterpiece on your hands.

Thanks for reading my blog, and Happy Writing ! What’s your favorite kind of setting? Mine is anything post-apocalyptic, as long as there are mutants and zombies. 🙂

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The Setting Of A Story: Tips For Creating A Creative Story Setting

• March 2, 2022

“It was a dark and stormy night…” Opening sentence of  Paul Clifford  by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1830

Even if it best reflects the weather conditions outside, this overused opening phrase has become a great cliché of bad fiction writing. But before it is thrown into the abyss for good, let’s take a look at why it has been so pervasive in fiction for the past two hundred years.

This article will look at the setting of a story, why it is important, and how you can skillfully incorporate it into your own writing.

What Is the Setting of a Story?

The setting of a story is when and where the story occurs. The time and place serve as anchors for a specific atmosphere to be established within the text.

Setting of a story

“It was a dark and stormy night” does what it was meant to do – it establishes the setting of a story.

Setting generally focuses on the time and place within the story you are trying to tell.

It was night (time), and the night was dark and stormy (it doesn’t quite tell us the exact place, but we know it is a place that is dark and stormy.) Yet, the opening line manages to do more than only establish a time and place.

Time and Place

When and where does the story take place? There are infinite possibilities.

It can be the Stone Age, or it could be a Wednesday in London. It can be any period in time or some completely different universe.

The place may be a physical place or even a metaphysical place.

Many variables can be considered when pondering the setting of a story. The time period and physical location are a great starting place, whether it be a real-life story or a work of fiction. But what more can the setting do?

Why Is Setting Important?

The setting is important because it helps in projecting the overall mood of a story. It lets authors provoke the readers’ emotions.

For instance, if the setting is to take place in an old dingy orphanage put up in 1994, that has not been cared for or renovated, the reader may pity the orphans for their terrible living conditions. The setting also suggests that the children may not be well cared for.

However, if the orphanage is tidy, clean, modernized, and has a pleasant homey aura, the reader may feel that the orphans live happily and are looked after during their time at the orphanage.

A change in setting can shift the overall flow of the story.

The setting also creates an opportunity to add detail to the characters and introduce conflicts.

For example, a toxic environment in a highly developed city may justify or explain why a main character suffers from anxiety, therefore introducing the character as anxious and highlighting the internal conflict they are experiencing.

It also gives hints about the story’s message, foreshadows essential plot details, and affects the language used by the characters as language evolves as time passes. For instance, a story set in the 90s will be very different from a story set in 2022 in terms of message, plot details, and language used by the characters.

How Does the Setting Contribute to the Story?

The setting contributes to the story by forming the expectations of the reader. For example, if the story is set in a dark, cold, isolated forest. This sets the scene for what may come next. The setting contributes to the story in terms of being an integral element in crafting the flow of the plot, presenting character traits, and inserting major conflicts.

Setting also dictates which character traits and behaviors are possible and which are not.

For example, people’s uncivilized and violent deeds are likely to dominate in a story that possesses the setting, “the period before civilization.”

In contrast, in a story that happens in a modernized world, characters are expected to be law-abiding citizens, except for some characters, especially the antagonist.

If these modern people behaved as if they lived thousand years ago, then that presents a disconnection between characterization and setting, which confuses the reader. The setting has the power to shape the story.

Setting Ideas

The chosen setting can contribute to the plot’s success or make the story vague, uninteresting, and illogical. Whichever the setting fulfils depends on its alignment with the story, characters, and conflicts.

When you decide on a story’s setting, you can consider human emotions such as what place and time period causes fear, anger, disgust, loneliness, and enjoyment.

Below are some setting ideas you can use, enhance, and tailor to match your story plot before you begin writing.

• crowded airport
• renovated animal shelter
• on-sale bookstore
• scary lighthouse
• nursing home
• mysterious valley
• freezing mountain
• deserted island
• dilapidated factory
• famous tower
• tattoo shops
• police station
• amusement park
• miraculous cave
• most-visited beach
• children’s playground
• prestigious university
• coffee shops
• retreat houses
• abandoned hospital

Begin Creating The Perfect Setting In Your Story

1. establishing tone.

Notice that the opening line, “a dark and stormy night,” uses the description of the setting to establish a mood or tone . It goes beyond being just a physical place in time to being a storytelling tool, and using those kinds of tools makes a stronger story.

Yet if you look a little deeper into the purposes of the story setting, you can find a much more meaningful connection to the story you are trying to tell and the characters and ideas within it.

The use of the word “dark” implies a sense of aloneness and potential vulnerability. The word “stormy” also implies a potential danger, especially if something goes wrong in the dark.

The writer is already starting to plant something in your mind while using very few words to do it.

If Bulwer-Lytton had written it as “It was a warm and cozy evening…”, how would the tone differ and establish the setting in the story? It would establish a completely different feeling – and an even more vague setting!

But this shows you the difference between the tone of the two and how the setting of a story has the possibility to play a significant role in anything you write.

2. Experiencing a setting through the main character

Whether establishing a story setting for a fictional world or one based on real life, the reader sees the world through the main character’s eyes and perspective. That gives writers a wealth of information to work with, such as a physical location, the character’s life, and their cultural surroundings. 

You may get further details like a geographical location or a more specific setting, but more often than not, the setting will be experienced through the main character .

Sensory details

As we all do, characters experience the world through sensory experiences, so using the five senses is a vital way to convey setting detail. Characters can see and hear the world as they experience it (or cannot experience it), and how they see or hear it (or not) will be filtered by their own perspectives. 

They may find the smells and tastes of a place like New York City as refreshing and exhilarating, or they may find the bright lights and noise make them feel trapped by sensory overload and anxiety depending on their own personal history.

The same character may feel at home in the stark contrast of a small town or even a different time period, where they would have a different range of sensory experiences. The setting becomes much more than just “time and place” when interlaced with character development . 

Sensory details and setting descriptions filtered through your character’s lives make your reader’s experience richer and more meaningful, as they are emotionally immersed into the setting you are building.

Expressing the world as experienced through characters lives

Whether you are writing about World War II or Middle Earth, your settings will be experienced by the people (or Hobbits) you are writing about.

The geographical location or the historical period you explore will be felt and experienced by your characters as they grow. This can be used from short stories to epic novels. It’s often used in non-fiction writing as a means to help a reader connect with the people in the story.

Other Factors to Consider When Creating Your Story Setting

Before you begin writing , you may be attached to a specific setting or time period. You may already be set on writing science fiction , historical fiction, or setting it in New York City. It doesn’t matter if you want to set your narrative at Hogwarts School.

There will always be room for strengthening the elements of your story through the setting.

It may be tempting to flesh out your world with a comprehensive backdrop setting of the world you created, but do the details move your story forward?

When you consider world-building or establishing the decor of a tea room, don’t inundate your reader with too much information. You’ll lose them in the details.

Consider which details are most important and most relevant.

You can weave in the details you want to be there but focus on the history that is going to strengthen the present in your story.

Your readers are smart people; they’re going to fill in the rest of the details in their heads. You can afford to be efficient here – and save your words for other details.

2. Sociological factors

The setting details of a short story or novel can be greatly influenced by sociological factors affecting the people, history, or even the architecture in your story.

If you’re writing science fiction, you may consider how humans have come to be treated by alien colonists and how class division has affected the world around them. 

If you’re setting your story within a specific time period, you may do some research on the societal and cultural surroundings to see how various groups of people lived at the time. The setting of story will tell you a lot about your characters and vice versa.

3. Geographic location

This may be the first thing people think of when they think of the setting.

Location is essential, as it has a significant effect on all other details in the story. Is your story set in your neighborhood in modern-day or in 19th century Ireland? 

The physical landscape or the world you are introducing will need a strong description of the geographic location (don’t forget to use the five senses) to really establish where the story is unfolding.

Be careful, though; just like with historical details, too much information will lose your reader. You want to focus on details that will help move your story forward or give some illustration to the world around your characters.

Trust your reader’s imaginations to do the rest.

3. The mental state of your character(s)

This also comes back to experiencing the setting through character. How one character may see a beautiful autumn day can vary greatly from the next.

“ The beautiful cascade of colors flashed on the leaves flitting along the ground ” may be one character’s perception of a setting while the next may see the same thing as “ Fall . The time when things die, and their organic waste litters the world of the living. ” Then, of course, there is character development and how the setting might affect that, or vice versa.

4. Time and place as a sliding scale

Think of “time” and “place” as two sliding lines.

Of course, “time” is already a linear line (or is it?), but “place” can be endless things. So if you are fascinated with the history of India, you may consider which part of its timeline interests you most and would best suit the story you want to tell. 

When you start getting into areas such as a post World War II small town or the strange history of a plaza hotel, you can see how integral the same setting can be to the outcome of your story.

Setting and Pace

Typically speaking, a great deal of establishing a setting will come at the beginning of your story.

That’s not to say you won’t use elements of setting later, but if your location isn’t changing or you are staying within a certain place, it’s unlikely that you will focus as much on these details toward the end of your story or book. 

However, don’t forget to use these details in your descriptions because they will still illuminate the tone of your story as well as your character’s experiences within them.

In Conclusion

The setting is as much a part of a great story as what your main characters feel or do. Setting can affect their behavior and play a role in the story itself. It can be a backdrop setting, or it can be a deciding factor in the outcome.

An interesting setting is revealed with the use of sensory information such as what a mountain range looks like, or what the air feels like on the skin, or how the sound of the wind in the trees tickles the tips of one’s fingers.

But it can also reflect a person’s outlook or even change their outlook. It doesn’t have to just be a snapshot of the natural world; it is whatever you want your reader to experience when they read your work.

With descriptions of your setting, use effective adverbs and adjectives that create the necessary feeling for your narrative, but avoid overusing them. Strings of adjectives can become tedious, and adverbs are powerful, but too much power can make your writing look cartoonish.

Find the right balance of description with sensory information, and the reader will be taken along seamlessly for the ride.

Setting can make your entire story – just look at what happened at the Overlook Hotel in Stephen King’s  The Shining . It can be a background player as well, adding details to any scene when the time is right.

The setting is as essential as any creative tool that you have, along with character development and plot structure.

When outlining your next writing project, don’t forget the vital role that story setting can play.

It isn’t just “a dark and stormy night.” The subtext of those few words implies that it’s also a dreary, loathsome, bitter, howling, damp, and cold night, but in far fewer words.

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Setting of a Story: 8 Tips for Creating an Immersive Setting

POSTED ON Oct 25, 2023

Written by Nishoni Harvey

The setting of a story is a powerful driver for hooking readers. 

Does your setting help tell your story? Does it deepen your plot and enrich your characters? Does your setting engage the reader by setting the mood and increasing the emotional connection to your characters? What is the setting of a story, anyway?

All these are important questions you should ask yourself if you plan to write a novel .

Getting your setting “properly written” can be the difference between a huge hit or a bad miss. Too many details, and they get skimmed and skipped. But not enough details and the characters will have no place to just “be.” 

I said that the setting enriches the characters. What I didn’t tell you is that it helps to form the characters and even the characters' motivations . It does the same for the plot.

In this article, I’m going to show you how to write the setting of a story so that it's engaging to your readers. 

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This blog on book settings will cover:

What is the setting of a story .

The setting of a story is the context in a scene or story that describes the elements in which a story takes place, including time, place, and environment . Each component in the setting helps to build the narrative's mood, plot, and character development .

Exposition is key in introducing the story's setting to the audience, offering vital background details that set the scene. It outlines the when and where, along with important social, historical, or cultural contexts, essential for grasping the plot and character motivations.

Many people mistakenly believe that the setting is only the backdrop to the story when, in fact, it includes everything that has to do with the social environment, place, and time .

What is the setting of a story's purpose?

In short, the setting of a story has an important purpose in providing the reader with context on the narrative, such as describing the when and where of the setting.

Where does it take place? What's the social climate? What time period is it? What important events are happening in the world? What are the social norms and expectations? What's the weather like? What season is it in? These are all questions that serve a purpose in the story's setting.

Related: 4 Exposition Mistakes And How To Avoid Them

What is an example of a setting?

Here is an example of the setting of a story from author Nora Roberts, who is describing Ireland in The Dark Witch : “The cold carved bone deep , fueled by the lash of the wind , iced by the drowning rain gushing from a bloated sky . Such was Iona's welcome to Ireland . She loved it. How could she not? she asked herself as she hugged her arms to her chest and drank in the wild, soggy view from her window. She was standing in a castle . She'd sleep in a castle that night. An honest-to-God castle in the heart of the west .”

Notice the bolded words, and how they help the reader envision the place, social environment, and time of the story.

There are many stellar examples of setting written not only in fiction novels , but also in non-fiction books as well.

Let’s go through another setting of a story example, and how it relates to the experience a reader has.

If I were to talk about the old Volkswagen Beetle that Sarah was sitting in as she was bouncing down a bumpy back alleyway in Manhattan, you’d know where she was.

If I were to write about the Volkswagen—musty with the strong smell of stale sweat hanging heavy in the air, the plot thickens.

If I were to show you that the sky is dark, there’s a cold drizzle outside, the wind is gusty, and that Sarah’s inner thoughts reflect that, “Even the weather knows how I feel,” we have some insight into the depressed state of the protagonist.

Show, don't tell in your writing . Show the readers the setting of a story through powerful writing and the use of literary devices . 

Why is the setting of a story important? 

The setting of a story is important because it provides the reader with context on the time, place, and environment that the story takes place in. It is also important because it improves the reader's experience and adds to the story's development with plot, mood, and characters.

Whether you are learning how to write a nonfiction book or a novel, the setting of a story is crucial to that story’s development, and the reader’s experience, for a number of reasons. 

Here's why the setting of a story is important:

• It connects the story's elements. An effective story setting connects the characters to the plot, and ties together the book's themes and events.
• It builds meaning to the narrative . Without the setting, there may not be as much meaning to be gleaned since setting provides context.
• It elicits emotional responses in the reader. When readers are engaged in your story's setting, they will be actively reading and invested in experiencing the narrative and how it unfolds.
• It helps readers visualize your story. Authors use setting to describe the environment, time, and place for the reader, which provides more context and engages the reader.
• It improves the story's flow. With an effective, well-crafted setting in your narrative, the plot will flow together well, and the events will feel real.

How to decide the setting of a story

When you’re learning how to write a book , there are three important points you should consider when deciding where the story’s setting will be.

Make your setting fit the purpose of your plot

Your setting should be aligned to your plot so that it all makes sense to your reader, and is realistic. 

Are you trying for a murder mystery? To fit that purpose, make the story setting be in Chicago with high crime rates, many places to hide, and a resourceful police station.

Do you want it to feel fast-paced, or like a slow and steady Sherlock Holmes mystery? To accomplish that, a rural, backwoods setting will be more appropriate. 

See how the setting of a story should make sense for the overall plot?

Make the setting fit the story

The setting of a story should fit the actual story; things, events, or objects within a story’s setting should not feel out of place to the reader, based on prior knowledge of a place or time period. 

For example, does the Volkswagen on the bumpy road carry a car full of lawbreakers? They’ll probably not want to draw attention. Place them in America in an era when old Volkswagens were common.

Make the setting fit your character

Last but not least, the setting of a story should always be aligned with the main characters found within that story. In other words, you should build your setting and your character bio template simultaneously. 

For example, is your character shy and withdrawn? Have her sitting on the ledge surrounding the red brick school building writing short stories in her mom’s old notebook instead of enjoying recess with the other kids.

How to research the setting of a story

When researching the setting a story, there are many things to consider:

• What nationalities are represented in the population?
•  How dense is the population?
• What is the primary religion of the area?
• What other religions are there?
•  What old wives’ tales and superstitions are there that might shape the plot and the reactions of the main character and the population to outside influences?
• What are the terrain and other geographical features?
• What are the typical weather patterns for that time of year?
• What is the climate like?
• What is the government like?
•  What is the history of the area?

Some helpful sources for researching the setting of a story are:

• Visiting the place in person. This is the best way to get a real-life, hands-on feel for a setting, but it's not always possible, especially if you don't have a budget or if you're writing about an imaginary place.
• YouTube . You can do a quick search on YouTube to find footage of many sites.
• Google Earth . This is a great resource, and one that will give you an idea of the terrain and general appearance of a place.
• Encyclopedias . Don't forget to use a handy encyclopedia!
• National Geographic . It's a great resource for high quality images.
• Newspapers. While more time consuming than doing a quick online search, they are first-hand research.
• Photos . Do a Google search for “photos of [what you are searching for]”
• Archives . First-hand research where you're sure to find a wealth of information on your topic.

8 tips for how to write the setting of a story

Creating an engaging setting for your reader can be difficult. Think of the setting like a very large puzzle – it takes a lot of detailed pieces to make the big picture appear seamless. 

Through detailed research and a lot of thought, you can create a setting that aligns for your reader by using these tips. 

1. Decide what mood you’re trying to establish

Mood is defined as the overall feeling the reader has when reading a story, and it is created by the author. 

What mood are you trying to establish? 

How do you want readers to feel as they read your story? Think on that, then create that mood with your writing. 

Think of it in terms of this: A bright summer morning in the middle of a large, grassy park where happy families are out and about casts a much different mood than a dark forest with crooked, gnarled trees and low-hanging fog.

2. Decide which period or moment best fits the context of your story

The time period plays a huge part in developing the setting of a story. 

What kind of plot do you have? Does it best fit into medieval Europe, America’s 1960s, or in current time? Or maybe it fits better in the future? 

Look at the language you’re planning to use—the idioms, quotes, and expressions. Look at the props and the way the characters view them.

Consider how the different people in the book are treated. Are the elderly respected? Are the police viewed as an authority? Are the parents held in regard? In what regard do people hold the churches and the government?

All of these things and more have a bearing on the time period your story will fall into.

Sometimes, the best gauge of what time period your story setting should be in is to consider a time you know well and have loved. If you felt an emotional connection to that time, you’ll be able to convey that to your readers, and that’s what writing is all about.

3. Know the atmosphere you need to portray

As you write the setting of a story, you need to think about the atmosphere that you need to portray for the reader. 

Is the scene one with high tension? Write your setting in a way that implies an atmosphere of high tension.

For example, maybe James and Lisa are working up toward an argument. Why would Lisa be noticing soft fluffy clouds above her head, singing birds, and the warmth of the sun’s bright rays? When you read that description, you probably think about relaxation and peace – not tense emotion. 

4. Incorporate all elements of a story

Remember that the setting of a story includes more than the terrain, weather, and climate of the place.

We already discussed some of the other elements that are involved in the setting of a story. Some of these are the government, religion, superstitions, and population. But how do you write them into your story?

You should know all these little details in depth, but it doesn’t mean you’ll use it all directly in your story’s setting.

Only use what’s necessary to describe the setting adequately. No more. No less. Write it in surrounded by action, and don’t forget to break it up throughout the story.

Setting descriptions aren't only needed in the beginning, but everywhere you need the plot deepened and your characters enhanced.

5. Use all five senses when you’re describing the setting

When you’re walking through a room or down the street, do you see it as two-dimensional? No. You experience every part of that walk. You use every one of your five senses.

You want your readers to experience your story through each of their senses, too. An easy way to do this is by using literary elements in your writing. 

Begin by describing what you want them to see. When you do, describe it the same way the eye travels in real life. Start with the focal point, then move across in a straight line.

Next, your main character would naturally notice what they hear. Don’t describe everything they hear, just the most relevant and obvious ones.

What do they smell? Is the air dusty? Is someone cooking breakfast?

Have them touch things. They can run their hand over the smooth desk, feel the rough board, and handle the cold metal rod.

Lastly, explore their sense of taste. Your main character won’t use this sense as much, but you do want to be sure to use it.

Remember, you don’t only taste when you put something in your mouth. Something can “smell so good that you can almost taste it.”

Sprinkle these details in – don’t feel that you have to describe each and every little thing; otherwise, you’ll overwhelm your reader. 

Practice writing some scenes, and it will start to come naturally to you!

6. Don’t describe the setting of a story all at once

You don’t want to give your readers an encyclopedia of facts. They won’t read them. They’ll skip them, or might even close your book altogether.

When you start your book with a wall of details, your readers are more likely to put down your book to never pick it up again. Your readers will skim or skip later clumps of setting as they try to get back to the action.

Since the setting of a story is so essential to the plot and characters, it’s very important that you stretch it out enough that it will be read and enjoyed.

Write the setting in as part of the action, adding in a piece here and there. 

A tip: Learn how to write dialogue in a way that engages your reader and helps build the setting. You can experiment with first-person, second-person POV , and third-person POV to find the best way to pull people into the setting.

Here is an example of a well-written piece.

7. Don't over-describe the setting of a story

Here’s why you shouldn’t over-describe the setting of a story:

• You stifle your reader’s imagination. You must leave some details up to the imagination. You want your readers to be involved in the story. Otherwise, you’ll lose them.
• You knock your readers out of the story. The quickest way to get a reader to desert your story is to front-load them with too many descriptions. 
• You don’t need to include every detail. Appeal to your readers’ knowledge of the world. Tell your readers the machine sounds like a buzzing bee. You don’t need to describe the sound.

8. Remember that the setting of a story has a direct effect on the character and plot

Our environment affects our mood – this is true for almost every human! So, it shouldn’t be any different for the characters in your story, since they should be life-like. 

Let’s look at some examples. 

If Lisa lives in mid-Michigan, where it’s dark and dank all winter long, she may become depressed as many people do.

If she lives in a trailer in the middle of nowhere with the frigid air seeping in through the cracks in the door and a furnace that won’t stay lit, her character will beg for our sympathies.

If she has a toddler playing on the cold floors and a deadbeat ex-boyfriend who won’t provide for his child, we have the beginning of a plot.

Do you see how the plot and characters are directly affected by the story’s setting?

You might be thinking, “That’s all good and well, but what if I want to create a setting in a science-fiction or fantasy realm?” Let's discuss some tips for writing a compelling fictional setting.

Our top tips for how to write a fictional setting

If you want to create the setting of a story that takes place in a world that doesn’t exist yet, creating a fictional setting is an option! There are few ways to do this. 

Develop the setting fully before you begin writing

Before you pick up your pen to write, be sure that your setting is fully developed! 

You don’t want to get to the end of your book, only to edit it and find you have to rewrite large portions. Fully developing the setting of a story will save you hours of work later.

Not fully developing your story from the beginning could end with it back in the writing stage after an edit!

Sit down. Answer all the questions in the section on how to research a setting. Make notes, whether that be in a Microsoft document, Scrivener , Pinterest, Evernote , the project notebook method, or some other method.

Think about this: J. R. R. Tolkien had his setting researched so thoroughly that he had books full of information on the world and the characters before he even began writing.

Create your world first

You have an exciting task ahead of you: You get to create a world! And no one can tell you that you’re doing it wrong. However, world-building can be hard.

Not only is it time-consuming, but it’s difficult to form an immediate connection between your setting and your readers.

They won’t have any idea what an “ebony irbit” looks like, and your main character won’t be able to tell them that it’s “fluffy as a bunny” or “that it jumps like a grasshopper” since she’ll have no reference for such things. You’ll have to describe everything in detail.

Create your setting second

Once a fictitious world is built, the setting of a story can be created. 

You need to create every aspect of your story’s setting before you move onto writing your book.

For example, how many suns will your main character look up and see? How many moons?

What about the plant life? Are the plants vibrant or dull? Where do they grow? Are they populous? Are they carnivorous? Do the characters eat of the plants? How do they get the fruit and vegetables?

Are the animals simple pets or advanced creatures? Do they live in peaceful harmony, almost symbiotic, or are they at constant war with the population?

Think outside the box when it comes to creating the setting of a story for a fictional world. 

You need enough details to make the world believable

You need more details in a fictitious setting than you do in a real setting—the reason being that your readers have no frame of reference from which to draw.

For context: People have a pretty good idea what the Manhattan skyline looks like, but you’ll have to describe the horizon of your world looks like in detail.

You indeed want us to use our imagination, but it’s your job to guide it.

We need to know the color of the sky if it’s anything other than blue. We need to know about the acid rain that comes every night and cleanses the land of the evil creatures that dare prowl in the dark.

Tell us about the magician’s lair that Jabesh fell into while running through the woods. Describe the water running down the walls and how he felt a cold chill run down his spine as he peered into the darkness leading toward a single burning torch.

Give us details. Use specific words. Tell us what we need to know, but don’t pile it on. And remember, don’t give it to us all at once!

Learn how to make a fantasy map .

What’s the terrain in the whole country like? Draw it in.

Figure out the important places in your story. What is the capital city of Neiphour? What is the main throughway? Where is Jabesh traveling to? What little towns might he stop at along the way? Even include his favorite hideaway and his fishing hole. Include everything of importance.

Map out the distance between places. This way you won’t have Jabesh taking a two day trip to the city of Lit one day and a half-day trip the following week.

Not only will drawing a map of your world help you create the story’s setting, but it will also help both you and the reader envision little nuances to make it more realistic.

FAQs about story settings

Still have questions about what the setting of a story is, and how to craft a powerful one that hooks readers? You might just need to read more and practice writing settings on your own!

We get a lot of common questions on story settings, so we'll cover some of the most frequently asked questions on the topic.

What are the three types of setting?

The three types of setting are the elements of time, place, and environment (both physical and social). Each of these types contributes to building the setting of a story.

How do you find the setting of a story?

To find the setting of a story, you will have to read through the book or story, and identify sections where the time, place, and environment is being described.

It is easy to identify the setting of a story through detailed descriptions the author may include that tells the reader when and where the story is taking place. An expert author also incorporates elements of setting subtly for the reader, such as through dialogue.

How does setting affect the story?

Setting affects the story by contributing to the plot, character development, mood, and theme. It also affects the story by engaging the reader and helping them visualize the events and context in which the narrative is being told.

What makes a good setting?

A good setting is one that appropriately describes the time, place, and environment of the narrative. A good setting also helps to connect the plot to the characters, and builds the mood and theme appropriately.

Practice writing the setting of a story today! 

You’ve heard several tips and received a lot of information on how to write the setting of a story. I’ve told you how to create an engaging setting. Now, it’s time to practice!

If you need some inspiration to guide you, use this writing prompt generator to help think of things to write about. 

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Go to your desk, pull out your pen and paper, and begin mind mapping your setting. Write the place of your setting in the middle of the paper and circle it.

Now, set a timer for ten minutes. If that doesn’t end up being enough time, work longer.

Write everything you can think of about that setting. You’ll be surprised at how much you know! If your setting is fictitious, all the better. With these tips, and a little practice, you will master the art of setting in no time.

Do you have an idea for the setting of a story?

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Story setting ideas list of writing prompts.

I keep a list of settings. In fact, I keep a list of many things to help jar my creativity while brainstorming—core fears, phobias, careers for characters, character types—just about anything I think might help my brain make a creative cross-connection and get a new idea. I look at brainstorming as a musician practices playing scales—exercising my creativity just makes it stronger.

Of all the lists I keep, story setting ideas is one I use often. When I am freethinking, I close my eyes and point at random. Sometimes when I’m stuck in my manuscript, I look over this list and see if I can’t jar an idea loose. Sometimes I match the settings up. I also use other lists and randomly choose from one list, then the other. Anything to get my creative juices going again.

Here is my list of places or settings for you to begin your own list and use as creative writing prompts.

Story Setting Ideas List

Write about what happens at a(n):

__________ Academy            Abbey                                     Airport

Alley(s)                                   Alligator Farm                       Art Gallery

Art Studio                              Artist Colony                          Auto Junkyard

Ancient Pyramid                  Animal Sanctuary                  Animal Shelter

Animal Research Facility   Art Museum                           Aquarium

Barber Shop                          Baseball Stadium                  Basement

Beach                                      Beauty Salon                          Blood Bank

Blood Drive                           Bookstore                                Botanical Garden

Bridge                                     Buddhist Temple

Cabin                                      Castle                                      Casino

Cathedral                               Cave (Bat, Collapsed, Crystal)

Cemetery                               Center for Disease Control Laboratory

Cheap Hotel                          Chinatown (any city)            Church

Circus                                     City Dump                              City Rooftop(s)

City Street                             Coal Mine                                Coffee House

College Dorm Room           Concert Hall                            Corporate Board Room

Day Spa                                  Distillery

Fairground                             Fishing Boat                           Floating Fish Factory

Football Stadium                  Fort

Garden                                    Graveyard                               Gymnasium

Highway Rest Stop                Hospital                                  Hospital Board Room

Insectarium                          Jazz Club

Landfill                                   Lighthouse                             Logging Camp (Town)

Mansion                                 Mannequin Factory              Medical Laboratory

Mississippi River Barge      Mosque

New Orleans during Mardi Gras

Nuclear Reactor                     Nursing Home

Observatory                           Opera House

Palace                                     Park                                   Pet Grooming Salon

Precious Metal Mine (Gold, Silver, Copper)                      Priory

Prison                                     Police Station                       Pottery Studio

Previously Undiscovered Island

Previously Undiscovered Planet

Principal’s Office

Racetrack                               Rainforest                              Roadside Motel

Roadkill Pickup Truck

Salt Mine                                Sanitarium                             Schoolroom

School Lab                             Secret Hideaway                   Sewer

Shack                                      Shoeshine Stand                   Shopping Mall

Small Town                           Spider Farm                           Steel Mill

Steam Ship (or Boat)          Synagogue

Temple                                   Theater                                  Tower

Trailer Park                           Train Graveyard                  Train Station

Wax Museum                       Wildlife Ranch                       Windmill

Winery                                   Woods                                      Worm Ranch

Story Setting Ideas List, Somewhere Famous

Alcatraz                                              Amazon Rain Forest

Angkor Wat, Cambodia                  Buckingham Palace

Death Valley                                      Disneyland

Easter Island                                     Forbidden City

Galapagos Islands                            Golden Gate Bridge

Grand Canyon                                   Great Barrier Reef

Great Wall                                          Hollywood

Jerusalem                                           Kashmir Valley

Machu Picchu                                    Mount Everest

Nile                                                      Palace of Versailles

Pike’s Peak                                         Pompeii

Potala Palace, Tibet                         Pyramids of Giza and Great Sphinx

Sahara Desert                                   Serengeti

Sistine Chapel                                   Statue of Liberty

Stonehenge                                        Taj Mahal

Tombstone                                         Uffizi Gallery

Valley of the Kings                           Venice (Canals)

The White House                              Zen Garden of Kyoto

Story Setting Ideas, Combine Setting with Another Idea

Insert a place from above into one of the following creative writing prompts and see what happens. As Stephen King says: “…good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun…”

Pet __________ (okay, Pet Cemetery has been done and so has the idea of combining a pet and racetrack ( The Art of Racing in the Rain) but what about other stories including pets? What about pet & theater? Pet & palace? Pet & casino? Pet & circus? Pet & Stonehenge?)

Old Folks __________ (yes, “home” is the first thought, but keep going.) What about old folks & circus? Old folks & college dorm room? Old folks & garden—Yikes! I just had a thought about planting old folk parts and getting…what? Veggies that if you eat them, you become possessed? Or is this garden a connection to the otherworld? Will the garden produce wisdom? Prophets? Or a zombie plague?

See how this works? So get your creative juices flowing and don’t look back.

Abandoned __________ (logging camp, church, fish boat, trailer park…you get the idea)

Haunted __________

A murder at ­­­­­­­­­­__________

A secret at __________

A magical __________

An evil __________

A previously undiscovered __________

__________ in the woods

Old __________ turned into apartments

A __________ shrine

A __________ museum

A __________ graveyard

Story Setting Ideas, Combine Two Settings

Write about a blood drive at a nuclear reactor. Or a roadkill pickup truck at a casino. What about an animal protection sanctuary on city rooftops? A mannequin factory near Stonehenge or a secret hideaway wax museum?

Lots of ideas come to mind—not all good, but that’s okay! The point is to jog your brain (or muse) into generating new connections. As your subconscious tries to make sense of connections, ideas will come. Try it. May many excellent, fresh, exciting ideas come flooding your way!

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16 Comments

August 24, 2012 at 11:30 am

August 24, 2012 at 1:27 pm

You are so welcome, Kim 🙂

September 5, 2012 at 4:55 pm

Your settings list is great. It just may become my settings list. 😉 For some reason as I scrolled through, “City Dump” piqued my interest the most. Haha.

September 6, 2012 at 6:05 am

I’m glad you find the list helpful, Lauren. You gotta accept inspiration no matter where it takes you, right? 🙂 The settings I seem to choose (or more to the point–that choose me) always end up gritty and less on the “romantic” side of life. Sigh.

April 11, 2013 at 4:15 am

This is great! really useful!! I often use places that I have been as the starting point. In my latest story I used the tomb raider temple that I visted in Cambodia as the base for the setting in one of the scenes. I started with a picture in my minds eye and my imagination did the rest!! Twitter – @anagranimals

April 14, 2013 at 1:07 pm

Wow, Leith, that sounds like quite a trip! Once I get a “mind’s eye” scene, I do the same, I’m off to the keyboard (or pen–depending on my mood 🙂

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March 7, 2016 at 9:41 pm

hello. I am just beginning to write and I found this website very helpful for my setting. When I finish the book ill put in a note thanking your website.

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✍️ Setting Writing Exercises

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We found 11 setting exercises that match your search 🔦 reset

Write a description of the room you are in from the point-of-view of a character in your work-in-progress. If the character is from another time or place, so much the better. What would the character notice first? What would she find odd? What would she love about the room? What would she dislike? Go beyond describing the physical space and capture her attitude about what she sees. Let her be snarky or wax poetical. Whatever captures her emotions about the space.

Mood Swings

I recommend starting this exercise with a travel magazine packed with lots of interesting photos. Select an image that appeals to you. Now, write a short scene from the viewpoint of a character who has just arrived at this location and is seeing it for the first time. Describe the setting through the character's eyes, paying particular attention to the mood that this image evokes in you. Evoke this mood in your readers through the reactions of the character - look for sensory images!Now, write a second scene, with the same or a different character - and evoke just the OPPOSITE mood. If your castle seemed tranquil and romantic, set a scene in which the mood is menacing or sorrowful. If the image of that tropical beach made you feel relaxed and happy, create a scene in which, instead, it is causing your character to feel angry or anxious. Again, look for sensory details and impressions that will convince your reader and evoke that same mood through your words - regardless of what mood the picture alone might have evoked!

From The Ground Up

Choose a place you've never been to. (If you have a map, you can close your eyes and pick a random spot for an extra challenge!) Do some research and try to learn everything you can about that location and make it the setting for the next scene you write. Try to include as many details as possible to make it seem like you've actually been there. For example, what does it smell like? What kind of people would you see there? What is the climate like?

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Establishing The Background

Think of some information your readers will need to learn to understand the story. This could be technical information or character backstory. Now write an argument between two characters in which you use conflict to share this information.

The Art of Description

• A market in the South of France
• A teenage bedroom
• A hairdresser's salon
• The souk in Marrakesh
• A stately home

Describe Your Surroundings

We've all read about the grey autumn day, the crisp spring morning, the dewey summer evening. Flex your descriptive muscles by spending some time writing about your surroundings. Look for new, interesting, evocative ways to explain the world around you. For instance, instead of writing, "a breeze blew in through the open window, try, "papers fluttered in the gust that swept in through the window, throwing dust into the air like confetti."

Consider the World View

When describing your setting, consider who's looking at it as well as what they see. For example, an ex-con is likely to view (and describe) a restaurant hosting a police officer's retirement party differently than the daughter of the retiring officer. Take the point-of-view-character's world view and personal judgment into consideration. What details would they specifically notice? How would they feel about what they see? What emotions or thoughts might those details trigger? This allows you to craft richer settings that reflect both the character, and the world they live in.

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Elements of setting: How to create a vivid world

The elements of setting – time, place, mood, social and cultural context – help to make a novel feel real and alive. This is an essential element of writing that helps anchor your writing within a specific place. Read more about using the ingredients of setting to make your story more vivid:

• Post author By Bridget McNulty
• 3 Comments on Elements of setting: How to create a vivid world

Defining setting

Let’s first define setting. This can be the time frame or/and the location, and environment in which your story takes place. Setting is as vital a part of your story as characterisation or plot. Some novels are rooted in setting, such as many mystery novels where the setting becomes vital to the action. But many stories rely on setting, so it’s worth getting this right and creating your fictional world in detail. 

What are the 4 key elements of setting?

The core elements of setting are:

Time in setting  can refer to the length of time in which the story unfolds (as short as a day or as long as 1,000 years or more).

Time  can also refer to time period , the historical epoch (for example the Middle Ages) in which your novel is set. [When you brainstorm your core setting in the Now Novel dashboard, answer prompts about both to add time details to your story’s outline.]

‘Place’ is the ‘where’ of story setting. Place in your novel is the geographical location or or physical location of the story’s events, fictional settings that take place on a specific planet (or in space), in a specific country, county, city or neighbourhood (or span several).

The ‘mood’ of a story’s setting refers to the tone you create by providing details of time and place. The mood of a dank and rustling wood is very different to that of a bustling, bright metropolis.

Lastly, ‘context’ in setting refers to the way time and place come together to show how elements of setting (such as politics, culture, society) shape (or limit) people’s choices and actions.

Read the following tips on using each of these 4 elements of setting well:

1. How to create a sense of time in a novel

A. use time of day to dramatic effect.

Details such as the time of day add colour and variety to your novel’s mood. Characters leaving on a mission in the dead of night  instead of the daytime may create a much greater sense of urgency, threat or secrecy, for example.

Think also of the symbolic meanings people attach to time in stories. Daybreak can symbolize rebirth, renewal or the return of safety. Nighttime could symbolize danger, mystery or death. Or peace, tranquility, solitude.

Even if you don’t explicitly reference the time of day or year in a scene, it can help to add one to your outline so that you have other details in mind as you draft and describe your scene.

B. Show time passing to create urgency or anticipation

Show time passing in your story setting to help the reader see that the action of your story unfolds within a shifting, changing world.

A classic example of this we return to often is the ending of Evelyn Waugh’s  Brideshead Revisited . The protagonist returns to a grand manor he once knew to find it damaged considerably in the war. This passage of time creates a nostalgic, ‘you can’t go home again’ effect.

A sense of time passing is especially important where there is urgency. In a murder mystery, for example, each passing sunrise and sunset without a new lead is another opportunity for the ‘baddie’ to strike.

Showing how time’s passage changes your setting is a great way to add development to your story’s backdrop.

C. Make your time period realistic

It takes readers out of your story when you have a medieval knight saying ‘that’s sick’ or ‘cool’.

Unless your characters are supposed to time-travel, make sure your time setting is realistic and consistent.

Also ensure that you have a handle on the social environment (or cultural environment) of the setting of your story. What world or political events take place in an historic setting, and how might this contribute to the plot, for example? What is the etiquette like: are women allowed to walk the streets alone? 

If you’re writing historical fiction in particular, keep a cheat file of every detail about your setting. Research what people ate, wore and believed and how they spoke. You don’t have to include every detail in your draft. Some information is just for you to know, so you can keep details believable.

2. How to write place in a book

The second key element of setting, place, is equally as important as time . If your characters’ actions are anchored in a vivid location, they will seem much more real. To make your story locations vivid:

A. Research real locations thoroughly

Setting your book in a real place means that you need to understand it: Not only its geography but also what kind of life a traveler would find there.

To research a real contemporary location:

• See if it’s available to explore using Google Street View – your own virtual guided tour will make it much easier to describe
• Read through information about your chosen real-world setting on regional government websites.
• Read other works of fiction set in the same place and time. Many fiction writers take liberties with describing real places. But creative accounts can develop your own imaginative grasp of a place

Even if your fictional world is entirely made up – a distant planet in the solar system that has been colonized in the year 5000, for example – you can base it on a real world location for inspiration.

B. Show place with description

‘Show don’t tell’ is repeated so often that you’re probably tired of hearing it. But this is especially true for place description in setting.

Instead of just telling the reader that the train rolled into the big city, show the big city . Describe some of its buildings, or its landmarks, or the faces on the station platform [Brainstorm individual locations such as landmarks or a station by creating a ‘small-scale setting’ in the World Builder on Now Novel].

Describe the features that would strike a newcomer most. The better you observe and show place in your novel, the easier it is for readers to enjoy your fictional world.

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C. Go there if possible

If you’re writing about a real place and you’ve never been there in person, go if it’s at all possible. As writer Suzannah Windsor Freeman says, when creating a story setting sometimes ‘research doesn’t cut it’.

Research and looking at photos of the destination combined can give you enough material to create a keen sense of place, but actually walking the streets where your novel is set will help to inspire your storytelling and enrich it with plenty of detail.

3. How to create mood in your story’s setting

Creating a precise mood with your setting is important because:

• It signals to the reader how they should read the unfolding action: Is there a sense of danger or adventure? Is the story reaching a point of higher stakes or is the action winding down?
• It creates contrast – the light and shade – that keeps a story’s environments interesting and believable

Setting can also be used to contribute to the plot and perhaps show the character development of your cast. For example you can show that a character has grown up and become more responsible because their house has been freshly painted, and looks neat now. 

Some tips for using the elements of setting to establish a clear mood:

A. Use common connotations of places and times

Different places are associated with different things: A mountain pass might be associated with travel and adventure while the seaside might be associated with relaxation and introspection.

Similarly, winter might be associated with introspection or depression while summer is associated with extroversion and a jubilant mood.

If you want to emphasize that a negative situation is turning around for your character, you might show the transition to a new life alongside a change in the seasons.

Underscoring the action of your novel with mood this way heightens its sense of drama and change.

B. Show how time and place affect characters’ moods

You could use the mood of your setting to also reveal aspects of your characters’ personalities and desires.

For example, if your character loves to spend time in a library, this may show that they are an intellectual person (or simply a person who loves books or quiet).

Think about the relation between place and time and how your character might change depending on their surrounds.

4. How  to write context for your story’s setting

Context is one of the most important elements of setting for plot . The social, cultural, historical, political and environmental details tied to time and place shape people’s lives in many ways. Creating this context for story settings is important because:

• It shows what possibilities and limitations are placed on your characters by their place and time
• Context gives readers a more detailed sense of your fictional world (readers know how power is divided, how people celebrate, and other cultural details).

To make the context element of your setting more real:

A. Think about how society is organised in your setting

Let’s consider the environmental setting of your world, not just the scenery, but what is happening socially and politically. Think about the kind of your society your characters live in. From country to country, different cultural practices are the norm. Think about what the practices will be in your novel’s own place and time. Will your main character uphold these traditions or challenge and rebel against them?

B. Make notes on every aspect of a real-world context

If your novel is set in a real-world time period and location, make notes on all the context-related elements of setting. Do light research and summarize information about:

• Demographics (what is the social makeup of your setting: What different groups and belief systems occupy the land?)
• Political system
• Social views (are most people leftist, centrist or on the right of the spectrum?)
• Cultural practices (For example, what is the standard greeting? What words or gestures are considered offensive?)

Your novel doesn’t need to reference each of these elements explicitly (a romance novel most likely won’t explore politics). Yet having an idea of the most dominant viewpoints and ways of life of a place and time will help you to create characters and dialogue that feel right for the setting.

Use the ‘Core Setting’ section of Now Novel’s story dashboard to work out your story’s memorable setting .

I started using Now Novel to assist me with my story’s structure. The prompts were helpful in developing my characters, settings, and scenes. The story outline was a valuable asset that guided me through my rough draft. The feedback from my personal writing coach took my writing to the next level. — Kathy

Related Posts:

• Vivid story setting description: Examples and insights
• How to create a fantasy world that everyone will believe
• Story setting ideas: 6 effective setting examples and tips
• Tags elements of setting , world-building

By Bridget McNulty

Bridget McNulty is a published author, content strategist, writer, editor and speaker. She is the co-founder of two non-profits: Sweet Life Diabetes Community, South Africa's largest online diabetes community, and the Diabetes Alliance, a coalition of all the organisations working in diabetes in South Africa. She is also the co-founder of Now Novel: an online novel-writing course where she coaches aspiring writers to start - and finish! - their novels. Bridget believes in the power of storytelling to create meaningful change.

3 replies on “Elements of setting: How to create a vivid world”

This is the factor that will bring the world that you created to your readers, connecting them to it. That is why you need to put more effort into making your setting come alive.

If you don’t mind, I want to know your thoughts about this blog: https://gregvanarsdale.com/guide-to-creating-vivid-setting-for-your-fiction/

I will surely appreciate your opinions.

Hi Lydia, thank you for sharing that. I would say it could use a little further editing for paragraph structure and length, as well as more headings. Clarity and argument could be tweaked a little too, but it’s on its way.

[…] elements of a setting listed differently depending on where you look. For example, in the article, What are the 4 Key Elements of Setting? By Bridget McNulty, they are listed as time, place, mood, and context. The article, Discover the […]

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The Complete Guide to Creative Writing: Master Storytelling, Craft Characters, and Unleash Your Creativity

Ever dreamed of crafting captivating narratives that transport readers to new worlds and stay with them long after the final page?

Do you yearn to breathe life into unforgettable characters and weave intricate plots that keep readers on the edge of their seats? If so, then unlock your inner storyteller with this comprehensive guide to mastering the art of creative writing!

Whether you’re a budding author seeking to lay the groundwork for your first novel or a seasoned writer looking to refine your craft, this guide equips you with the knowledge and tools you need to take your storytelling to the next level.

Table of Contents

Key Takeaways

• Engage in creative writing exercises to enhance imagination and writing skills
• Develop well-defined characters with authentic personas and meaningful relationships
• To bring the setting to life and set the mood, use specific descriptions and sensory details
• Craft compelling dialogue to reveal subtext, create tension, and develop memorable characters

Understanding the Basics of Creative Writing

To be a successful writer, you need to understand the basics of creative writing. You can improve your imagination and writing skills by doing creative writing exercises .

Try exercises like giving colors personalities or imagining superpowers to boost your creativity .

To improve your writing, focus on using metaphors and literary devices to make it better.

Finding inspiration in everyday life is also crucial for creative writing. To be more creative, you can ask questions and analyze writing . You can also use personal journals to connect with your emotions and experiences .

When you write about things you love, like food or travel, it adds passion and authenticity to your work.

Reading like a writer is important for creative writing. It helps you learn different writing styles, vocabulary, and storytelling.

Elements of Creative Writing

Explore the vibrant characters that bring your creative writing to life. In any story, characters are important. It’s essential to develop them in a captivating way for readers.

Creative writing prompts can help you create characters with interesting traits and quirks.

You can test your characters and their growth by creating various storylines.

Using symbolism in stories adds depth and meaning, helping readers comprehend the work.

Use methods to describe settings and characters in a way that makes them come alive. This will immerse readers in your world.

Research is important in creative writing . It makes your story authentic and credible.

When you include these elements, your writing will be memorable and stand out to readers.

The Art of Character Development

Bring your creations to life with skillful character development. Exploring your characters intricately leads to captivating narratives for your readers.

Here are some key elements to consider when developing your characters:

• Character motivations : Understanding what drives your characters will help you create authentic and relatable personas. Explore their desires, fears, and goals to add depth to their actions and decisions.
• Character arcs : Crafting a well-defined character arc allows your characters to grow and change throughout the story. Consider their starting point, the challenges they face, and how they evolve as a result.
• Character relationships : The dynamics between characters can add richness to your storytelling. Develop meaningful connections, whether they be friendships, rivalries, or romances, that contribute to the overall narrative.
• Character flaws : Imperfections make characters more realistic and relatable. Give your characters flaws that they must grapple with, allowing for personal growth and conflict within the story.
• Character descriptions : Paint a vivid picture of your characters through detailed descriptions. From physical appearances to unique personality traits, these details help readers visualize and connect with your characters.

The Importance of Setting in Creative Writing

Setting is more than just a backdrop; it can be a character in itself. Through thoughtful setting selection and description, you can set the desired tone and atmosphere for your story, be it a murder mystery or tranquility.

The setting enhances your writing’s mood. Whether it’s a dark and foreboding forest or a bright and bustling city, the ambiance of the setting can evoke specific emotions in your readers.

The setting defines both time and place in your story. Specific details like architecture and clothing styles transport readers to different eras and locations.

Techniques for describing the setting include using sensory details, such as sights, sounds, and smells, to paint a vivid picture in your readers’ minds. Using figurative language, such as similes and metaphors, can help create a stronger and more evocative image of the setting.

Crafting Compelling Dialogue

You can create compelling dialogue by using a personal pronoun and a coordinating conjunction. Develop authentic characters by giving each one a unique voice and speech pattern. This will establish their personality and make their dialogue more natural.

Craft compelling conflict by using dialogue to reveal subtext and create tension between characters. Show what’s left unsaid, and build scenes that leave the reader wanting resolution.

Use dialogue to establish unique voices and reflect each character’s personality. This will make them more memorable and relatable.

Remember that dialogue should always move the story forward , reveal character information, and help the reader understand the relationships between characters.

The Role of Conflict in Storytelling

The conflict plays a crucial role in storytelling, shaping the narrative and creating tension for the reader.

There are various types of conflicts in storytelling, such as internal conflicts within a character or external conflicts between characters or with their surroundings.

These conflicts are essential because they contribute to the character’s development by challenging their beliefs, values, and motivations.

Conflict also drives the plot in storytelling, as it presents obstacles and challenges that the characters must overcome.

Resolving conflicts in creative writing is important because it allows for character growth and resolution of the story’s central conflict.

To create realistic conflicts, writers must consider the characters’ goals, desires, and fears, ensuring that the conflicts are relatable and believable.

Mastering Show, Don’t Tell

To master creative writing, grasp and apply the ‘show, don’t tell’ rule . By utilizing effective storytelling techniques , you can engage the reader and create immersive experiences that enhance narrative depth.

Showing instead of telling allows you to develop nuanced characters, giving them life and depth through their actions and dialogue. It paints a vivid picture, immersing readers in the story alongside the characters.

By using sensory details and descriptive language, you can transport the reader into the world you’ve created, making the story come alive in their minds.

Creative Writing Styles Examples

Crafting compelling characters and employing various literary devices are crucial components of creative writing styles and techniques.

To enhance your creative writing skills, there are several methods you can explore:

• Descriptive Writing: This style focuses on vividly describing people, places, or things, allowing the reader to visualize the scene without effort.
• Narrative Writing: In this style, writers tell a story, usually in a chronological order, creating engaging plots and characters.
• Poetry: A creative style that uses rhythm, rhyme, and metaphor to convey emotions, ideas, or stories in a condensed and artistic form.
• Expository Writing: This style aims to inform and explain, often found in essays, articles, and non-fiction books, presenting facts and information clearly.
• Dialogue Writing: Writers use this style to bring conversations to life, capturing the voices and interactions of characters in a story.

Writing exercises enhance storytelling skills. Experiment with different techniques, such as stream of consciousness or nonlinear narratives, to add freshness and creativity to your writing.

Understanding story structures , such as the hero’s journey or the three-act structure, can provide a framework for your story and keep readers engaged. Exploring character archetypes can help you create well-rounded and relatable characters.

Lastly, incorporating symbolism in storytelling can add depth and layers of meaning to your work. These techniques elevate your writing and captivate readers.

The Process of Plot Development

Developing a solid plot for your story requires careful planning and a clear understanding of the narrative structure. To truly captivate your audience, consider the following:

• Developing Conflict : Introduce opposing forces or goals that create tension and drive the story forward. Explore internal conflicts within your characters, adding depth to their journey.
• Creating Suspense : Strategically reveal information to keep the reader guessing and engaged. Utilize cliffhangers and foreshadowing to maintain a sense of anticipation.
• Plot Twists : Surprise your readers with unexpected turns that challenge their assumptions. Ensure that plot twists are believable and enhance the overall story.
• Character Arcs : Develop multidimensional characters who undergo personal growth and transformation. Show how their experiences and actions shape their journey throughout the plot.

Techniques for Creating Suspense and Tension

Foreshadowing and cliffhangers create suspense, keeping readers engaged and on edge.

One technique for building anticipation is creating conflict within your story. Introduce opposing goals or conflicting characters that will keep the protagonist’s desires from being easily achieved.

Another technique is manipulating pacing. Alternate between fast-paced and slower-paced chapters to keep the tension mounting.

Craft immersive experiences for your readers by engaging all their senses and creating a vivid world they can get lost in.

Use language strategically to convey the desired tone and atmosphere. Choose words that evoke emotion and heighten tension in your writing.

The Power of Perspective in Creative Writing

When writing creatively, you can explore the power of perspective by viewing the world through multiple lenses and weaving together different narratives.

• Narrative perspective: The way a story is told can greatly impact the reader’s experience. By experimenting with different narrative perspectives, such as first-person, second-person, and third-person, you can shape the reader’s perception of the events and characters in your story.
• Shifting viewpoints: Switching between different characters’ perspectives allows you to delve into their unique thoughts, emotions, and motivations. This adds depth to your story and helps the reader develop a more comprehensive understanding of the narrative.
• Character perception: Each character in your story will have their own perception of the world around them. Exploring how different characters interpret events and interact with each other can create rich and dynamic relationships within your story.
• Emotional interpretation: Perspective plays a crucial role in how emotions are conveyed in your writing. By adopting different viewpoints, you can explore how emotions are experienced and expressed by different characters, adding complexity and authenticity to your story.
• Reader engagement: The power of perspective lies in its ability to engage and captivate readers. By offering diverse viewpoints and allowing readers to see the world through different eyes, you can create a more immersive and thought-provoking reading experience.

Exploring Different Genres in Creative Writing

How can you effectively explore different genres in your creative writing? To expand your repertoire, consider delving into genre exploration. For instance, historical fiction allows you to transport readers to different time periods, bringing history to life through compelling characters and narratives.

Engaging in writing exercises like flash fiction can help you develop concise storytelling skills while experimenting with different themes and genres. Using creative writing prompts, such as fantasy worldbuilding, can spark your imagination and enable you to construct intricate and immersive fictional worlds.

If you’re interested in exploring the depths of the human psyche, try your hand at character analysis in a psychological thriller.

Don’t shy away from craft techniques like experimental poetry, where you can push the boundaries of language and form to create unique and thought-provoking pieces.

Utilizing Imagery and Symbolism

Immerse readers in powerful imagery to enhance the symbolism in your writing. Use descriptive language for an immersive experience.

Experiment with symbolism analysis by incorporating symbolic elements that represent deeper meanings or themes in your writing. Engage in creative writing exercises that challenge you to incorporate symbolism and imagery in unique and thought-provoking ways.

Expand your repertoire of literary tools by using metaphorical expressions that add layers of meaning to your writing.

Remember to write with sensory details, appealing to your readers’ senses and making your writing come alive in their minds.

Tips for Overcoming Writer’s Block

When you find yourself stuck, creative prompts can serve as a catalyst to generate ideas and inspiration.

Overcoming perfectionism is crucial; allow yourself to write freely and without judgment.

Sometimes, changing environments can provide a fresh perspective and stimulate your creativity.

Incorporating mindfulness techniques, such as meditation and deep breathing, can help you relax and focus your mind.

Seeking feedback and collaboration can also be beneficial; join writing groups or share your work with trusted individuals for constructive criticism and support.

Revision Editing and Proofreading Techniques for Creative Writing

To improve your creative writing, start by revising, editing, and proofreading your work using various techniques. Here are some revision and editing strategies to enhance your writing:

• Experiment with different revision techniques to refine your work and make it stronger.
• Try reading your work aloud to identify any awkward phrasing or errors.
• Use the ‘cut and paste’ method to rearrange scenes or paragraphs for better flow.
• Take a break from your manuscript and come back to it with fresh eyes.
• Seek collaborative feedback to gain different perspectives and improve your writing.
• Join writing groups or workshops to receive constructive criticism and suggestions.
• Work with skilled editors or writing coaches who can provide valuable insights.
• Value the importance of collaboration in refining and perfecting your work.
• Develop a distinctive voice to captivate readers and create a memorable reading experience.
• Ensure your characters’ voices reflect their background, beliefs, and values.
• Pay attention to word choice and language to create a unique and engaging voice.
• Aim for an emotional and storytelling drive in your writing.

The Role of Feedback in Creative Writing

Feedback techniques play a crucial role in honing your writing abilities. When giving constructive criticism, focus on providing specific, actionable suggestions aligned with the writer’s goals.

It does not tell the recipient ‘you are bad’ or ‘I am better’. Rather, it is driven by an ethos of ‘let’s make this stronger, together’. https://www.nownovel.com/blog/constructive-writing-feedback/

Start with positive elements before addressing areas that need improvement.

By incorporating the peer review process, you can receive valuable insights from fellow writers. Receiving feedback gracefully is essential.

Assess the tone of the feedback, ignore mean-spirited comments, and detach yourself from the feedback by pretending it’s for another author. Look for supporting statements and examples that can help you grow as a writer.

Clearly state the type of feedback you’re seeking upfront and disregard feedback that doesn’t align with your specific needs.

Incorporating feedback effectively is the key to enhancing your creative writing skills.

Understanding the Publishing Process

Understanding the publishing process is vital. Here are key points to consider:

• The publishing industry in the digital age : The rise of digital platforms has changed the way books are published and consumed. E-books and self-publishing have gained popularity, offering authors more control over their work. Traditional publishing still has its advantages, such as wider distribution and professional editing.
• The role of literary agents in the publishing process : Literary agents act as intermediaries between authors and publishers, helping authors find the right publishing opportunities. They negotiate contracts, provide editorial guidance, and help build the author’s career.
• Challenges faced by first-time authors in getting published : Competition is fierce, and publishers receive countless submissions. Building a strong author platform and networking can increase chances of getting noticed. Rejection is common, but persistence is key.
• The future of book publishing in a changing market : Technology will continue to shape the industry, with the rise of audiobooks and immersive reading experiences. Self-publishing will continue to grow, giving authors more opportunities to get their work out there. Adapting to changing reader preferences and embracing new technologies will be crucial for success.

The Impact of Digital Media on Creative Writing

While digital media has transformed the landscape of creative writing, it has also presented new opportunities and challenges for writers like you.

One major impact is the emergence of online communities, where writers can connect, share ideas, and receive feedback on their work. These communities provide a supportive environment for writers to grow and improve their craft.

Interactive storytelling has become more prevalent , allowing readers to actively engage with the narrative and shape the outcome. Digital storytelling platforms have also revolutionized the way stories are told, with multimedia elements enhancing the reader’s experience.

Writing in the digital age has opened up online publishing opportunities, giving writers the chance to reach a global audience and showcase their work in new and exciting ways.

Exploring Careers in Creative Writing

If you’re passionate about creative writing, there are various career paths you can explore. Here are some options to consider:

• Fiction Writer : Understanding the basics of storytelling, character development, and the importance of setting. Crafting compelling dialogue and narrative arcs to engage readers.
• Screenwriter : Learning the art of visual storytelling and scriptwriting. Developing strong characters and creating captivating dialogue for film or television.
• Playwright : Mastering the techniques of dramatic writing and stagecraft. Creating dialogue that brings characters to life on the stage.

Exploring these careers in creative writing will allow you to express your creativity, engage with audiences, and bring your stories to life in various mediums.

Books for Improving Your Creative Writing Skills

Check out these recommended books that cover a wide range of topics to help you become a better writer.

Whether you want to understand character development, craft compelling dialogue, explore different genres, overcome writer’s block, or learn effective revision techniques, these books have got you covered.

These books offer valuable insights, practical tips, and techniques to help you improve your creative writing skills. So, whether you’re struggling with character development, dialogue, finding your writing style, or just need some inspiration, pick up one of these books and take your writing to the next level. Don’t let writer’s block hold you back—unlock your creativity and unleash your potential with these essential resources.

Further reading

Once you have finished reading the recommended books, you can delve deeper into the world of creative writing with these additional resources.

Here are some further resources to help you enhance your writing skills:

• Online writing communities : Joining online writing communities can provide you with valuable feedback, support, and inspiration from fellow writers.
• Creative writing workshops : Participating in creative writing workshops can help you refine your craft, learn new techniques, and receive expert guidance.
• Writing prompts : Utilize writing prompts to spark your creativity and challenge yourself to write in different styles and genres.

These resources won’t only expand your knowledge of creative writing but also provide you with opportunities to connect with other writers and gain valuable insights from experienced professionals.

Keep exploring and honing your skills to become the best writer you can be.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can i find inspiration for my creative writing.

Try unconventional sources like nature or everyday objects. Use visual prompts to spark your imagination. Draw inspiration from your travel experiences, music, and childhood memories.

What Are Some Common Mistakes to Avoid in Creative Writing?

When writing creatively, be mindful of common misconceptions, such as overusing cliches. Don’t neglect character development, maintain consistent pacing, and execute dialogue effectively. Avoid these mistakes to enhance your creative writing skills.

How Do I Develop a Unique Writing Style?

To develop a unique writing style, experiment with structure, explore different genres, embrace personal experiences, incorporate vivid imagery, and balance dialogue and narrative. These techniques will help you to stand out and create a distinct voice in your writing.

What Are Some Effective Strategies for Self-Editing and Revising My Work?

To effectively self-edit and revise your work , use proofreading techniques, seek peer feedback, utilize grammar checkers, follow an editing checklist, and employ revision strategies. These methods will help refine and improve your writing.

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Eduardo Carvalho

Eduardo has been teaching creative writing since 2020 at a Brazilian publishing house and created the Driven Writer website to help more people with writing tips. He has written the novel Over the river with a releasing date somewhere in 2024.

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• Writing Prompts

150+ Story Starters: Creative Sentences To Start A Story

The most important thing about writing is finding a good idea . You have to have a great idea to write a story. You have to be able to see the whole picture before you can start to write it. Sometimes, you might need help with that. Story starters are a great way to get the story rolling. You can use them to kick off a story, start a character in a story or even start a scene in a story.

When you start writing a story, you need to have a hook. A hook can be a character or a plot device. It can also be a setting, something like “A young man came into a bar with a horse.” or a setting like “It was the summer of 1969, and there were no cell phones.” The first sentence of a story is often the hook. It can also be a premise or a situation, such as, “A strange old man in a black cloak was sitting on the train platform.”

Story starters are a way to quickly get the story going. They give the reader a place to start reading your story. Some story starters are obvious, and some are not. The best story starters are the ones that give the reader a glimpse into the story. They can be a part of a story or a part of a scene. They can be a way to show the reader the mood of a story. If you want to start a story, you can use a simple sentence. You can also use a question or an inspirational quote. In this post, we have listed over 150 story starters to get your story started with a bang! A great way to use these story starters is at the start of the Finish The Story game .

If you want more story starters, check out this video on some creative story starter sentences to use in your stories:

150+ Creative Story Starters

Here is a list of good sentences to start a story with:

• I’ve read about a million stories about princesses but never thought I could ever be one.
• There was once a man who was very old, but he was wise. He lived for a very long time, and he was very happy.
• What is the difference between a man and a cat? A cat has nine lives.
• In the middle of the night, a boy is running through the woods.
• It is the end of the world.
• He knew he was not allowed to look into the eyes of the princess, but he couldn’t help himself.
• The year is 1893. A young boy was running away from home.
• What if the Forest was actually a magical portal to another dimension, the Forest was a portal to the Otherworld?
• In the Forest, you will find a vast number of magical beings of all sorts. 
• It was the middle of the night, and the forest was quiet. No bugs or animals disturbed the silence. There were no birds, no chirping. 
• If you wish to stay in the Forest, you will need to follow these rules: No one shall leave the Forest. No one shall enter. No one shall take anything from the Forest.
• “It was a terrible day,” said the old man in a raspy voice.
• A cat is flying through the air, higher and higher, when it happens, and the cat doesn’t know how it got there, how it got to be in the sky.
• I was lying in the woods, and I was daydreaming.
• The Earth is a world of wonders. 
• The fairy is the most amazing creature I have ever met.
• A young girl was sitting on a tree stump at the edge of a river when she noticed a magical tree growing in the water.
• My dancing rat is dressed in a jacket, a tie and glasses, which make him look like a person. 
• In the darkness of the night, I am alone, but I know that I am not. 
• Owls are the oldest, and most intelligent, of all birds.
• My name is Reyna, and I am a fox. 
• The woman was drowning.
• One day, he was walking in the forest.
• It was a dark and stormy night…
• There was a young girl who could not sleep…
• A boy in a black cape rode on a white horse…
• A crazy old man in a black cloak was sitting in the middle of the street…
• The sun was setting on a beautiful summer day…
• The dog was restless…”
• There was a young boy in a brown coat…
• I met a young man in the woods…
• In the middle of a dark forest…
• The young girl was at home with her family…
• There was a young man who was sitting on a …
• A young man came into a bar with a horse…
• I have had a lot of bad dreams…
• He was a man who wanted to be king…
• It was the summer of 1969, and there were no cell phones.
• I know what you’re thinking. But no, I don’t want to be a vegetarian. The worst part is I don’t like the taste.
• She looked at the boy and decided to ask him why he wasn’t eating. She didn’t want to look mean, but she was going to ask him anyway.
• The song played on the radio, as Samual wiped away his tears.
• This was the part when everything was about to go downhill. But it didn’t…
• “Why make life harder for yourself?” asked Claire, as she bit into her apple.
• She made a promise to herself that she would never do it.
• I was able to escape.
• I was reading a book when the accident happened.
• “I can’t stand up for people who lie and cheat.” I cried.
• You look at me and I feel beautiful.
• I know what I want to be when I grow up.
• We didn’t have much money. But we knew how to throw a good party.
• The wind blew on the silent streets of London.
• What do you get when you cross an angry bee and my sister?
• The flight was slow and bumpy. I was half asleep when the captain announced we were going down.
• At the far end of the city was a river that was overgrown with weeds. 
• It was a quiet night in the middle of a busy week.
• One afternoon, I was eating a sandwich in the park when I spotted a stranger.
• In the late afternoon, a few students sat on the lawn reading.
• The fireflies were dancing in the twilight as the sunset.
• In the early evening, the children played in the park.
• The sun was setting and the moon was rising.
• A crowd gathered in the square as the band played.
• The top of the water tower shone in the moonlight.
• The light in the living room was on, but the light in the kitchen was off.
•  When I was a little boy, I used to make up stories about the adventures of these amazing animals, creatures, and so on. 
• All of the sudden, I realized I was standing in the middle of an open field surrounded by nothing but wildflowers, and the only thing I remembered about it was that I’d never seen a tree before.
• It’s the kind of thing that’s only happened to me once before in my life, but it’s so cool to see it.
• They gave him a little wave as they drove away.
• The car had left the parking lot, and a few hours later we arrived home.
• They were going to play a game of bingo.
• He’d made up his mind to do it. He’d have to tell her soon, though. He was waiting for a moment when they were alone and he could say it without feeling like an idiot. But when that moment came, he couldn’t think of anything to say.
• Jamie always wanted to own a plane, but his parents were a little tight on the budget. So he’d been saving up to buy one of his own. 
• The night was getting colder, and the wind was blowing in from the west.
• The doctor stared down at the small, withered corpse.
• She’d never been in the woods before, but she wasn’t afraid.
• The kids were having a great time in the playground.
• The police caught the thieves red-handed.
• The world needs a hero more than ever.
• Mother always said, “Be good and nice things will happen…”
• There is a difference between what you see and what you think you see.
• The sun was low in the sky and the air was warm.
• “It’s time to go home,” she said, “I’m getting a headache.”
• It was a cold winter’s day, and the snow had come early.
• I found a wounded bird in my garden.
• “You should have seen the look on my face.”
• He opened the door and stepped back.
• My father used to say, “All good things come to an end.”
• The problem with fast cars is that they break so easily.
• “What do you think of this one?” asked Mindy.
• “If I asked you to do something, would you do it?” asked Jacob.
• I was surprised to see her on the bus.
• I was never the most popular one in my class.
• We had a bad fight that day.
• The coffee machine had stopped working, so I went to the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea.
• It was a muggy night, and the air-conditioning unit was so loud it hurt my ears.
• I had a sleepless night because I couldn’t get my head to turn off.
• I woke up at dawn and heard a horrible noise.
• I was so tired I didn’t know if I’d be able to sleep that night.
• I put on the light and looked at myself in the mirror.
• I decided to go in, but the door was locked.
• A man in a red sweater stood staring at a little kitten as if it was on fire.
• “It’s so beautiful,” he said, “I’m going to take a picture.”
• “I think we’re lost,” he said, “It’s all your fault.”
• It’s hard to imagine what a better life might be like
• He was a tall, lanky man, with a long face, a nose like a pin, and a thin, sandy moustache.
• He had a face like a lion’s and an eye like a hawk’s.
• The man was so broad and strong that it was as if a mountain had been folded up and carried in his belly.
• I opened the door. I didn’t see her, but I knew she was there.
• I walked down the street. I couldn’t help feeling a little guilty.
• I arrived at my parents’ home at 8:00 AM.
• The nurse had been very helpful.
• On the table was an array of desserts.
• I had just finished putting the last of my books in the trunk.
• A car horn honked, startling me.
• The kitchen was full of pots and pans.
• There are too many things to remember.
• The world was my oyster. I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth.
•  “My grandfather was a World War II veteran. He was a decorated hero who’d earned himself a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and a Purple Heart.
• Beneath the menacing, skeletal shadow of the mountain, a hermit sat on his ledge. His gnarled hands folded on his gnarled knees. His eyes stared blankly into the fog. 
• I heard a story about a dragon, who was said to be the size of a house, that lived on the top of the tallest mountain in the world.
•  I was told a story about a man who found a golden treasure, which was buried in this very park.
• He stood alone in the middle of a dark and silent room, his head cocked to one side, the brown locks of his hair, which were parted in the middle, falling down over his eyes.
•  Growing up, I was the black sheep of the family. I had my father’s eyes, but my mother’s smile.
• Once upon a time, there was a woman named Miss Muffett, and she lived in a big house with many rooms.
• When I was a child, my mother told me that the water looked so bright because the sun was shining on it. I did not understand what she meant at the time.    
•  The man in the boat took the water bottle and drank from it as he paddled away.
• The man looked at the child with a mixture of pity and contempt.
• An old man and his grandson sat in their garden. The old man told his grandson to dig a hole. 
• An old woman was taking a walk on the beach. The tide was high and she had to wade through the water to get to the other side.
• She looked up at the clock and saw that it was five minutes past seven.
• The man looked up from the map he was studying. “How’s it going, mate?”
• I was in my room on the third floor, staring out of the window.
• A dark silhouette of a woman stood in the doorway.
• The church bells began to ring.
• The moon rose above the horizon.
• A bright light shone over the road.
• The night sky began to glow.
• I could hear my mother cooking in the kitchen.
• The fog began to roll in.
• He came in late to the class and sat at the back.
• A young boy picked up a penny and put it in his pocket.
• He went to the bathroom and looked at his face in the mirror.
• It was the age of wisdom and the age of foolishness. We once had everything and now we have nothing.
• A young man died yesterday, and no one knows why.
• The boy was a little boy. He was not yet a man. He lived in a house in a big city.
• They had just returned from the theatre when the phone rang.
• I walked up to the front of the store and noticed the neon sign was out.
• I always wondered what happened to Mary.
• I stopped to say hello and then walked on.
• The boy’s mother didn’t want him to play outside…
• The lights suddenly went out…
• After 10 years in prison, he was finally out.
• The raindrops pelted the window, which was set high up on the wall, and I could see it was a clear day outside.
• My friend and I had just finished a large pizza, and we were about to open our second.
• I love the smell of the ocean, but it never smells as good as it does when the waves are crashing.
• They just stood there, staring at each other.
• A party was in full swing until the music stopped.

For more ideas on how to start your story, check out these first-line writing prompts . Did you find this list of creative story starters useful? Let us know in the comments below!

Marty the wizard is the master of Imagine Forest. When he's not reading a ton of books or writing some of his own tales, he loves to be surrounded by the magical creatures that live in Imagine Forest. While living in his tree house he has devoted his time to helping children around the world with their writing skills and creativity.

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Setting Requirements

Setting is the place and time that a story occurs. It’s the backdrop of the story. Without it, the character(s) are speaking and acting without a sense of living anywhere. So, how is a setting built?

Writers may have their character(s) live in a place that exists in real life, a place in the world or universe that is familiar to the writer or that can be researched by the writer. Also, writers may build a new place and time, an imaginary place in an imaginary world. The location may be rural, a city, or outer space, but it can also be smaller in size like a neighborhood, street, or house.

Part of the location is the geography of the land. It can include coastal areas, mountains, trees, rivers, lakes, plants, meadows, farms, deserts, etc. Wherever the location is, it is connected to the rest of the world or universe; it is not in isolation from other places.

Part of the location is the climate. It can include rain, snow, winds, sun, etc. The temperature may be frigid cold, scorching hot, or somewhere in between. The climate may create harsh conditions for characters, or it may make life easier.

Time has two focal points: the time of year and the time of day. The time of year includes seasons, holidays, or special dates and anniversaries for the characters.

The time of day references morning, afternoon, or evening. Time also shifts over the course of the story. The story may happen in an hour like in “The Story of an Hour” or an afternoon like in “Miss Brill.” It can also happen over a longer period of time like a summer in “The White Heron.”

Historical Significance

Past events may have had an impact on the place.  Wars, famines, prosperity, population, etc. impact communities. Histories of past ancestors (people) or leaders also leave their influences in religion, foods, family values, etc. So although a writer might write in a modern day time period, knowing the background of the history of the setting and people is essential.

As stated previously in Lesson 3, setting can function as a main force that the characters encounter, such as a tornado or flood, or a setting can play a minor role like setting the mood. Often times, the setting can reveal something about the main character as he/she functions in that place and time period.

Introduction to Creative Writing by Lumen Learning is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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• What is Setting in Creative Writing? Elements of Story Writing.
• Self Publishing Guide

Setting in creative writing  is an essential  element of writing  that creates the backdrop for a story. It refers to the physical location, time, and environment in which the story takes place. The setting of a story can be an important aspect that shapes the characters and events of the story. In this blog, we will discuss what setting is and how it can be used effectively in creative writing.

Setting of the Story:

The  setting of a story  can be defined as the time, place, and environment in which the events of the story take place. It can be a specific geographic location, such as a city, country, or even a fictional world. The setting can also include the time period, such as the past, present, or future. Moreover, the setting can include the physical environment, including the climate, terrain, and natural features. let’s explore the concept of setting in creative writing with an example. Consider the following excerpt from  “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee :

“Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square. Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer’s day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men’s stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o’clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.”

Read:  What is Narrative Writing? Here’s a list of Elements in Creative Writing.

In this excerpt, we can see that the setting of the story is Maycomb, a small town in Alabama. The author provides us with vivid descriptions of the town’s physical environment, such as the rainy weather that turns the streets to red slop and the grass growing on the sidewalks. 

We can also see that the setting is in the past, as the author uses phrases such as “when I first knew it” and references to Hoover carts and stiff collars. The author also includes descriptions of the natural features, such as the live oaks on the square, which helps to create a sense of place for the reader.

The setting in this example is an essential element of the story, as it creates a specific atmosphere and mood that complements the events and themes of the story. The description of Maycomb as a tired old town with sagging buildings and sweltering heat helps to establish a sense of the town’s decay and stagnation, which is a central theme of the novel. Additionally, the setting is used to highlight the characters’ emotions and relationships with each other and their environment.

Setting as a Character:

In some stories, the setting can also function as a character. In these cases, the setting takes on a life of its own and influences the events and characters of the story. For example, a story set in a small town with oppressive heat and drought can create a tense and claustrophobic atmosphere that affects the characters’ behavior and choices. let’s explore the concept of setting as a character in creative writing with an example. Consider the following excerpt from “The Shining” by  Stephen King :

“The Overlook Hotel was his own invention, the site being inspired by a dream he had during a family vacation at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. The hotel’s fictional location of Sidewinder, Colorado, is situated on the actual location of Estes Park, where King had stayed with his wife Tabitha in the Stanley Hotel, during the summer of 1974.”

In this example, we can see how the setting of the story – the Overlook Hotel – can function as a character. Throughout the novel, the hotel takes on a life of its own, influencing the events and characters of the story. The hotel’s eerie, isolated location in the Rocky Mountains, along with its history of violence and tragic events, creates a foreboding atmosphere that affects the characters’ behavior and choices. Moreover, the hotel’s supernatural abilities, such as the ability to manipulate time and space, adds to its character-like presence in the story.

The Overlook Hotel’s role as a character is central to the story, as it acts as both a physical and psychological antagonist to the protagonist, Jack Torrance. The hotel’s malevolent influence pushes Jack towards madness and violence, and ultimately drives the story towards its climactic conclusion.

Thus, the concept of setting as a character in creative writing can be a powerful tool to enhance the atmosphere and mood of a story. When executed effectively, it can add depth and complexity to the story’s themes and characters.

Settings of a Book:

The settings of a book can be varied and diverse, depending on the author’s vision and the story’s requirements. A book can be set in a specific location, such as a city or a rural area, or it can be set in a fictional world with unique geography and rules. The time period can also vary, ranging from historical settings to futuristic ones. Moreover, the environment can be a significant factor in the setting, including elements such as weather, climate, and geography.

“Carrie” by Stephen King  is a great example of how setting can be an essential element of story writing. The novel is set in a small town in Maine, where Carrie White, the protagonist, lives with her abusive mother. The story is set in the 1970s and is set against the backdrop of social change and unrest in America.

Read:  A complete guide on how to publish short stories online for free.

The setting of the small town is used to create a sense of isolation and claustrophobia that contributes to the tension and horror of the story. The town is portrayed as a conservative and oppressive community that is intolerant of difference and outsiders. This environment contributes to the development of Carrie’s character as she struggles to find acceptance and connection amidst the town’s hostility.

Moreover, the setting serves as a foil against which the supernatural elements of the story are highlighted. As Carrie’s telekinetic powers develop, the natural elements of the setting, such as weather and geography, become increasingly distorted and threatening. This creates a sense of escalating danger and tension that contributes to the story’s horror.

Therefore, the setting of “Carrie” plays an essential role in shaping the story’s characters and themes, as well as contributing to its mood and atmosphere. The effective use of setting is an important element of story writing that can help to create a memorable and immersive reading experience.

Elements of Story Writing:

Setting is an essential element of story writing, along with plot, characters, theme, and style. It can be used to create a mood or atmosphere that complements the story’s events and themes. The setting can also serve as a backdrop against which the characters’ struggles and conflicts are highlighted. Effective use of setting can help to immerse the reader in the story and make the events and characters feel more real.

Elements of a Short Story:

In a  short story , the setting is often used to create a concise and focused backdrop for the story’s events. The setting can be used to establish the mood, tone, and atmosphere of the story. Moreover, the setting can be used to highlight the characters’ emotions and thoughts, as well as their relationships with each other and their environment.

In conclusion, setting is an essential  element of creative writing  that creates the backdrop for a story. It can be used effectively to create a mood or atmosphere, highlight the characters’ struggles, and make the events and characters feel more real. As such, it is an important element to consider when crafting a story, and its effective use can greatly enhance the reader’s experience. 

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How to Resist the Temptation of AI When Writing

Whether you're a student, a journalist, or a business professional, knowing how to do high-quality research and writing using trustworthy data and sources, without giving in to the temptation of AI or ChatGPT , is a skill worth developing.

As I detail in my book Writing That Gets Noticed , locating credible databases and sources and accurately vetting information can be the difference between turning a story around quickly or getting stuck with outdated information.

For example, several years ago the editor of Parents.com asked for a hot-take reaction to country singer Carrie Underwood saying that, because she was 35, she had missed her chance at having another baby. Since I had written about getting pregnant in my forties, I knew that as long as I updated my facts and figures, and included supportive and relevant peer-reviewed research, I could pull off this story. And I did.

The story ran later that day , and it led to other assignments. Here are some tips I’ve learned that you should consider mastering before you turn to automated tools like generative AI to handle your writing work for you.

Identify experts, peer-reviewed research study authors, and sources who can speak with authority—and ideally, offer easily understood sound bites or statistics on the topic of your work. Great sources include professors at major universities and media spokespeople at associations and organizations.

For example, writer and author William Dameron pinned his recent essay in HuffPost Personal around a statistic from the American Heart Association on how LGBTQ people experience higher rates of heart disease based on discrimination. Although he first found the link in a secondary source (an article in The New York Times ), he made sure that he checked the primary source: the original study that the American Heart Association gleaned the statistic from. He verified the information, as should any writer, because anytime a statistic is cited in a secondary source, errors can be introduced.

Jen Malia, author of  The Infinity Rainbow Club  series of children’s books (whom I recently interviewed on my podcast ), recently wrote a piece about dinosaur-bone hunting for Business Insider , which she covers in her book Violet and the Jurassic Land Exhibit.

After a visit to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Malia, whose books are set in Philadelphia, found multiple resources online and on the museum site that gave her the history of the Bone Wars , information on the exhibits she saw, and the scientific names of the dinosaurs she was inspired by. She also used the Library of Congress’ website, which offers digital collections and links to the Library of Congress Newspaper Collection.

Malia is a fan of searching for additional resources and citable documents with Google Scholar . “If I find that a secondary source mentions a newspaper article, I’m going to go to the original newspaper article, instead of just stopping there and quoting,” she says.

Julian Chokkattu

Brenda Stolyar

Scott Gilbertson

Your local public library is a great source of free information, journals, and databases (even ones that generally require a subscription and include embargoed research). For example, your search should include everything from health databases ( Sage Journals , Scopus , PubMed) to databases for academic sources and journalism ( American Periodical Series Online , Statista , Academic Search Premier ) and databases for news, trends, market research, and polls (t he Harris Poll , Pew Research Center , Newsbank , ProPublica ).

Even if you find a study or paper that you can’t access in one of those databases, consider reaching out to the study’s lead author or researcher. In many cases, they’re happy to discuss their work and may even share the study with you directly and offer to talk about their research.

For journalist Paulette Perhach’s article on ADHD in The New York Times, she used Epic Research to see “dual team studies.” That's when two independent teams address the same topic or question, and ideally come to the same conclusions. She recommends locating research and experts via key associations for your topic. She also likes searching via Google Scholar but advises filtering it for studies and research in recent years to avoid using old data. She suggests keeping your links and research organized. “Always be ready to be peer-reviewed yourself,” Perhach says.

When you are looking for information for a story or project, you might be inclined to start with a regular Google search. But keep in mind that the internet is full of false information, and websites that look trustworthy can sometimes turn out to be businesses or companies with a vested interest in you taking their word as objective fact without additional scrutiny. Regardless of your writing project, unreliable or biased sources are a great way to torpedo your work—and any hope of future work.

Author Bobbi Rebell researched her book Launching Financial Grownups using the IRS’ website . “I might say that you can contribute a certain amount to a 401K, but it might be outdated because those numbers are always changing, and it’s important to be accurate,” she says. “AI and ChatGPT can be great for idea generation,” says Rebell, “but you have to be careful. If you are using an article someone was quoted in, you don’t know if they were misquoted or quoted out of context.”

If you use AI and ChatGPT for sourcing, you not only risk introducing errors, you risk introducing plagiarism—there is a reason OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is being sued for downloading information from all those books.

Audrey Clare Farley, who writes historical nonfiction, has used a plethora of sites for historical research, including Women Also Know History , which allows searches by expertise or area of study, and JSTOR , a digital library database that offers a number of free downloads a month. She also uses Chronicling America , a project from the Library of Congress which gathers old newspapers to show how a historical event was reported, and Newspapers.com (which you can access via free trial but requires a subscription after seven days).

When it comes to finding experts, Farley cautions against choosing the loudest voices on social media platforms. “They might not necessarily be the most authoritative. I vet them by checking if they have a history of publication on the topic, and/or educational credentials.”

When vetting an expert, look for these red flags:

• You can’t find their work published or cited anywhere.
• They were published in an obscure journal.
• Their research is funded by a company, not a university, or they are the spokesperson for the company they are doing research for. (This makes them a public relations vehicle and not an appropriate source for journalism.)

And finally, the best endings for virtually any writing, whether it’s an essay, a research paper, an academic report, or a piece of investigative journalism, circle back to the beginning of the piece, and show your reader the transformation or the journey the piece has presented in perspective.

As always, your goal should be strong writing supported by research that makes an impact without cutting corners. Only then can you explore tools that might make the job a little easier, for instance by generating subheads or discovering a concept you might be missing—because then you'll have the experience and skills to see whether it's harming or helping your work.

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Author Interviews

Don winslow ends trilogy, and his writing career, with final novel 'city in ruins'.

Scott Simon

NPR's Scott Simon talks to best-selling suspense author Don Winslow about what he says is his final novel, "City in Ruins."

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Danny Ryan, who's been a Rhode Island mobster, dockworker and fugitive from the law, is now a pillar of the community in Las Vegas. He's got a palatial home to which good citizens come to pay homage and enjoy his hospitality, his young son he loves and the companionship - well, three times a week, anyway - of an accomplished and compelling woman he respects. What could possibly go wrong? "City In Ruins" is the third and final novel in the bestselling Danny Ryan trilogy by Don Winslow. It follows "City On Fire" and "City Of Dreams," and Don Winslow says quite explicitly, "City Of Ruins" is my final book - no loopholes I could detect. He joins us now from Julian, Calif. Thanks so much for being with us.

DON WINSLOW: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

SIMON: The book opens with an implosion, a famous old Las Vegas hotel, now owned by Danny Ryan, being brought down from the inside. Is implosion a kind of theme for Danny Ryan's life, too?

WINSLOW: Yeah, it sure is. Looking over the arc of these three books, I think we're looking at a certain kind of self-destruction with dynamite, if you will, or explosives that were laid many years earlier on a long fuse, to torture the metaphor, and so implosion's definitely a theme.

SIMON: In earlier books, Danny had used what I'll just refer to as ill-gotten gains from a criminal enterprise to buy his way into a respectable hotel and gaming enterprise. He's got a dream. In fact, a hotel - I guess it's called the Dream in Italian.

WINSLOW: It is. Yeah, Il Sogno.

SIMON: Tell us about this place he wants to bring into being.

WINSLOW: Well, he wants to bring into being a new kind of megahotel where people walk in and it's literally a dream with images shifting constantly on the walls of beauty and action and all kinds of things. And I think it's reflective of his own dream of trying to create a new kind of life for himself and for his son.

SIMON: What stands in the way?

WINSLOW: Well, a number of things. For one thing, this valuable piece of real estate that this old hotel sat on is critical to power on the Las Vegas Strip. And he basically undermines a rival in order to acquire it. And then it turns out that both Danny and this rival have mob ties from the past that each of them is trying to escape and trying to leave behind him, and neither one of them can. And so those things really get in the way of Danny's dream.

SIMON: You've written so many other books over the years, including "Savages," "The Force," "The Cartel," bestsellers made into screen properties. What's kept you coming back to Danny Ryan?

WINSLOW: You know, it took me almost 30 years to complete this trilogy. You know, it's funny. You look back on your life. When I started the Danny Ryan books, my now-adult and married son was a toddler. What I was - set out to do was to write a fully contemporary crime epic that took its stories and characters, however, from the Greek and Roman classics, principally the Aeneid, but also the Odyssey and the Iliad and certain Greek tragic dramas. I kept failing at it. I would write some of the book, and some of it worked, and a lot of it didn't. And so at times, I was discouraged, thinking that either, A, it was a bad idea, or, B, it was a good idea and I didn't have the chops to carry it out. But I kept coming back to it 'cause I couldn't leave it behind. And then later on, a couple of decades down the road - you know, I live mostly in California - I started to go back to Rhode Island, where a lot of the first book is set, and I fell in love with the place again, and I felt that I could write it, perhaps in a better and more mature way than I could have done 20 years earlier.

SIMON: Did you feel a kinship with Danny?

WINSLOW: I think so. You know, I grew up with a lot of Danny'. I played pond hockey with them. I went to the beaches with them, you know, to the bars and restaurants and all kinds of things. So it's funny how little self-awareness you can have. The second volume of this book, "City Of Dreams," is basically Danny wandering the country trying to find a place to set his feet. I was deep into writing the third book before I looked back on the second book and realized how connected I was to Danny in that regard. You know, I left Rhode Island when I was 17 and spent decades wandering not only the country but the world, doing various kinds of jobs trying to make a living, trying without a notable degree of success to become a writer and finally kind of made that happen and found a place, if you will, to set my feet.

SIMON: You mentioned all the jobs you had. You were a private eye in Times Square.

WINSLOW: Yes, sir.

SIMON: Is that as exciting as it sounds, or is it a lot of keyhole peeping?

WINSLOW: (Laughter) Not too much keyhole peeping, thank God. You know, I didn't do what they call matrimonial work. But, no, it was not romantic at all. I was basically what is known as a street rat. And so I started that by investigating embezzlement and thefts in cinemas and legit movie theaters on Times Square - there were a few in those days - and then graduated, if you want to call it that, to being a troll. I would walk around Times Square trying to get mugged, and there were big tough guys, which I am not, behind me jumping in like riders at the rodeo and then eventually chasing runaways and trying to get to them before the pimps did.

SIMON: By the way, not that I'm interested in doing this, how do you arrange to get mugged?

WINSLOW: (Laughter) Well, for one thing, you arrange to be 5'6 and 130 pounds. That helps. And then you walk around looking like you don't know where you're going, like you're a tourist, with a wallet prominently in your back pants pocket.

SIMON: Wow. Sounds like it was indispensable to your literature.

WINSLOW: In some ways. You know, I mean, I think that being a PI, and then later I did it out in California, out here, on a much higher kind of level. But it got me in that world. I got to know cops and crooks and street people and lawyers and judges and courtrooms and all of that. But I think the most important influence it had on my work was in terms of investigation itself. I learned how to do research. I learned how to interview people. And the same skills that I would have used as an investigator are the skills that I brought to researching the novels.

SIMON: All of this steers us to asking about your goodbye. The acknowledgments you write include hundreds of people, parents...

WINSLOW: Yes.

SIMON: ...readers, old teachers...

WINSLOW: Sure.

SIMON: ...Even your agent.

WINSLOW: Especially my agent. Yeah.

SIMON: And as you say, goodbyes are hard. So why are you retiring?

WINSLOW: It's the confluence of two streams, if you will. One is that having finished this trilogy felt like an ending to me. It felt like, yeah, kind of my life's work. The second, though, major stream, and probably more important one, is that I just think that we're at a time in this country of crisis and a time where democracy is under a severe threat. And I think that the response to that needs to be more immediate than one can do in a novel, you know? You know, I'm not young. I'm 70. And I think whatever energies and time I have are better spent in that fight.

SIMON: Don Winslow, his new and insists his last novel, "City In Ruins." Thanks so much for being with us, and thanks for everything.

WINSLOW: Thank you very much. That's gracious of you to say.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CASCADE")

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Concordia Seminary Newsroom

Faith and writing workshop registration opens, event set for july 16-18.

Writers of all abilities are invited to explore the art of creative writing in its various forms, from starting a blog or creating a sermon or devotion, to drafting a story, nonfiction, drama, poetry and everything in between at the Faith and Writing Workshop set for July 16-18 at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis.

The workshop will offer ample time for creative exercises. Participants are encouraged (but not required) to share their own work, as well as favorite works by others.

The workshop will be led by Dr. Travis Scholl, author of Walking the Labyrinth and director of mission integration at Lutheran Senior Services in St. Louis, Mo., and Peter Mead, a Christian editor, publisher and writer.

“We are excited to continue offering our annual Faith and Writing Workshop, which has benefited dozens of writers in the last several years,” said Erika Petsch, director of Continuing Education. “Whether they are just beginning the writing craft or are already published, participants will leave the workshop inspired and ready to continue their journey through the creative writing process.”

The cost of the workshop is $185 per person ($85 for Seminary students) with a maximum of 15 participants. Meals are not included. The registration deadline is July 2.

To register, click here . For more information, contact Continuing Education at 314-505-7286 or [email protected] .

About Concordia Seminary

Concordia Seminary, St. Louis provides Gospel-centered graduate-level theological education for pastors, missionaries, deaconesses, scholars and other leaders in the name of  The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) . To learn more, visit  csl.edu .

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