Writing help

How to get setting ideas

How do you choose a story's setting?
You can choose the setting because it's familiar to you, or because it's interesting, or because it adds something specific to your story's conflict.
You can also use your characters to get setting ideas. Here are some questions to help.
Character Setting Questionnaire:
- What kind of home and neighborhood did you imagine for your character?
- What are some of the items in your character's refrigerator? What's on your character's bookshelves? Is there anything under your character's bed? What's in your character's night table drawers?
- Where has your character lived in the past? What kind of environment do you think your character grew up in?
- What are your character's cultural roots?
- What kind of schools did your character attend?
- Did your character ever go to summer camp?
- What is your character's workplace like?
- If your character is married, did he or she go on a honeymoon, and where?
- If your character is married, where do his or her in-laws live? What is their home like?
- Where does your character go to relax? Where does your character go when he or she feels lonely?
- Does your character have a secret place or a place where s/he goes to escape from her/his problems?
- What's a place where your character feels extremely uncomfortable? A place where your character behaves badly?
- What's a place your character has always wanted to visit? Would this place meet your character's expectations?
The answers to many of these questions can give you ideas for new story conflicts! A setting idea can become a story idea when it creates a problem of some kind for your character.
You can even leave "booby traps" in your setting and see if they turn into new story ideas. For example, if you set your story about a camping trip in a swamp where alligators live, maybe one of those alligators will creep up to your character's tent and create a story conflict. Or if you set your story in a hunting lodge with a cabinet full of guns in the bar, maybe someone will produce a story conflict by getting drunk and then picking up a gun.