Crafting Novels & Short Stories by James Scott Bell

Author:James Scott Bell [Bell, James Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Creative Writing, нонфикшн
ISBN: 978-1-59963-573-6
Publisher: Writer’s Digest Books
Published: 2011-04-29T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter 21

REFINE YOUR SETTING SKILL SET

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BY BRIAN KITELEY

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What makes the location of a story vivid is what makes it human. Faulkner’s Mississippi is humid, subtropical, and dark green with red dirt, but its scars of slavery and a lost war can’t be described, yet can’t be avoided.

The town I grew up in was a dying mill town that had a college for women in its midst. When I left for college in 1974, The Insider’s Guide to the Colleges complained that Northampton closed shop at six in the evening, and all that stayed open after that was the Dunkin’ Donuts. By 1984, that was a laughable statement. When the drinking age was briefly lowered to 18 in the early 1970s, the town began to flourish as a magnet for young people who were no longer in college (bars began to cater to Smith College students, as well as these newcomers). Now Northampton is cool, an epicenter of food, music, and the arts, with a substantial lesbian population.

Get to know your hometown—or your hometowns. Do research. Go out and interview people: friends, family and the person who was mayor ten years ago. You write best about the places you know best, but you may not know your own locales as well as you think.

Here are some exercises and prompts to get you thinking about the art of crafting a strong setting in any type of town.

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