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How To Write A Book: Where's Your Story Set?

Fundamental to how to write a book is the decision of setting. If you're writing non-fiction it's been decided for you. But with fiction, you have an important decision to make. The place is often a character in itself. Ask yourself 3 Questions:

Does your plot need a place? Ocean? Subway? Secluded cabin?

What energy does your story need? Frenetic? (Tokyo) Bucolic? (Geneva, IL) Glamorous? (Montenegro) Not that Tokyo isn't glamorous, but you get my meaning.

Does your ideal reader want to spend time there?

If your story started in your headset in Loveland Colorado because you went to Junior High there (I did, shout out to Bill Read JH!) it doesn't have to stay here. Would it be more compelling or attractive to your ideal reader if you switched location? 

Explore the world with your imagination before you decide because it won't be as easy as searching/replacing the town name once you've written your manuscript. The setting influences what characters say, wear, and do. Or they should if you're really transporting your reader into your story.

"My location isn't important because my reader will use their imagination." Or they won't and your story is in danger of feeling like an intellectual exercise to your reader.

I was drawn to Venice because it isn't a place that anyone can ignore. It is to be navigated and turns you in directions that best suit its network of bridges and capriciously floods with the acqua alta and then you're sloshing through the grocery store in knee-high boots...can you picture the place?

Now. Where are you taking me?

-- Anna Erikssön Bendewald 



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