In the latest in Writer’s Digest‘s series on mistakes writers make, editor Michael Woodson identifies ignoring what you know as a major pitfall. “When I was a writing student, I intentionally made sure never to set my stories in the place where I lived,” Woodson says. “In crafting stories for workshop, I started writing about places that had never been home to me, even some places I’d never visited.”
Essentially, the setting was mere backdrop for the characters to act against. There was little to the story world other than the glimpse that appeared on the page. While this can work for short stories, it can limit longer pieces, as Woodson discovered when he started writing his first novel. “In my years of not studying setting, of not practicing writing place, my novels quickly lost momentum,” he writes.
There’s nothing wrong with writing about a place you’ve never been. Writers do it all the time, most obviously in fantasy and science fiction. But avoiding places you know is limiting and represents a misunderstanding of what fiction can do. “Writing fiction does not mean every element is of a world that didn’t exist before you put pen to paper,” Woodson writes. “Fiction is often a reflection of what is real, and what better way to convey that than with the very real things in your own life?”
Once he started using real-life details of familiar places, Woodson’s writing improved. He suggests a few ways to write what you know about setting:
- Focus on one aspect. “I live in a four-seasons state,” Woodson says. “Sometimes, the only aspect of setting I incorporate is how I know autumn feels, or the difference between a hot summer day and a humid summer day.”
- Use something familiar as a plot point. “Where I live, we have an enormous three-day festival of light and art that attracts thousands and thousands of people to the downtown area,” Woodson writes. “A story I recently wrote was set at this festival, and the details of all the art installations and light shows were a true treasure trove of inspiration.”
- Go all in. “Don’t be afraid to surround your fiction with what you know, with the tangible reality you experience every day,” Woodson says. “This won’t suddenly turn your work into nonfiction or memoir—it simply makes your story more believable, gives your characters more depth and purpose, and makes your story stronger.”
