[Link] How to Use Weather to Create Mood, Not Clichés

by Angela Ackerman

Are you afraid of using the weather in your writing? If so, you’re not alone. After all, if not careful, weather description can be a minefield of clichés. The sunny, cloudless afternoon at the beach. The gloomy rainstorm at a funeral. Overdone setting and weather pairings can lie flat on the page.

Then there’s the danger that comes with using weather to mirror a character’s inner emotional landscape. Mishandling this technique can quickly create melodrama. We’ve all read a battle scene where lightning crackles as our protagonist leaps forward to hack down his foe in desperation. And how about that turbulent teen breakup where the character’s tears mix with falling rain? Unfortunately these have been used so much that most readers tilt their head and think, Really? when they read a description like this.

Agents and editors on first page panels never fail to reject a few openings that start with the weather, either. Why? Because done poorly, it comes across like a weather report, and delays the introduction of the hero. Readers are not always patient and we should strive to introduce our characters and what they are up against as soon as possible.

Wow, weather sounds like a recipe for disaster, doesn’t it? It’s no wonder that some writers are so nervous about using it they cut it from their manuscript. But here’s the thing…avoiding weather in fiction can be a fatal mistake.

Read the full article: https://writershelpingwriters.net/2025/09/use-weather-to-create-mood/

[Link] A 5-Minute Fix for a Blah Scene

by Janice Hardy

Sometimes the best fix isn’t changing what characters say—it’s changing where they say it.

This might be sacrilegious as a science fiction and fantasy writer, but I dislike writing description—especially settings. I’m more of a dialogue and action gal, and my first drafts (okay, sometimes second drafts as well), have a lot of “white room” scenes, where nothing about the setting is mentioned. This was a big problem in my early writing days, since SFF readers enjoy the world building and setting and all the things I had to slog through to write.

I got feedback such as:

• I can’t picture the setting
• Where is this happening? Could they interact more with the room?
• I feel unanchored, and there’s no sense of place

All of it was justified, and after a lot of reading, learning, and forcing myself to just do it, I found a way to enjoy writing setting descriptors.

I stopped thinking of setting as decoration and started using it as a storytelling tool.

Setting works best when it does something—not when it just sits there.

A vivid location can add atmosphere, but an active setting can add pressure to a ticking clock, reveal emotion a character is struggling with, and shape the choices that character makes. It becomes part of the story, not just where the story takes place.

Read the full article: http://blog.janicehardy.com/2020/08/a-5-minute-fix-for-blah-scene.html

Globe Trotting (Writing Multiple Settings)

Let's talk about settings. Not setting, as in the singular, but settings, such as when you bounce your characters all over the place to tell your story. 

Do you have a sort of "master setting" you tend to use and then sprinkle it full of "little settings" such as how Batman's Gotham City has Crime Alley, the waterfront, etc.? How does this approach work for you?

Brian K Morris: My early work was peppered with planting the story in a spot and leaving it there until I came back to take it home for dinner.

Sheela Chattopadhyay: In my characters' running away from me stories that need fixing, it's all the same continent but different places. I hadn't tried for a bit more simplicity in that world because of how long the story was supposed to be. In my current one, it is within one house so far and that's been working for me.

Sean Taylor: The characters I create or co-create have a home setting. Rick Ruby has his seedy New York underbelly. Fishnet Angel had Los Angeles until she moved to Cristol City. Even then, they're not always there exclusively. Fishnet Angel has traveled to Egypt and to the Middle East in search of the ancient idol she needs. 

Some characters I write, including Golden Amazon, experience their stories all over the place. I've written her in Notre Dame, New York, and now Los Angeles. 

No. Not these Globetrotters.

When you need to bounce around the world with your characters, how do you determine that and how do you make it work as a writer? Do you continue to let a setting become a sort of de facto character in its own right (again, like Gotham for Batman or Los Angeles for Philip Marlowe)?

Sheela Chattopadhyay: In the series that needs fixing, it depended on the timing that the characters needed. In my current short story, it's still based on the timing and pacing. The setting itself is a factor, but I haven't really analyzed if it is at a de facto character level for the story. If it becomes a de facto character, I'm ok with that.

Sean Taylor: I try to work in the character and "voice" of a location, even for settings that are merely temporary or a sort of layover between the major parts of a book's story. For me, if a place doesn't say something specific about the characters or the story, then it's just a throwaway location and could have been anywhere, no a specific somewhere. 

Paul Landri: In Return of the Crimson Howl we made it a cross-country journey so we wouldn't have one setting until the ending. I like to add places I've been into my narrative. For example: Brattleboro, Vermont and Seaside Heights, New Jersey show up in the book. In the upcoming sequel a great deal of it takes place in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn at a bakery that existed in real life and owned by my grandparents (it's gone now but I'm resurrecting it in literary form). Book three will have about 3 different settings so to answer your question, I tend to bounce around until I find a spot to stay in for a while then move on.

Brian K Morris: For much of my current work, I have a setting of Raceway City, which serves as my Metropolis/Gotham City for many of my characters. For other works, I'll set it in real world locations (which means research since I've not been in many of them).

How does needing multiple settings work into your plotting and planning for your novel? Is it something that you have specific reasons for choosing each location or is it more relaxed than that? Give me an example from your work.

Sheela Chattopadhyay: In the stories that need fixing, each one is supposed to be novel length. That's why the fixing is going to need to happen. I chose to have multiple settings because of the plot being quite large of several interwoven characters trying to solve a problem and overcome a common enemy. Each location is often refuge from temporarily escaping th villain, learning something useful to them, and building another ally.

Give it a spin. C'mon!

Brian K Morris: The locations are mostly to disorientate the protagonist and give him/her one extra challenge. This works mostly because my stories tend to take place no less than forty years ago in a pre-GPS age. I also select locations with a bit of a mystique to them, to add to the mood and sense of isolation for the protagonist. For instance, what kind of story can I tell if it takes place in WW2's Paris, or Carnaby Street in 1964, or San Francisco as it rebuilt from an earthquake?

Sean Taylor: Rarely do my character jet around the world to multiple cities in a single work. That comes a lot from the kind of stories I grew up reading. Noir and Hard-Boiled stories danced from setting to setting within a single city, but rarely from city to city. Sci-fi sometimes jumped places, but never really culture to culture, and if it did, each new setting was central to the new culture and what the protagonist was learning about himself/herself/themself. I tend to do the same. The one time I have jumped around is on a novel I'm currently editing called Postcards of the Hanging. In it the main character, a trans women in the '60s who is a sort of spiritual P.I. must go all over Western Europe to stop a plot to use a dead man's blood to bring forth an ancient curse with the help of her hippy ghost assistant. That one was designed to be a globe-trotting adventure, and each city was chosen before of both historical need (something happened there that related to the story) and atmosphere and how it causes the heroine and/or assistant to react. 

Is Your Setting Just a Place or a Character?

As writers, we all have our favorite setting in which to tell stories, and we also have our favorite passages that establish those setting. As a reader I've seen the masters at work, from the arid tone and sparseness of Capote's In Cold Blood...

"The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call 'out there.'"

...to the rambling, darkly poetic tour of Manderly in DuMarrier's Rebecca...

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate to the drive, and for a while I could not enter, for the way was barred to me. There was a padlock and a chain upon the gate."

But let's make it personal. How do YOU establish setting in your fiction?

On a range of "the setting is another character" to "a few words about the weather and the name of the town is more than enough," how important is setting to your stories?

Gordon Dymowski: For me, the setting is one of the key elements of making a story work. Even if I'm just writing a modern-day tale, providing an appropriate atmosphere is critical. I'm strictly in the "setting-as-character" camp since it provides a backdrop for the flesh-and-blood characters. Providing that atmosphere enhances both my writing and the reader's experience.

Elizabeth Donald: When I first began writing fiction, my stories were like the Star Trek original series episode “The Empath.” You’ll remember that one - they ran out of money for sets and the whole thing takes place on an empty sound stage with a square block for the characters to occasionally sit. It’s actually a pretty good episode, but I was always struck by how it seemed to be taking place in nowhere.

That’s what my writing was like. People did things, said things, died horribly, but it might as well have been in that nowhere space for all the description I put into place and setting. As I grew and developed my craft, I realized that setting can absolutely be a character, and knowing a place can really inform your story. I’ve infested Memphis with vampires and rusalka and a number of other critters, because I lived there for several years and I know the city will. I’ve often used settings like Illinois river towns, because it is territory I know, having lived and reported in Illinois river towns for more than 25 years. 

In the micro sense, where you place a story can greatly influence the reader’s opinion. For example, a recent story I submitted to my MFA workshop was set in a cheap, kind of slimy motel. My colleagues said that having this moment take place in that kind of setting led them to expect it would be a tawdry moment, something illicit - cheating, drug-fueled, perhaps people on the edge of homelessness - none of which I intended form the story. Setting matters to the characters, influences the readers, and thus it needs to matter to the writer.

Vonnie Winslow Crist: For me, setting is almost another character. I choose a setting for my fiction that has an impact on the story. Sensory language is the most important tool in my toolbox for creating a strong sense of location. That said, the sensory details need to carefully selected for maximum impact. No one wants to read pages of sensory observations. Sometimes, one well-chosen detail can define the location, set the mood, and start the action in motion.

Anna Grace Carpenter: I am very fond of setting as character, but fluctuate as setting as a reflection of the central characters, and setting as a contrast to my central characters. (For example, The Gear'd Heart is all rainy and dark and cold as the characters fight otherworldly, serial killers. But the current work-in-progress is a desert setting but with characters who are desperate to live.

Selah Janel: It depends on the story, but setting matters in a lot of my work. I gravitate towards forests and small towns, and both can be portrayed to convey tone and characters. In one form, they can be romantic and comforting, in another they can be suffocating and foreboding. For me, setting can be an extension of my characters or a character in itself, yet another antagonist working against the characters like in Candles or Mooner, or something that’s more supportive like a quiet best friend in a story like Holly or Ivy. Even in my short stories, I use setting to echo the tone and feel quite a bit.

HC Playa: Setting sets tone. It is both little more than background and yet absolutely integral to the story. In genre fiction it can outline the realities and rules of the world, whether there's magic or aliens or we are reading by candlelight.

I sketch it out through my character's eyes and senses, dropping things in as they go. IF I am using a real place I may put in less description, but still want to paint an image in the reader's mind because not everyone has been to the same places.

Herika Raymer: As setting is when and where the story takes place, I agree with HC that it sets tone. Usually setting through a character's eyes helps, but there is the added measure of setting through a character who had not been in your setting before. That way, not only the character but also the reader are exploring a new area. It allows the reader to (hopefully) connect with characters as well as get the background and events of the Setting to help understand what is happening.

Bill Craig: In my Marlow books, Key West is every bit a character as well as setting.

Bobby Nash: The vast majority of the time, setting is very important to me and my work, especially in a series where the setting is visited and revisited often. Sommersville is a fictional city and county I created that has become an important location in multiple books fronted by different characters. I think it’s a very important character in the stories. I want the reader to have a feel for the settings.

Murky Master: So it depends. In the last two short stories I wrote, they were short so going verbose on the setting wasn't an option. In my novel, it's set in San Antonio and I didn't really think much about establishing setting in that one. But, when I write my fantasy stories, I like to think of it this way.

Ian Totten: Setting is extremely important to me. When I write I see everything in my mind and try to convey that to the readers. Generally speaking, my settings either serve to create a sense of dread (such as the place where a killer is going to strike), a false sense of safety, or an actual area where the characters don’t need to have their guards up.

What is your most effective tool in your writer's toolbox for creating a strong sense of setting in your work?

Bobby Nash: The setting you create has to feel real, not just to the reader, but to me as the writer. I need to be able to imagine walking down the streets of that location, recognize the smells, the colors, the things that make that place unique. If I believe it’s real, that translates into the story.

Herika Raymer: Using the senses, but trying not to be too descriptive. I do not want to be a writer who uses two pages to explain what one thing looks like or tastes like. However, a reader experiencing their surroundings through the senses of the character can definitely be instrumental to setting the scene.

John L. Taylor: Depending on the story. If the setting is fairly fantastic, I'll go more detailed and emphasize the contrast between it and the known. If more down-to-earth, I'll write it as a metaphor for the POV character's mood/personality. 

Selah Janel: I really like to lean into details, and if I don’t have the space for that, I try to use setting just enough to induce a mood in the characters, and by extension my readers. Little things matter, though, and knowing a place or type of place well can give you so much to work with in terms of story.

Bill Craig: The places where I set a lot of the action are real places where I have been. I try to make descriptions of places as vivid as I can in order to make readers feel as if they are visiting the island. For Key West, the sights and sounds are well known by many people, so it is easy to incorporate them, from wild chickens running all over town to iguanas coming out of the trees to swim in hotel swimming pools. Island music is everywhere as there is some sort of musician playing nearly 24 hours a day, giving a flavor from salsa to calypso, to Jimmy Buffet. 

Gordon Dymowski: Details, details, details. It's amazing how some writers will point to obvious landmarks (like the Empire State Building) as if to say "We're in New York". Writing places that are out-of-the-way or suggesting a deeper history can do a lot for setting place, tone, and mood.

For example, when I write about Chicago, most of my action tends to take place on the city's south side. Part of it is that there's a historic tension between the North Side and South Side (due to both class and racial factors that are too lengthy to go into here), but part of it is...I know Sears Tower exists (and nobody calls it Willis Tower, just like nobody calls where the White Sox play Guaranteed Rate Park -- it's Sox Park or, if you're older, Comiskey Park). Anything that suggests that the setting has a history improves your ability to tell a story.

Elizabeth Donald: Live your life. I know that’s not the craft response, and certainly addressing metaphor and descriptive passages and details are all very important, but the reader can tell if you’re making up a setting from what you’ve seen in a movie or TV show rather than real-life experience. I learned to shoot guns because I was writing a lot of shoot-em-ups and it was blindingly apparent I’d never shot a gun in my life. I wrote an early novel in New York City that was fairly terrible, as I had never been to New York and I didn’t realize a lot of aspects you only realize once you’ve walked around on its streets. 

If you want to create a place, first visit it or something similar. Pay attention. Take notes. Engage all five senses and experience a place if you want to recreate it in fiction. And then send in the zombies. It livens everything up. 

Davide Mana: I started writing my "Buscafusco" stories, about an unlicensed PI working in the wine hills of southern Piedmont where I live, as a collaboration with the local Chamber of Commerce and Tourism. The idea was to use my stories to promote tourism in the area. The place had therefore to be really another character in the stories, and I used a mix of historical details and contemporary color to give the readers as strong an impression as possible. I had to be as close as possible to the authentic places I described and tried to use as much true detail as possible in setting up action scenes and plot elements. I used real people whenever possible.

The result was highly satisfying for me as a writer and (based on feedback) for the readers and paid back the extra research and effort needed.

Ef Deal: I like to focus on texture and sensory details like scent and taste. I also will describe a general layout as it affects the plot or action. For example, an opening of a second chapter describes the history of the chateau only to highlight the engineering genius of my heroine in bringing it up to date (1843), since those changes will play a part in the action later in the book.

Anna Grace Carpenter: I focus on those visceral details. The chill and misery of a rainy setting, the exhaustion and thirst of a desert setting. If the characters have injuries I focus on how the environment affects those wounds.

HC Playa: Invoking the senses. I do admit that this is something I feel is a work-in-progress skill. I joke that a reader might accurately guess without knowing me that my sense of smell is not very good. My characters tend not to smell much unless it's really strong and generally ick 😂. Yay allergies.

How important are sensory details when establishing setting? Internal monologue to establish "connection"? Omniscient telling for all the facts?

Robert Waters: Internal dialogue is important to me. But it's something you have to balance and not have it dominate the story. I've seen stories with whole paragraphs of internal dialogue, to the point of annoyance. IMO, not a good way to go. What I often do is have the character thinking / brooding / contemplating over something as part of the main narrative, and then, he/she will say a few words to him or herself to cap off the thought. That to me is a better way to handle internal dialogue. 

Selah Janel: It depends on word count and what’s going on in the story. I love sensory details, because they help build a world and immerse readers, as well as giving characters so much to work with externally and internally. Sometimes, though, showing their own thoughts about a place is enough with less emphasis on external description. It really depends on what the goal is for the scene.

Bobby Nash: It all goes to set the stage. I like to have the narrator let us know not only details about the place but how they connect to the POV character in that chapter. I can drop details about Sommersville, and they work, but when I tie those details to Tom Myers’ life, they take on greater meaning.

Bill Craig: Sensory details are hooks to put the reader into the story and setting. 

Anna Grace Carpenter: I only write 1st or close 3rd person. So the voice is always immediate and tied to the centralized character. (Even in third, everything is very close to the character who is the focus of the chapter. So those details are personal.)

Elizabeth Donald: I struggle with interiority in my writing, and it’s something I’ve been focusing on in my craft. Internal monologue comes more from character than setting, in my humble opinion, but both of these help develop a rich narrative that draws your reader into that total immersion for which we strive when we’re writing. Those sensory details go much further in terms of setting, as far as I’m concerned: when you’re standing in an open-air market in San Antonio, hearing mariachi music, smelling the street corn and tamales, watching the brightly-colored flags flutter against the blue sky, feeling an overly-warm breeze on your face… that puts you in a place, at a time, and you have established a place. 

HC Playa: I avoid omniscient telling in my writing. As a reader, nothing makes me skip ahead quicker than a setting info dump from an invisible omniscient narrator. If I skip it and don't enjoy it, I don't write it. While I do occasionally use internal dialogue, I rely mostly on the character's POV to relate setting. It gives the reader a more immersive experience.

Gordon Dymowski: Sometimes the way to "dot the I" when crafting a setting is ensuring that every sense is involved. For example, my high school years were spent commuting through Chicago's Maxell Street market. I could discuss how I took the Number 8 Halsted bus, but the reader would be more intrigued by describing the storefronts along the street (with metal covers for the windows), the vendors hawking wares on the sidewalk (including hubcaps), and the strong odor of grilled onions and Polish sausage wafting through the air.

I've just painted a picture for you of that experience. The Market has since moved (and the street is now covered by amenities for college students), but that sense memory still lingers.

As far as internal monologue/omniscient narrator, it depends on the type of story. Leaving out details can be critical in setting the scene (just read Poe's short stories), and having the "innocent bystander" narrate can drive insight into actions and behaviors (paging Dr. Watson). All of these are tools that any writer can and should use.

Vonnie Winslow Crist: Used judicially, internal monologue can let the reader see into a character and their motivations, goals, etc. Again, a little goes a long way. Too much internal monologue slows the pace of the story. I'm not a fan of omniscient telling -- it usually feels like "telling" and not like a story unfolding. The setting doesn't work in my fiction when I "force" a story to be set in a place. When I allow the narrative to settle comfortably in a location rather than force it to fit into an environment, it's easier to write and the resulting tale works better for readers (and editors). 

I'm a fan of George Martin's term "gardener" for a writer. One organically selects details, adjusts the narrative, and makes decisions about location, internal monologues, pov, etc. much like one gardens -- well, much like I garden. For me, it's less about straight rows and perfect flowers, and more about the beauty that comes from discovery and adapting to the unexpected.

Herika Raymer: Sensory details are important because we all (unless otherwise incapacitated) experience our reality through our senses, makes sense we would want a bit of sensory in the stories we real.

Internal monologue can help establish "connection" with a character because it helps the reader either comprehend, understand, or even approve/disapprove of a character's motives and actions.

Omniscient telling for all the facts can be fun, but it depends on the presentation. For instance, I am watching an anime right now based of a manga series. Though a different presentation, the author's way of presenting omniscient facts is to have a narrator make hilarious remarks on what is happening. It adds spice to an otherwise pretty cut and paste story. This may not be feasible in a traditional written format, but I have read some authors who have ways to bring in omniscience without it being too much of a data dump and thus taking away from the lure of the written word.

What have you read or written that absolutely didn't work in regard to making the setting feel real or important to the work? Why didn't it work?

Bill Craig: Longmire did a great job in character and setting. The only book I have read that failed in this respect is a book about a pulp character by a "Name" mystery writer. Sadly, it was so poorly written that I could not finish it and returned it. It ignored the history of the character and turned him into a secondary character rather than being the titular hero.

Elizabeth Donald: I will be generous and pick on TV, because they make a lot of money and won’t care. I always had myself a huge giggle at Smallville, as the teens of Smallville High would go swimming in the lovely alpine lakes shrouded with evergreens in… Kansas. Seriously, folks, at least try to hide that you’re shooting in Vancouver. Shows like Supernatural were equally ridiculous about this - claiming to be in St. Louis and an establishing shot of the Arch really doesn’t qualify as establishing a setting. At least when Doctor Who lands on Earth, he’s honest enough to admit he mostly toodles around London because budget. 

How can we apply this to the written word? Know the territory. If you can’t physically visit a place, use your Google-fu and explore. Try to find someone who lives there or has visited there and interview them. I did this when I set a Blackfire adventure in the Philippines, and before I even ventured close to that one, I interviewed a friend of a friend who grew up there. I see it as no different than interviewing experts in advance of writing something technically different, like asking an arson investigator how you can most efficiently kill someone with fire and get away with it. (Just be sure they know you’re a writer; it’s far less likely to result in a search warrant for your apartment.)

Murky Master: Setting is only the combined sensory input going into a character's mind. The details that are important to the character are important to the story, so they will rise to the top.

A missionary about to face Elder gods in the Vietnamese jungle would see the following

"The dark of the night gave every biting insect an echo. The vines strangled like tentacles, their origins in the pitch black of the tree forks, like they were dropping out of the unknowable night..."

But, an adventuring doctor rushing to get medicine through that same jungle would see this

"Every branch, every vine clawed and tugged at Dr. Nguyen, grasped and clawed at his sweat-soaked pant legs. Even the air dragged on him as he swam through the humidity, every leaping stride through wet, leaves feeling like a backhand. Like the one that mother would deal him if that girl drowned in her own pneumatic lungs).

Bobby Nash: Sure. Probably. I can’t think of an example off the top of my head and wouldn’t want to throw another writer under the bus. As a writer, if the author isn’t giving me those details, my brain fills them in, which could hurt the scene the author is trying to convey. If I don’t connect to the location, it becomes a generic location in my imagination.

Anna Grace Carpenter: I can't say I have written anything that was disconnected from setting. I write a lot of suspension of disbelief stuff, but setting is rarely a part of that. But, I did stop reading "The Lies of Locke Lamora" after a particular scene that was particularly brutal but also ignored some general physics.

Herika Raymer: The most glaring example that comes to mind was reading a sample chapter in Amazon from a highly recommended book (though not so much later on once more facts were discovered about the author). Her description of the scene was fair, setting the tone of tension and the fear of being chased. However, when it came time for the main character to act -- that is when it did not work. She had her character running on a broken ankle. Yes, broken. Readers can suspend belief for some things, but unless the author establishes right away that the main character is in some way supernatural, I have yet to meet someone who could run on a broken ankle with no problem. It was not the only problem with the story, but it was the first of many.

HC Playa: I can't think of any specific examples off the top of my head, but plenty of romance-type stories and contemporary fiction really have no connection to the setting. You could pick up the entire story, plop it in another city and it wouldn't matter.

Davide Mana: There is a notorious thriller novel, published a few years back by an Italian writer, and set in London. It was so successful Amazon did an English translation - that was pretty popular with the American public and got the British readers rabid (we talk a few dozens one-star reviews).

The author did not do any research, and what she produced was a story in which the London police carried guns, in which Scotland Yard is closed for business on weekends (!!), and the big set piece is a car chase and shootout on the streets of London (but the geography is all wrong). The plot was OK, but all the setting details that should have propped it up were wrong, and a lot of people noticed. It was an absolute failure on the worldbuilding side, caused by an obvious lack of research.

So, the bottom line: using actual places as setting can be a disaster if you don't do the minimum of research needed to establish an authentic sense of place. Sometimes Google Maps is enough.

Also, sometimes researching the worldbuilding changes the direction of your story: while writing my first novel (historical adventure), I spent a weekend working with my brother (who studied Chinese), browsing Chinese-language websites in search of the actual location of the Italian consulate in Shanghai in 1936. I could have played it fast and loose, but the time spent on research revealed the consulate was across the street from the British police barracks - which changed the whole dynamic of the action in the first third of my story. I had to do a lot of rewrite, but it was well worth the effort.

Gordon Dymowski: As part of my review duties for I Hear of Sherlock, I read one pastiche which read more like a cliche screenplay than an actual Holmes work. (I'm not going to name it here). By the end, it was more concerned with being clever than setting a great mood or driving strong characters. Let's end on a positive note: some great examples of authors who use setting well are Robert B. Parker's early Spenser novels, Sara Paretsky's VI Warshawski novels, and Jim Thompson's novels (which, yes, are unsettling but that's half the reason why I enjoy them).

John L. Taylor: Best example, again from an in-progress book of mine is introducing main characters who can travel in dreams by cornering their target in a dream of an abandoned decaying mansion meeting them at a chessboard with a game in progress. Both characters are damaged people, past their prime, but still intelligent and elegant in their ways, and ruthless hunters of their quarry. The visuals are symbolic of that.

Nugget #139 -- Responsibility to History

 We have a responsibility to research and to history to 

portray our settings (place, time, etc.) as accurately as 

is needed for our stories. That’s the often hard work 

(but still fun for those who enjoy it) of writing—

research. We do that because we value accuracy. 

We want our fiction to be as real as we need 

it to be from story to story.

Milford Plantation, Entrance Gateway, Wedgefield-Rimini Road,
Pinewood, Sumter County, SC HABS SC,43-PINWO.V,1B-1

[Link] World building tips: Writing engaging settings

by NowNovel

World building tips often focus on fantastical genres such as fantasy and sci-fi because they entail creating worlds wholly other to our own. Yet it’s important to create an immersive, interesting and credible setting, whatever your genre. To create an entire fictional world, one to rival Westeros, Hogwarts (or Dickens’ London), read these world building tips and cautions:

1: Make a checklist of world-building details you want to include

We believe in our favourite authors’ invented worlds because there is enough detail and specificity to make them real. Legions of younger and older readers fell in love with Rowling’s Hogwarts, for example, because (in part) they could imagine her setting to its edges. Readers could picture the castle from the long tables and floating candles of its dining hall to its outer, more dangerous limits. The nearby ‘Forbidden Forest’, for example, or the menacing vegetation and grounds feature that is the unpredictable, thrashing ‘Whomping Willow’.

Great fictional worlds, like this one, have contrasts, details, atmospheres. The vaults of Rowling’s crypt-like bank, Gringotts, for example, have a different tone and mood to her student-filled castle.

Make a checklist of details you want to include in your novel’s world, whether you’re evoking a magical setting like Hogwarts or a real one like modern-day Paris.

Items you can include in your checklist...

Read the full article: http://www.nownovel.com/blog/world-building-tips-engaging-settings/

My City or Your City -- Choosing and Creating Your Setting

Time for a new Writers Roundtable. This time we're going to talk about setting, in particular choosing a city for your setting in genre works. I've gathered input from horror, action, comic book, romance, etc. writers for this one because each slices this topic a bit differently.

Two special notes about this one: 

1. I do believe this is our largest roundtable yet. (So stick with it, as there's a lot of good stuff in it.)

2. We'd like to issue a special welcome to comics scribe extraordinaire Brian Augustyn for his first appearance here on the blog.  

Now, on to the fun and roundtabling...

Do you prefer to use existing cities and landmarks or create your own for your genre fiction? Why?

Scott McCullar: I actually prefer creating my own city for fictional comics – especially those in fictional realms with superheroes in costume and pulp action mystery men. I like the freedom of creating thrilling locations of my own to serve my story’s needs and to allow it to populate in the imagination of readers and myself.

I credit DC Comics with my interest because of their fictional locales such as Gotham City, Metropolis, Star City, and more. As well as characters like Dick Tracy and “The City” where he protects or The Spirit’s Central City.

Bobby Nash: Most of the time, I use what's already there, especially when setting a story in a major city like Atlanta, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, places like that. There's a lot of latitude in using an existing major city. With smaller towns, I created one of my own for my novel Evil Ways with Sommersville, Georgia. I revisited Sommersville again in Deadly Games! and a recent book in my Snow series revealed that the title character and is friends grew up there as well. For 2018, I am planning a return visit to Sommersville, not only in Evil Intent, but in a series of stories led by Sommersville Sheriff Tom Myers. Sometimes creating your own place pays off.

Danielle Procter Piper: If my characters are in a large city, I prefer to use one that exists because everyone already has some idea of the place, so I don't have to spend much time describing it. When my characters are in New York City, everybody has a preconceived notion about the place even if they've never been there. I have one from Boston, and even if you don't know much about Boston, you know it's a large American city, old, historic, with seedy areas, and near water. It's like animals--if a character rides a horse, you should already have a preconceived notion about horses even if you've never seen one in person. If I'm writing sci-fi and invent a creature that serves a horse-like function, then I have to spend more time describing it and developing behavior for it so you know what I'm talking about. New York and Boston are familiar animals. In my first published book I have characters interacting just outside the fictional town of Snakebite, Montana. You needn't know much about Snakebite, but just the name implies it's probably dry, dusty, small, and somewhat unpleasant. So, small towns are easy to make up and craft to better fit your story. In my New York, some aspects of the City have been altered to suit my desires, but I do look up streets and landmarks to give the stories I write that are set there some weight...like adding a pinch of truth to lies makes them more believable. I simply try to make my small, fictional towns seem believable by basing them on personal experiences with small towns.

Michelle Brundage Weston: I prefer to create my own cities and landmarks. It makes it much easier to write action. I'm working on an urban fantasy pulp right now that takes place in NOLA and it's hell to write. Having to make sure your characters are going in the right direction on a one-way street is another layer of research.

Brian Augustyn: In comics, the tradition has been to use fictional stand-ins for real cities; Metropolis is Manhattan (above 42nd Street) and Gotham is Manhattan (below 42nd St.), Central City is Chicago, etc. At Marvel, even though they use New York, it was so stylized as to be effectively fictional. The benefits of this is that the creators are free to decide how the city looks, works, feels, etc -- we can even utterly destroy the city, without readers wondering why it doesn't reflect the fact that thr real counterpart city wasn't vaporized when the big summer crossover allowed the aliens to zap Portland to dust. Or at least to have the freedom we have to affect a fictional locale.

Aaron Smith: For big cities, I almost always use real ones. For small towns, I almost always make up my own, or, in the case of one series of novels, thinly disguise real towns from the area I grew up in, so that based on the names and descriptions, readers who happen to be from the same area will likely be able to figure out what towns I'm using.

David Ellis: I've mostly created my own settings. Mostly the self-created settings were so that I didn't have to be beholden to whatever an existing setting did or didn't have, but that's changed in more recent years as I've gotten more into doing research. That research (even if it's brief and not particularly extensive) will often uncover neat tidbits that I wouldn't have thought to include otherwise, so even if I'm dealing with a self-created setting, I'll pick one or more real-life analogs and work in details from that.

Bill Craig: I love South Florida because there is such diversity in each of the cities. Miami has a particular flavor that is far different than the zaniness of Key West. Tampa also has its own flavor and energy. Scorpion Cay, while my own creation, fits right into the south Florida mystique.

Tuttle E. Tejas: I love the romance in names, in imagery that city-names evoke. Eric Pete always makes up his cities/landmarks so he can write them to order--but he seldom names the city. It steals all the romance out of it.

Perry Constantine: I tend to use existing cities and landmarks but I've also created my own. It all depends on the kind of story being told.

Hilaire Barch: I've written both and done a hybrid of sorts in some pieces. I've created towns (urban fantasy, sci-fi, and a WIP Western romance), but had to decide where they were located on a real map, b/c geography played a part in plot construction. I've built entire fictitious worlds (sci-fi) with megalithic cities where anything goes, and I've used real places(sci-fi).

Ryan Cummins: To me it depends on the cities importance to the story. I have written several stories from different genres without ever mentioning the name or location of the city. I believe the cities relevance to my story can be just as impactful, if not more, visually as it can be narratively. Obviously, in a novel, this wouldn't be the case but as far as comic books go I don't much think it matters whether real or fictional.

Edward Ainsworth: I have always used existing settings. In the great tradition of Urban Fantasy, using an existing city with either a previously unknown element hiding underneath or utilizing Contrastive Banality, it can bring out something really interesting in the structure of the real place - a layer you don't always see when you walk through it.

Tobias Christopher: Nine times out of 10 I'll use my hometown of Indianapolis, mostly because I rarely see stories set in Indiana, and I feel like there's a fair amount to work with here.

PJ Lozito: I have to use real locations. I could never make up interesting, realistic geography. Also, it's good to put myself under the constraints of reality. I even consulted with a real pilot about flight time in a real city.

Robert Freese: I prefer my own city so I'm not locked into an existing geography. As the story evolves, if I need a subway or park with a Ferris wheel or whatever, I create it. I tend to not give my cities names, so readers from everywhere can decide for themselves if it's N.Y., L.A., Atlanta or Bumfuk.

Bertram Gibbs: I have used both in my stories, but prefer using existing locations. The geography and landscape is already set, which the readers recognize, versus create and map out a spot. In that, I have to build points of reference and follow them, which could change, based on the angle the characters see them from.

Don Mancha: I like making my own cities and peppering them with stuff from all over the world. Cause I'm a control freak.

Alex Washoe: Depends on the story. I've written real locations and made up ones. I tend to use some version of Seattle in a lot of my stories -- either openly or thinly disguised -- just because it's here and I know it well. But I'm currently researching Wyoming.

James P. Nettles III: I use real, large cities, mostly out of a love of destroying LA, but they give a good reference. I make up the small towns, lest I convince someone their neighbor is a creature of the night. For my heavier sci-fi and some thrillers, they are purely fictional.

Mark Halegua: I have a couple of characters set in various parts of NY city. Red Badge is set in a mid-country small city. The setting for the two unnamed characters was important since one of them, Kurt Kinnison, is a Pan Am security/Private (?) detective. The other, I won't name for the moment, is also a writer and lives in Manhattan. I like both since I'm able to get a feel for both locations in the 30s. Red Badge came before either of these two, and I felt a need to place him in a setting that, other than the general location of mid country, wouldn't be associated with any current city./ I even named it Central City - generic enough (yes, I know that's where Barry Allen Flash works, but not for a few years).

What are the advantages of using existing locations? The disadvantages?

Brian Augustyn: When I write prose, much of which is hard-boiled crime fiction, I prefer to use actual settings, largely because such use adds to the verisimilitude that keeps a suspense story immediate and realistic. I think that in a story about an advertising executive being wrongly stalked by an assassin, the reader may be yanked out of the story when it's mentioned that heads to Liberty station to catch a train out of New Holland, the Big Orange. A few writers have pulled that off, most notably Ed McBain (Evan Hunter) whose 87th Precinct cop-mysteries were set in a fictional Manhattan known as Isola. HE made it work.

I guess that a writer could avoid naming the city and simply allude to it without being specific, ("The off-duty cop turned down the street where the beloved ancient ballpark lay. He remembered with a smile how he came here as a kid to cheer on his team; lovable losers back then; a subject for ages to a mythic curse put on the little bandbox, supposedly by the Bambino himself. Several world Series wins lately had busted that myth to bits...") but ultimately you work too hard I think to justify the ability to write about a corrupt politician in a mythical Boston.

Tobias Christopher: Disadvantage: Not being able to accurately put into words the visuals that I see. Advantage: Being able to actually cause massive property damage without actually Michael Baying the hell out of it.

Edward Ainsworth: The disadvantages of using real places, is that if you're using a big City, like London, or Birmingham, Manchester of Canterbury, they're massive sprawling things that change regularly (London less so, to be honest). The advantage is that they're ready-made with a rich cultural history. I'm not going to pretend that I can make something like Bas-Lag with my own stories straight up, so having London to draw on makes it fun and also gives you a greater sense of realism to work with.

Don Mancha: The main advantage of an existing location is that it exists. The layout of the location and its culture are already established. Since you don't have to work on setting you can point your attention to other parts of your story.

This could be disadvantageous if you make a mistake geographically or culturally, and a local calls you out for it.

Scott McCullar: I think the advantage of using a real locale is that there is a built-in familiarity and it could be researched and both the history and the details of that real place add to the realism of a fictional story feeling “more realistic” as if it could possibly take place right here. A disadvantage may be that all that I wrote above could, in fact, play just the opposite in the type of a story one would want to tell.

I think about all the times I’ve seen in movies the White House or Eiffel Tower blow up. Or count the many many many times that the Golden Gate Bridge is or is almost destroyed during some climatic event – whether it is with the X-Men, Planet of the Apes, James Bond, Superman, mega-earthquake, Godzilla or some other alien or underwater giant space creature break the structure.

I guess that is supposed to shock an audience that there is danger in our reality.

Bobby Nash: Existing locations means there are people who will know them and will tell you when/if you get any details wrong. That was why I created Sommersville instead of using the existing city of Winder in Evil Ways. Winder did not have all of the locales I needed for my story so I created a new town where I could populate it as I saw fit for the needs of my story. I did not want the disadvantage of adding things to an existing town that weren't there and being called out for it. It was simpler to create my own. In the long run, it has paid off as I have revisited Sommersvile a few times now.

Bertram Gibbs: As said, the advantage is the readers will be familiar with the location. There are few disadvantages for me and the story.

Michelle Brundage Weston: The advantages: you already have a map. The disadvantages: you already have a map. Also, timing is critical. If your characters only have one hour to make it across town, they could be screwed depending on the city. In MB's made-up city, I don't have to worry how long it will take them.

Tuttle E. Tejas: Advantages of real cities: People who have never been to either, will have definite and geometrically opposed ideas between Honolulu and Detroit. Cities like Baltimore or New Orleans are characters of themselves and will (with minimum research for the non-resident) inspire/shape the story.

Disadvantages: You have to write around the city e.g. If you have Hero Man move from point a to point b in 20 minutes, in L.A. on a Friday, at 16:45 on the 405 the fans will call BS.

Hilaire Barch: The problem with real places is that you might include details that don't exist by the time the book hits print. Maybe you don't get it quite right and someone will wonder. With real places, it's better to merely drop a few details unless you are intimately familiar with the location.

Aaron Smith: The advantage to using existing cities is that readers will already have a sense of what they look/feel like. The disadvantage is that research has to be done!

Bill Craig: The advantages of using existing locations is that it can make people feel that they are part of the story, because much of the time, they may have been to a particular place and it brings those memories of their own experiences there. The disadvantage is if you get a detail wrong, you will get called on it every time, and "artistic license" is not something a reader will let you get by with.

Perry Constantine: The advantage of using an existing location is thanks to Google Maps, you can easily reference locations, streets, landmarks, etc. Of course, the downside is that if you personally haven't spent a lot of time there, you may not quite be aware of the little things locals might know. For example, if your character is using public transit and you choose a route you found on Google Maps, locals might scoff about how that's actually not a convenient route. You also might miss out on the personality of the city or not know about certain neighborhoods.

Danielle Procter Piper: Existing locations are great because there's less thought put into them--just research if necessary to get things right. I see no disadvantages because if you're writing fiction, people expect you to enhance or embellish things at least a little. I guess the only disadvantage could be over-use of a location. New York City falls into that category. that's precisely why I have another fictional character operate out of Boston.

What are the advantages of creating your own locations? The disadvantages?

Robert Freese: The downfall to using my own city is sloppy writing. You can write in too much convenient stuff for your characters and then you run the risk of losing your reader. Using recognizable landmarks, for me, is exploitable for cheap thrills; zombies in the Magic Kingdom at Disneyland, psychos living in the Statue of Liberty, whatever. That's fun.

Danielle Procter Piper: When I create my own locations, I can have as much fun with them as I like, so long as they remain believable enough that they don't disrupt the story. The disadvantage is that I must sometimes create maps so travel times and such seem realistic--an issue I believe they're having more and more with the Game Of Thrones TV show at the moment. Just glad I'm also an artist!

Bill Craig: Scorpion Cay is my own creation and I have been asked many times where it is located. My thought is that it is near Duck Key and can only be reached by a special ferry that runs between the two islands several times a day. The big disadvantage is that after 12 books in the Decker P.I. series, people want to actually go see Scorpion Cay.

Perry Constantine: The advantages of creating your own location is that you have no limitations. You want a gothic skyline? Go for it. You want tons of bridges? No problem. You want mountains within walking distance? Nothing stopping you. The disadvantage is you have no limitations and it can be difficult to keep track of stuff you've already established.

Hilaire Barch: In fictional places, you have to paint a more detailed picture unless the setting simply isn't important to the story.

Aaron Smith: The advantage to using fictional towns is that you can mold the place to be whatever you want it to be. The only disadvantage I've ever encountered was when I put a lot of work into creating a small town in Illinois only to later discover that there was already a town of that name but on the opposite end of the state. No big deal, really, I just had to change the name.

Tuttle E. Tejas: Advantages of creating your own locations: You want mountains, oceans, rivers, and deserts (oh, my) all in the same city? You got it.

Disadvantages? You have to use a light touch or go all-in and create a map. Same with a sense of place -- either lightly, hang the barest frame of place or wrap your character up in it, a la Elric or Phèdre nó Delaunay. Of course, both those characters are fantasy--where I think it is easier. But then Richard Stark did well with made-up locations in his contemporary crime stories, too.

David Ellis: If I'm writing stories about a real city or location, I like to use existing landmarks, street names, whatever I can use to convey the setting. I used to be a lot more vague with that sort of thing, but it led to uninteresting setting descriptions. Once I discovered that Google Maps/Earth existed, that really helped engage my imagination and helped with the research. Even so, I'm fine with completely made-up environments; it just means I have to describe them as if they were real places. So the advantages of existing locations is that there's existing reference material and neat details to draw from; the disadvantage is that the setting becomes lifeless without that reference material.

Michelle Brundage Weston: Creating your own locations gives you the freedom to put whatever you need wherever you need it. Unfortunately, you will have to create a lot of things. With action, location and such matters. With other genres, you might be able to get away with it.

David Herring: I have struggled with this issue in my own writing ad nauseam.

On one hand, using a real-life city adds more of a cultural and personal touch to your story. It also is instantly recognizable to the reader and better helps them connect to the setting.

On the other hand, creating a fictional city grants the author vast creative freedom to come up with there own cultural sandbox.

The best solution I've found is what I call "meeting myself in the middle." What that means is, from a variety of factors I came up with a real-world region (or state) of the country I wanted my city based in. Next, I picked out a small (or ghost) town and reimagined it as a fictional major metropolis.

As the godfather himself, Stan Lee once stated. The reason all the Marvel heroes are from New York is that he was born and raised in New York and he knows New York. He's just writing what he knows. While it sounds so simple and cliche, it really is the best thing a writer can do because it will instantly give your story credibility.

Bertram Gibbs: You can set up the moods within the location. A bustling cityscape versus a small town. The people who populate each has a certain way of thinking. Small towns would be more laid-back, while cities are more rushed. So, the mood/tempo of the cities/locations can and should be used in describing the characters and their motivations.

Bobby Nash: I can add or take away whatever I need for my fictional town. Need a rock quarry? No problem. Need a river? No problem. It helps. The downside is that I have to keep up with all of it because it's not a real place I can simply revisit. I have to keep track of what is there and what isn't. In Evil Ways, one of the things I mentioned was how the area was changing as new development was moving into the area. When we pick up with Evil Intent and the Sheriff Myers series, a few years have passed and we can see those changes. Sommersville is growing and changing, not always for the better.

Tobias Christopher: Advantage: Sky's the limit on creating your own world. I mean, imagine a world where there's a video store on every corner and zero Starbucks. Disadvantage: Depending on the realism level of the story, you probably couldn't have hidden mechas hidden throughout the town in weird locations.

Don Mancha: When you make your own location it's up to you to create everything. Which is excellent if you don't want to be held down by the restraints of reality.

The big problem though is that you literally have to create everything. That takes time, and an understanding of the impact of setting on the story, which takes hard work.

Edward Ainsworth: Creating your own locations are fabulous, but, sometimes when you're going for something like UF, then the locating being real allows you to create layers on top. Whereas something brand new, like say trying to build a Gotham, is much more fluid and it is easier for readers to get lost unless you build up a really vivid, well thought out, structured city. And while we're all good writers and stuff, city planning ain't something we're great at I'd imagine.

Sytse Algera: I prefer real locations, especially when the artist is great at the detailed stuff. A disadvantage is that the artist must be able to pull it off. I only did contemporary thrillers here in Europe so far. Our series is now known for the cities we use, and we use the fact in advertising.

Scott McCullar: I may be jumping ahead to your next question, but I like to think that a “make believe” city or imaginary location is a character in the story unto itself. It can be a far far away planet but somewhere close to home… an island where dinosaurs still live, a city where your crimefighter protects its citizens, or whatever it needs to be to serve the purpose of the imaginary story.

How much does your location, whether existing or created, become a character in its own right in your fiction?

Michelle Brundage Weston: It can be a character. Lord of the Rings is a good example. With action/pulp, however, the focus is more on the action. I do try to ramp up the "ooh shiny" with the more exotic type locations. (As in, the bayou outside of NOLA would be more of a character...)

Bertram Gibbs: I like using New York. To me, the city is a character all its own and the individuals who inhabit it are the city's subconscious.

Bobby Nash: Sommersville absolutely has a feel of its own that makes it just as important as any other character in the book. The town and county has its own unique feel, it's own rhythm that will hopefully make it feel different from other fictional locations. The same is true of existing locations. Los Angeles needs to feel like Los Angeles, Atlanta has to feel like Atlanta, that sort of thing.

Brian Augustyn: Many writers like to feature their cities as characters, Chandler's LA, Parker's Boston, Paretsky's Chicago, etc. al, and a real city works better, plays more intimately and believable. That works for me as well.

Hilaire Barch: For most of my stories, the setting is quite often simply where things happen, but I have read plenty of stories where the place is as much a part of the story as the characters. If you want it to be, you have to breathe as much life into it as any of your characters.

Scott McCullar: Yes, Gotham City is as much a character as is Batman.

For me, I have a few fictional locations in my THRILL SEEKER COMICS universe with the stories that I tell. While it is a globetrotting world these characters travel around, I do have a “base of operations” for my main characters that serves as home port. The most prominent center of my fictional stories take place in a thrilling location called St. François de Port and is located on the Mississippi River between Memphis and New Orleans where Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana all touch on the map. The real location of Yazoo City would be just to the east. My fictional city in the Deep South is where my pulp character Yellow Jacket: Man of Mystery™ lurks when not on the run or gallivanting around on a mission or case.

I really wanted to write a story about a character from the South. Hardly any comic book heroes were from there that I was reading in mainstream comics.

I developed a rich history for St. François de Port that ties into true history with the founding by the French in 1719 and later falling into the hands of the Spanish and Hernando de Soto exploring. There are bluffs and Native American tribes and a pyramid there that were lost. Later a Spanish Fort. As time went by, it was a major site of a Civil War battle. Riverboat pirates and the road to a Texarkana town called Deadman’s Gulch where I can tell Westerns. I could go on and on, but I do have a rich history of this city that I will explore in future stories.

One thing I like about my fictional city is that I can blend Memphis and New Orleans to a certain degree in my location. A rich history where both blues and jazz prosper. It is a riverboat city. A religious city. An ancient city. A modern metropolis now. To the north are the cotton fields and Delta. BBQ. Juke Joints. To the south are the swamps filled with alligators and voodoo spirits.

It can be whatever I need it to be.

Yeah, I love fictional cities.

Danielle Procter Piper: I won't call the locations in my stories characters, but let's use cooking terms to describe them. My main characters are the meat of my stories, so the location would be the cooking vessel., possibly even some of the flavoring because they do help define the layout of a story, and can influence the characters the same way we form assumptions about people from New York City in general versus people from Los Angeles in general. So, the pot, the heat source, maybe even some of the spices, but my stories are meat-driven with lesser characters being the veggies and sauce. Does that make sense? Sometimes the container the food is cooked in or the way it's cooked is integral to the finished dish, but it's the taste, the texture, and even the nutritional value that make a meal worth returning to.

Robert Freese: In my one novel, I made the movie theater, not necessarily the city it was in, a major character in the story. Readers told me it was upsetting when it burned down at the climax. I think because I created a kind of theater that existed years ago, readers had a connection to it, and it became a real place within the story.

Bill Craig: Key West and Tampa both are major characters in the Marlow mysteries and the Rebeka McCabe mysteries. They are not only the backdrop, but they provide a rich texture to the story, just as San Diego does in my Mitch Cooper series.

Richard Laswell: Much of my fiction is based on very specific locations, a house, a cabin, a spaceship, etc. I rarely write locations more than background unless it is needed.

Tuttle E. Tejas: How much does location become a character in it's own right? Boston is probably Spenser's closest friend in Robert B. Parker's novels. The same is true of Kerney's New Mexico in Michael McGarrity's novels. Cynosure is both lover and antagonist to John Gaunt in Grimjack. My own character only feels safe in his own city and I do my best to give Houston a voice equal to my protag--without writing a travelogue.

I didn't give RJS for Green Arrow until Mike Grell moved him from Star City (or wherever the hell he was) to Seattle.

Don Mancha: The bulk of my most recent story takes place in a basement, it's walls are gradually covered in newspaper clippings and research by the main character. The basement hasn't changed structurally but aesthetically it's taking on the traits of the person living in it. And that's all a good setting is, an expression of the people that live within it.

Tobias Christopher: Depends on the story. Omega Guardians, for example, the old Union Station in Downtown Indy was starting to become a character in itself until it was demolished towards the end of Season 2.

Aaron Smith: The extent to which the location becomes a character in its own right varies widely depending on the nature of the story. Sometimes it's just convenient to place the story there, while other times it feels as if the story couldn't be set anywhere else and still have the same soul.

Edward Ainsworth: London is, very, very much it's own character. Always has been and always will be. Be it as an entity of its own expression, or with an element of humanity embedded within it. Smaller Cities that I've used, like Cambridge, or Canterbury, have their own charm and vibe and that infects stories on multiple levels.

David Ellis: It's a matter of how the setting interacts with the characters. New York City is a character in a lot of superhero fiction because dense skyscrapers make for great backgrounds (Spider-Man, in particular, uses them for locomotion in a unique way that makes his life more difficult when he's away from them). All the details that make New York a character in real life can show up in a superhero story and enhance the setting.  I've also created entirely made-up worlds for my own fiction or roleplaying games, and the way the characters interact with the setting and vice verse make for a symbiosis between the two.

Perry Constantine: It depends on the story, really. In some of my series, the books jump from location to location, so it's really only there for window dressing. But in other series where a firmly established city is used as the main setting, then it definitely becomes a character in its own right. Chicago and Osaka are both huge influences on the Luther Cross and Kyoko Nakamura series.

Nugget #45 -- Worlds Build (Unique) Characters

The world should help shape the character of the, 

well, character. I feel that if a character (main or 

secondary or even foil) could be moved from 

setting to setting without that fundamentally changing

who that character is, then that's a failure of the writer 

to make the setting crucial to the story and to 

make the character unique to the setting.

Nugget #41 -- Generic Setting

Unless it is an intentional choice on my part, if a 

setting feels generic, I know I've failed as a writer.

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now (#136) -- Contemporary Pulpin'

What are the advantages and disadvantages of contemporizing pulp characters and stories by bringing them into present day or placing them in future time periods?

Did I say Lone Ranger? I meant The Lone Federation Lt.

The biggest disadvantage is the one I mentioned yesterday. You're taking away the familiar element that makes readers comfortable. People who want to read about the Commando Cody want to read about him in the past, not in the future.

On the other hand, as a writer, something as basic as changing the setting or time period can open story opportunities you might not have considered, and if you can take the core of the character, SOME of them can actually translate well. Moving Sherlock Holmes from the Victorian Age to contemporary London might not have seemed like a good idea to some, but Sherlock sure is doing well for the BBC.

But many can't. Or don't. Take your pick. You're more than welcome to pitch a Lone Ranger in the year 2435 with a ray gun and a Martian sidekick, but you'd have one heck of a wall to get readers and fans to climb over. But could it work? Sure, as long as the core of the character isn't shot like a bullet off to the side and discarded. And if your way with words and characters is compelling enough to act as a ladder for the readers stuck at the wall.

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now (#135) -- Time Periods & Pulps

What are the advantages and disadvantages of writing pulps and noir in their original time periods?

For starters, you decrease the risk of alienating your readers because you're beginning your story on familiar ground. That means that not only are your readers more comfortable, but they don't have the "wall" to get over of any updates to their expectations of the characters (moving heroes from a past in WWI to a past in Kuwait, or being the grandson of the original Shadow, for example). And readers love the familiar. That's why series sell so well for publishers. Selling a reader on "new" when "old and comfy" are right next door can be an uphill crawl that sometimes only a big name on the cover can manage successfully.

On the other hand, writers who are stuck (whether at their own behest or at the dictate of their publishers) to a certain time period can run the risk of just telling the same old plots over and over again. And that gets old fast -- even for pulp readers.

How do you overcome that? Right off the bat, I'd say research. Find something interesting like the Nazi search for biblical artifacts (Raiders of the Lost Ark) or the World's Fair (The Ruby Files) that will breathe new life into your same old setting.