EXERCISE: Place settings?

[mbarker]

Original posting 2022/01/16

So, here's a little bit of fun. Pick a place. It can be somewhere you have been, long ago or recently, or a place you have read about or seen on tv, or whatever. Just make it a place that you would like to explore. Think about the setting, the sights, sounds, smells, what you might feel, all of that. Yes, if you like, walk the little Google maps figure along the road and take a look at it!

Now, take a character or three. Perhaps from a work in progress, perhaps someone you would like to get to know, perhaps from a piece of fiction that you enjoyed? Anyway, one, or two, or maybe three. Probably not too many more, because you don't really want a mob scene.

Then, put them in that place. Why are they there? What are they looking for? Go ahead, let them walk around and explore, perhaps have a bite to eat (or did something bite them?), or whatever. Show us that place, seen through the eyes, memories, toes, and whatever of your characters.

Write that up. This may not be a scene you want to put in your work, but it is both a good way to practice describing places (aka settings, or even milieu) and a way to get into the heads of those characters and see what they notice about those places...

Okay? Pick a setting, put some characters in it, and write up what happens when your characters take a stroll through that place.

Write!