Anywhere But Here: How to Create a Sense of Place Without Leaving Your Couch

It's a glamorous life.

I've been thinking a lot about the weather lately, as one is wont to do when one lives in a state that recently set an all-time snowfall record. For the past two months, I have been at the mercy of Place. The snow has given me extra chores (most notably, shoveling the roof), forced me to improvise (substituted husband's dirty socks when I couldn't find my gloves), and fussed with my plans (let's pretend, for the purpose of this blog post, that I am the type of conscientious person that worries about the success of the company that employs me when it has to close for inclement weather.) Come May, the comings and goings of my life could conceivably take place anywhere, but this winter, my adventures could only be set in a small New England town with an insufficient road maintenance budget. Setting has very much been a character in the story of my winter, which is mostly the story of complaining, overeating, and watching entirely too much television.

I've always been a sucker for novels with strong settings, probably because I enjoy escaping the arctic tundra that is my own. Please give me quaint mountain towns with bookmobiles that also sell jewelry and pie, transport me to a quirky Baltimore populated by philosopher-handymen and righteous schoolteachers, drive me down red clay roads lined by hollowed-out trees with treasures tucked inside. These settings make for delectable reading, but how does one write these places in the midst of a bleak Massachusetts winter when one has a negative PTO balance? Here are some hard-won suggestions.

1. Topix

Topix is an anonymous online forum where residents can gossip and discuss local news. It seems to be more popular in small towns, but if you want to get a feel for how your characters might talk or if you're looking for some authentic last names, there's nothing better. It really gives you a strange and sometimes wonderful peek into other people's lives. Be warned, sometimes it's gross, because it's the internet and people are gross, but if you're willing to dig patiently, you can find gold. 

2. Take a look, it's in a book.

Find some authors that hail from the place that you're writing about. Read them, concentrating not on their voice (you don't want to mimic) but on the setting itself. Read pertinent non-fiction. Watch documentaries. Keep reading and watching and researching until you find one specific place - a school, a church, a hot dog stand, whatever - that you can get to know inside and out. This can act as a sort of compass for you, and if you make this place as real as possible, you can take more liberty with some of the other settings.

3. Jog (OH MY GOD NO, NOT PHYSICALLY. YOUR MEMORY.)

If you've been to your setting before, or someplace like it, do anything that you can to trigger memories of that place. Listen to music you listened to at that time in your life. Google image specific addresses and see if that sparks anything. Write down anything and everything you can remember. Get moody, get emo, just get them memories!