1) What is every setting you have ever used? And 2) Where are you, mentally, in your stories?

[MeWales]

Well, I haven't read any of your stories yet, burgwad, but, with all due respect, you're writing—by your own admission—seems to be rather generic and bland, going by your thoroughly generic choices of settings and of bland "vacation mode" narrative situations. Of course, I don't know about your characters and plots, but if they conform to the genericness and blandness of your settings and narrative situations, then, boy, good night, and good luck!

You start your post by saying you havent read any of bugrwad's stories, and then go on to talk about how bland his stories are. How arrogant are you to condemn something you havent read as bland and boring? I haven't read Burgwad's stories either - but the point is that depending on the narrative - a detailed and specific setting is not always required.
If you want to criticize anyone's stories - at least have the decency to read them first.

 

[Zenith77]

19th century England, some wilderness somewhere, a fantasy world, modern-day London, some unspecified location in the US, someone's house.

I rarely define setting (in the same way that I rarely define dimensions - I leave it up to my reader to decide whether the MC's cock is 4 or 24 inches, or her breasts are A, C, or HH) unless it's critical to the plot (e.g. 19thC England). In most of my stories I don't even say whether she's a blond, brunette or red-head - I don't think it matters. I drop clues on settings by making oblique references to locations I find on Google Maps, which the reader can go and locate (if they're really that bothered - I doubt anyone ever has; for example, I referenced a street near Berkely, CA in a recent university setting, without ever mentioning the university).

Mentally, I try really hard to be in my character. I can't write evocatively if I can't relate to my character. I sometimes struggle to describe their feelings in-line with describing what's happening, and often have to re-write those paragraphs before I'm happy they don't interrupt the flow.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Location is very important to me and I usually try to incorporate landscape into the story, in the way a portrait painter uses the background to complement or reflect on the subject of their painting.

Most of my stories have been set in a semi-fictional Maine. I have a whole fictional geography in my head, where Londonderry and Port Harmony and Saw Whet and Beartown and Merganser Pond fit right in alongside Bangor and Portland.

I have also set stories in Montreal, Boston, Los Angeles and Detroit, as well as an unnamed industrial city somewhere in America.

Where am I in the stories? Usually, I’m inside one of the characters heads. The “god’s eye view” stuff usually forms in my mind before I actually start putting down words.

Adding two more fictional Maine towns. MicMac Falls and Winterboro.

I'm particularly proud of coming up with "MicMac Falls." It seems like the most Maine-ish town name ever.

 

[SyleusSnow]

I'm particularly proud of coming up with "MicMac Falls." It seems like the most Maine-ish town name ever.

It is, but surely now the spelling of the town will be corrected to Mi'kmaq (or Mi'kmaw?) like every other thing "Micmac" throughout Maine and the Maritimes

Personally, I'd like to set a story around Passamaquoddy or in Quispamsis just to screw with readers.

 

[MelissaBaby]

It is, but surely now the spelling of the town will be corrected to Mi'kmaq (or Mi'kmaw?) like every other thing "Micmac" throughout Maine and the Maritimes

Personally, I'd like to set a story around Passamaquoddy or in Quispamsis just to screw with readers.

Not Meddybemps or Wytopitlock?

 

[SyleusSnow]

Not Meddybemps or Wytopitlock?

Naw, that'd be silly

Now beautiful Mooselookmeguntic lake or the teeming metropolis of Mattawamkeag, on the other hand...

 

[jaykaythree]

AUSTRALIA - Melbourne & Geelong (Victoria); Sydney, Gosford, Newcastle, Wollongong, Goulburn, Batemans Bay (New South Wales); Canberra (Australian Capital Territory); Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast (Queensland); Hobart (Tasmania); Adelaide & Victor Harbor (South Australia); Perth (Western Australia); Darwin (Northern Territory)

NEW ZEALAND - Auckland

ENGLAND - London, Essex, Sussex, Liverpool, Blackpool, Yorkshire

USA - New York, Boston, Maine, Vermont, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Virginia Beach, Baltimore, Raleigh, Miami, St Petersburg, Alabama, Chicago, Springfield MO, Salt Lake City, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego

CANADA - Toronto

SOUTH AFRICA - Cape Town, Johannesburg & Kruger National Park

EGYPT - Cairo

YEARS MY STORIES ARE SET: 1926, 1936, 1941, 1943, 1948, 1955, 1957, 1958, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1966, 1969, 1972, 1974, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020

Most unusual place I have used - Ghosties Beach, a beach in the Hunter Region of New South Wales, Australia appears in my story 'Crazy Cornelius & the Magic Pills. It is a real place name.

Some of my stories have flashbacks, for example my story 'Banging Cousin Becky In Blackpool' is set in 1955, but has flashbacks to 1939 and 1944.

Now that's a fine template ... I'll borrow it for my reply. And it makes an impressive list for your stories.

As for me, all mine so far are set stateside.

PRIMARY SETTINGS:

* The Light And The Fire, Chapter 1 -- Nebraska, 1979.
* Naples, Missouri -- 1995, 1996.
* The Sunrise -- Missouri, 1996.
* The Light And The Fire, Chapters 2 (Iowa) and 3 (Nebraska), 1999.
* Buffaloed -- Arkansas, 2000.
* Offers -- 2014, in an unnamed American city lying "east of the Rockies and west of the Susquehanna."
* One In Seven -- Ohio, 2014-2017.
* Soup's On -- Missouri, 2022.

Also, all my stories tie up with "Where are they now?," current at the time of publication.

(There are other milestone years, such as 1956 and 1968, but the years named above represent the bulk of the action.)

 

[Kumquatqueen]

More than I thought.

UK:
Mainly London, north and south. Bermondsey crops up repeatedly.
Cambridge, including a fictional college of the university.
Brighton
South-east Birmingham
Rural Wales - the Wye Valley.
Rural Scotland - somewhere in the Cairngorms
Small-town Northern Ireland

Also:
Istanbul
Las Vegas - a generic conference centre and business hotel

Places:
Generic houses and flats and student halls (dorms).
A scruffy attic bedsit and an attic student room in a college-owned house.
An upmarket apartment in a converted bingo hall
Woods, a nature reserve, green hills and a field by the river
The Grand Hotel, a couple cosy inns, and a bothy.
Two gay saunas, one having a women's night
A few fetish (BDSM) clubs
A strip club hosting a lesbian night.

All around 1998 to the present day.

 

[TadOverdon]

I'm about six inches above and behind the right shoulder of whichever character is carrying the story at a given moment.

 

[SamScribble]

I think that most of my stories posted here at Lit are set in and around the West End of London – north of the river, and somewhere between Shepherd’s Bush and Tottenham Court Road. That’s probably due to the fact that I spent a good deal of my adult life living in that area. Also, it’s an area that contains just about every kind of community and facility you could ever need for a story setting.

When I wander outside London, it’s usually across to The Cotswolds, down to East Sussex, or up to East Anglia. They are also places in which I have lived at various times. These days I don’t live in any of these places, but old habits die hard.

 

[ronde]

My story locations range from 16th century England to the mid-21st century and beyond, and locations both urban and rural, sometimes remote. With the exceptions of sci-fi and fantasy, I write what I know from personal experience or have researched enough I don't commit any glaring errors about the time period, location, and probably scenarios. Sci-fi and fantasy are both a genre where the author is free to decide everything except how the characters, at least the human characters, react to the situation.

When I write, I tend to be my characters. I can't write anything that seems real unless I look at the situation and figure out how my characters will react based upon their past experiences and personality.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Hi. Not a pissing contest, just a moment of self-reflection. Where are you, mentally, in your stories?

1. A town in PA and the surrounding areas (multiple works) - including a house / garage, an apartment, a bar, a car park and a sex store
2. A town in NJ (multiple works) - a condo, an office
3. Niagara Falls - the falls and a hotel
4. London (implied, not stated) - an apartment
5. Interstellar space

Where I am mentally is changeable.

Em

 

[AchtungNight]

Every time I write I try to do something I haven’t done before, something new with my characters, themes, and settings. I go for broke, push myself, adjust my limits and goalposts. It’s a right rough game sometimes, but usually worth it.

My settings so far? Dressing rooms, studios, the streets of Manhattan, hotel rooms, apartments, nightclubs, the streets of London, Tienamen Square, the alleys of Beijing, the wilds of Colorado, a lecture hall, the streets of Los Angeles, a swimming pool, a hospital, a war zone in Afghanistan, military briefing rooms and barracks, bars, the Norse mythological realms, various Hollywood mansions, airports and airplanes, a German cinema, and that’s just on Lit! I may have missed a few too.

 

[stickygirl]

Where’s
In the uk countryside
Glencoe
LA
English Channel and Irish sea
Greenland
A northern uk university town
Thailand
The Gower
Staffordshire


Mentally
Not sure what’s meant but my fmc is a projection and I often use the stories to put across situations and emotions that are important to me. I think my honesty is recognised by readers who leave comments of support or that they recognised the experience.
I need an energy and purpose to write. The process is not something I do for fun but because I’m compelled to.