Navigating Prompts: Setting Descriptions

Location, location, location

If you read a lot of—or any—fan fiction, you’ll know that one of the most common tropes is “the coffeehouse AU.” That is, take all the characters from the movie or book and… put them in a coffeehouse. Who’s the bartender? Who’s the one ordering a quad shot espresso and then sneaking a caffeine pill into it? Who is about to go BACK behind the BAR and teach the barista how to make a PROPER cappucino? See, characters don’t just interact with each other. They interact with, and are informed by, the setting. Change the setting, and you change the story. In fact, a setting is almost like its own character. We’ve discussed settings before in this series, when we explained how to analyze an image and figure out how to extract information about the setting from it.

So why are we back here?

Ready, set, go

This month we’re taking our second look at settings, simple and complex. But this time there’s no picture to help you out: all you’ll have is a few words on a page. We’ll tease apart a few different styles, and explain how to approach them based on the information given (or implied) within the prompt itself.

What is it and why is it here?

At its most basic, setting really is just time + place. Sounds simple, yes? It can be, but setting prompts often include (either explicitly or implicitly) specific elements that a judge or editor is looking for in a story, which will affect everything from characters to genre to plot. Your setting prompt will give you at least some of that information, but you will need to fill in the rest—even if the details don’t all make it onto the page.

How do you use it?

The first* rule is to remember that your setting may seem random to you but it isn’t arbitrary—it was chosen for a reason, and the editors are looking for specific details that will anchor your story in that setting. To some extent, with a setting prompt that isn’t a photo, you get to pick many of those details, but the key is to remember that within the particular time and place you have been given, there shouldn’t be anything out of place (unless it serves your plot and your story and is allowed by the rules). Everything else is “how much fun can you have with this time and place”? In other words, don’t spend more time looking for a “unique take on the prompt” than you do thinking of a story that fits naturally into the prompt.

* Actually, the first rule is—as always—to read the instructions. The contest rules or submission guidelines may tell you what is or is not allowed for your story. For example, adding steampunk elements to a story set in Victorian London, or adding dragons to a story set during the Napoleonic Wars.

In general:

A setting prompt given in words can be both more and less precise than an image prompt. This lets the prompt setter constrain your story in certain ways, but still gives the writer—that’s you!—a lot of freedom to fill in details. 

Let’s be specific:

Not all setting prompts are the same! There are several kinds of word prompts for settings, and they each have their own advantages and their own challenges.

• Vague topological or locational descriptions: a coffee shop; a beach at sunset; a mountaintop; a cave; a school hallway.
• Precise geographical locations: “The Red Square” or “Hollywood Blvd.” or “Bucharest” or “Machu Picchu.”
• Temporal/locational: Boston in 1773; Tokyo on September 1, 1923; US Marshall Islands, 1 Nov. 1952; Ukraine 4000 BCE; Egypt 2560 BCE; Iraq 1754 BCE; The Battle of Vienna, etc.
• (It’s unlikely but possible that you’ll get a purely temporal setting prompt without a location. This is far more likely in an anthology than a competition, and honestly we’re just mentioning it because it CAN exist, not because we think it’s probable that you’ll encounter one.)

Break out the books (or at least the internet)

Once you’ve got your prompt, your task is to deconstruct it far enough to figure out what details you must incorporate in order to make the setting recognizable to the reader (that is, judges and/or editors). It’s actually the opposite of a photo prompt, in that you need to put details in instead of deciding which details in a photograph to focus on and which to leave out. And unless you hold encyclopedic knowledge in your brain (and really, even if you do), that means research! Here are some basic do’s and don’ts:

• Do look up your setting. You need to be able to decide which details should go in and which absolutely cannot. For example, if your prompt is “Egypt in 3000 BCE,” you might think that you should incorporate some pyramids. They’re recognizable! They’re ancient Egyptian! But a few minutes of research will tell you that the Great Pyramid at Giza has not yet been built. Don’t put it in your story!
  • Exception: depending on the rules or submission guidelines, you may have license to use anachronisms. Do check the instructions!
• If you’ve been given a very specific time and place (see above temporal location examples), do find out what makes that particular location at that particular time special. The prompt writer found something about that moment in time fascinating and they wanted to see how you interacted with it, so it’s your job to figure out what that is. This might mean looking up the months or years immediately preceding the date, if it’s not immediately obvious. For example, if you’re given “Tokyo, September 1, 1923,” your research should lead you rather quickly to the Great Japan Earthquake.
• Don’t write a research paper. Your characters and plot are more important than proving you’ve read five encyclopedia entries on the Varangian Guard, plus two translations of contemporaneous original sources. You need to do just enough research to make your setting believable and to convince the judges or editors that you know what you’re talking about. A quick Google search will reveal, for example, that “the Idaho panhandle” is not covered in rolling hills and fields, but is rather a fairly mountainous region. (Aside: it is much better to learn this before you write your story rather than after!)

Hold on a second

Prompt setters can be sneaky folks. Your prompt might look pretty straightforward, but sometimes there are implied constraints. That is, the setting prompt itself influences the genre, time period, or even the mood of a story. For example:

• A haunted house – This presumes the existence of the supernatural, or at least a belief in it, which tells you that the judges are looking for a genre that includes supernatural elements. It also suggests a certain amount of spookiness.
• A space ship – This presumes a certain level of technological advancement, which places the story (most likely) in the future. (That being said, I’d love to read a great steampunk space exploration story…)[Christine, you wrote one. /RBG]

Secondary prompts

To make things even more complicated, a setting prompt will be narrowed down even further if you have to use it in conjunction with another prompt. “Beach” + “Genre: steampunk” narrows down time period to “a beach during or after the later Victorian period.” “Beach” + “Character: cowboy” narrows down the time period to some extent, and the geographical location somewhat as well: “a beach in a locale where both cows and horses exist, and in a time when people rode on horses to herd cows.” Within the time and place you have been given/chosen, there shouldn’t be anything out of place unless it serves your plot and your story.

Examples

Let’s take a look at a few examples of our different setting prompt styles, and examine how a single setting can inspire a myriad of different stories.

Vague topological or locational description

“The beach”

• Gidget (“A young girl discovers surfing and love (in that order) during one transitive summer.”)
• Cast Away (“A FedEx executive undergoes a physical and emotional transformation after crash landing on a deserted island.”)
• Baywatch (“At a Los Angeles beach, a team of lifeguards led by Lieutenant Mitch Buchannon save lives, deal with personal dramas, fight crime and participate in over the top adventures on a daily basis.”)
• The Goonies (“A group of young misfits called The Goonies discover an ancient map and set out on an adventure to find a legendary pirate’s long-lost treasure.”)
• Moana (“In Ancient Polynesia, when a terrible curse incurred by the Demigod Maui reaches Moana’s island, she answers the Ocean’s call to seek out the Demigod to set things right.”)

“A school hallway”

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer (“A young woman, destined to slay vampires, demons and other infernal creatures, deals with her life fighting evil, with the help of her friends.”)
• Saved by the Bell (“A close-knit group of six friends get through their teens together while attending Bayside High School in Palisades, California.”)
• Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone (“An orphaned boy enrolls in a school of wizardry, where he learns the truth about himself, his family and the terrible evil that haunts the magical world.”)
• Boston Public (“The lives of 10 faculty members at a high school in Boston weave in and out of dealing with trouble-makers, having a personal life, and keeping sanity.”)
• 21 Jump Street (“The cases of an undercover police unit composed of young-looking officers specializing in youth crime.”)

Precise geographical location

“New York City”

• The Wolf of Wall Street (“Based on the true story of Jordan Belfort, from his rise to a wealthy stock-broker living the high life to his fall involving crime, corruption and the federal government.”)
• Rent (“Set in New York City’s gritty East Village, the revolutionary rock opera RENT tells the story of a group of bohemians struggling to live and pay their rent. ‘Measuring their lives in love,’ these starving artists strive for success and acceptance while enduring the obstacles of poverty, illness and the AIDS epidemic.”)
• Sex and the City (“Four female New Yorkers gossip about their sex lives (or lack thereof) and find new ways to deal with being a woman in the late 1990s.”)
• King Kong (“A petroleum exploration expedition comes to an isolated island and encounters a colossal giant gorilla.”)
• The Godfather (“An organized crime dynasty’s aging patriarch transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son.”)

“Antarctica”

• Happy Feet (“Into the world of the Emperor Penguins, who find their soul mates through song, a penguin is born who cannot sing. But he can tap dance something fierce!)
• The Thing (“A research team in Antarctica is hunted by a shape-shifting alien that assumes the appearance of its victims.”)
• Eight Below (“Brutal cold forces two Antarctic explorers to leave their team of sled dogs behind as they fend for their survival.”)
• Ice Bound: A Woman’s Survival at the South Pole (“One woman’s strength and courage under the most extreme weather conditions. […] Based on the true story of Dr Jerri Nielsen who contracted breast cancer during her one year outpost at the South Pole.”)

Temporal locational

“Normandy Beach, June 6, 1944”

• Saving Private Ryan (“Following the Normandy Landings, a group of U.S. soldiers go behind enemy lines to retrieve a paratrooper whose brothers have been killed in action.”)
• Overlord (“A small group of American soldiers find horror behind enemy lines on the eve of D-Day.”)
• The Americanization of Emily (“An American Naval Officer’s talent for living the good life in wartime is challenged when he falls in love and is sent on a dangerous mission.”)

Many thanks to the denizens of the Coffeehouse on Discord for helping us compile these lists!

Save yourself some trouble: don’t make these common mistakes

• We touched on this it in our first post on settings, but here it is again: Don’t forget to include enough details to make the setting obvious. What makes a café a café? How is that different from a deli, or a restaurant, or a truck stop? You might include things like a wall menu listing coffee drinks, a glass display case full of pastries, little tables scattered around the room, or people working on laptops. If you show your story to a friend, they should be able to tell you at once, “That’s a café.”
  • THINK about what cultural assumptions you’re making; if they don’t necessarily match those of your audience, make sure to be explicit! A milk bar means something wildly different in Krakow than it does in New York.
• Your job is to write to the prompt, not away from it. That is, if your setting is “café,” the judges won’t be impressed if you set your story on a boat named “The Seagull’s Café.” Now is not the time to push the boundaries—there are plenty of other ways to incorporate a prompt in your own unique way. That’s not to say you won’t end up with a great story, but it’s highly unlikely that you’ll end up with a winning story.
  • If you really really can’t bring yourself to write something that fits into the actual prompt that’s fine. But then once you’re committed to that story, just understand that you’re no longer writing it for the competition or anthology you started to write for. Why waste your time submitting something that doesn’t fit into the prompt? On the other hand, congratulations! You have the seed of a great story. Take the time you had set aside for the competition or that call for submissions and write it! Then take all the time you want to get a beta reader, workshop it, and edit it. Make it the best story it can be and the go find a home for it where it can be appreciated instead of disqualified.
• Speaking of stories, remember to put one in your setting! It’s easy to get caught up in detailed descriptions of a place, but something should happen. Consider how the setting itself might affect the plot or characters in your story. We’re going to repeat what we said in our post on setting images: stories imply change. Your characters, or your readers, should learn and grow over the course of the story.

Your turn!

Check out our weekly prompt posts and try to tell a story using the setting prompts given. Don’t forget to ask for help in the Coffeehouse on Facebook or Discord if you’ve got questions – you can post a link to your draft or even a snippet of your story or essay (up to 250 words) for immediate feedback. Don’t forget to use content warnings where they’re merited, so that you can get the best and most engaged readers for the words you like to write.

What’s next?

Wondering what the year has in store? Here’s a handy roadmap!

Get out your map

Here's the general flow of this year's workshop series. You don't have to follow them in order, but you may find that one builds on the next.

September: Retellings

October: Style over Substance

November: Combination Prompts

December: Roundup

About the author:

About the author:

Rowan submitted exactly one piece of microfiction to YeahWrite before being consumed by the editorial darkside. She spent some time working hard as our Submissions Editor before becoming YeahWrite’s Managing Editor in 2016. She was a BlogHer Voice of the Year in 2017 for her work on intersectional feminism, but she suggests you find and follow WOC instead. In real life she’s been at various times an attorney, aerialist, professional knitter, artist, graphic designer (yes, they’re different things), editor, secretary, tailor, and martial artist. It bothers her vaguely that the preceding list isn’t alphabetized, but the Oxford comma makes up for it. She lives in Portlandia with a menagerie which includes at least one other human. She tells lies at textwall and uncomfortable truths at CrossKnit.

rowan@yeahwrite.me