#setting help

Created to help the spark in getting to know the setting of your story, this printable 5-page pdf will get you describing!

(When your only knowledge comes from Gilmore Girls and Family Guy)

New England was the first part of the US to be permanantly settled by Europeans. It is home to some of the oldest history of the US as we know it, tons of amazing seafood, some of the most beautiful fall scenes, and a bunch of die-hard sports fans.

I grew up in a small town in Connecticut and spent my summers in a small city in Maine and now live in a somewhat large city in Rhode Island. Did you follow all that? That makes me (in my own mind at least) an expert on New England. So, if your setting is my little neck of the woods, here's some tips to make the writing feel authentic.

Getting Around

We are very small states. You can get into another state within a few hours' drive. Most of our cities are also pretty small (Boston is the exception) and therefore anything you know about small towns can be applied to our states in general. It happened often I'd be in Vermont and met people who knew my friends in Connecticut.

Driving here is shitty, to say the least. I think we basically took the roads used in the 1600s and put tar on them and called them highways.

We know how to drive in all sorts of weather, which makes us extremely aggressive drivers. We love our horns. Massachusetts and Rhode Island are probably the most aggressive

Traffic is increased exponentially in the fall when people come to see the leaves change. We call these people Leaf Peepers

Going to "the city" most likely means Boston and it is surprisingly well connected through buses and trains

Driving to Canada is super easy for a long weekend

Weather

We experience vastly changing weather. It can be snowing on Monday and 65 on Tuesday

Winter means a frozen tundra where there can be feet of snow falling on you (one year we had so much we had to climb out the second floor windows to leaves the house).

It's the wind that really is cold. Sure, 27 isn't too cold for winter...but then its -7 with windchill and you want to die.

Summer can see 100+ degree days and it is humid! We escape to the beach where the water is a whopping 65 degrees (and colder the further north you go. Looking at you Bar Harbor)

Fall is beautiful. But winter likes to butt in early sometimes. Halloween costumes are often accessorized with winter coats

Connecticut

It's a bit of an exception and kinda the oddball of New England. The northern portion is standard New England, but as you get closer to New York it basically changes to trying to be the 6th borough. As you drive you can literally feel where the line is

New Hampshire

Another exception. While the rest of the states are basically all democratic-leaning, New Hampshire stays red pretty often. We let it slide though because they don't tax their alcohol.

Speaking of: its sometimes more cost effective to drive to New Hampshire and stock up on alcohol. I also like it because it's the only place in the area that I know of where you can buy whiskey at Rite Aid

It was only within the last 5 or so years that you could buy alcohol on sundays here (though other states are like this as well)

Slang

Just because it's fun to know. But be careful if you don't know how to use these words correctly

Wicked. Super, a lot, awesome, a great musical on Broadway. It's a versatile word

Packie. Used only in Comnecticut, short for package store. You go here to buy alcohol

Bubbler. Used mainly in Connecticut and Rhode Island, it's a water fountain

Leaf peepers. As said above, it's people who come up here in the fall to see the leaves change. Often said angrily when you're stuck in traffic (ie. Fuckin leaf peepers)

Rubbernecking. When traffic slows down due to trying to see what's going on on the side of the road (like someone being pulled over). A person who does this is a rubbernecker

Other Stuff of Note

Gilmore Girls got a lot right. Everyone knows everyone, small towns are super quirky, deer run out and hit your cars often. However! Public transit from New Haven to Hartford would not take 30 minutes. More like 3+ hours with multiple transfers.

Peter Griffin's accent is exaggerated but it is pretty accurate for Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Stewie's accent is known as "Brahman" and is known as the accent of the social elite of Boston. If you've ever heard the Kennedy family speak, they also have a social elite accent known as "the Queen's English." Other than that, our accents are pretty "neutral"

Crayon, drawer, and mirror are all one syllable words. Its "cran," "draaw" (held out slightly longer than "to draw a picture"), and "mirrr" (basically eliminate the "o." Almost like a growly R I guess would be the best way to describe it)

Most words ending in -er turn to the -ah sound. Most famous is of course chowdah. G's are also often dropped at the end of words

So for The Dark Protege (new series I wanna write) I want it set post-apocalypse then with the witches dead and burned. Michael is venturing back and we see his plan fall into place, him ruling the world. But I want your ideas on what the world is, what has happened especially what is the Sanctuary. Where is it, does it have significance, who is there? Basically all the setting cause I am in so many different minds.

Is it high-tech or have things gone backwards like in Outpost 3? Does Michael have his own area/private rooms, is there a Satanist vibe running throughout or can people do what they want? I wanna create the dystopia of it all and make it pretty authentic. How is food grown, GMO? Is there plant life, artificial sunlight? Education? I wanna know it all so send me everything! ❤️

Well, it depends on my setting and what I need to be naming. If I’m working in a fictitious fantasy realm, I’ll usually take inspiration from (usually) ancient languages and piece together two words, which usually have some sort of meaning. (For example, I named a coastal kingdom Meruille using words meaning sea and leaf given its nearness to the sea, nearness to a vast forest, and its shape) Sometimes, I’ll add or rearrange letters just so things sound a bit nicer.

If I’m writing something contemporary, I try to look at the naming conventions around the location I’m writing. A fictional city in Massachusetts, for example, could be Estherville, since there are many -villes in New England, while a fictional city in Southern California was San Alvarez, as there’s richer Spanish and Mexican history and a handful of cities are named after some sort of saint. If I’m naming a street, I may come up with some random surname (or iconic historical figure) or a type or plant and attach any sort of “Road, Avenue, Boulevard” at random.

I couldn’t find anything for animals. But here is a masterlist for animals:

https://elizabethbeechwood.com/writing-from-an-animals-perspective-2/

https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2015/jan/28/writing-tips-animal-stories-tom-moorhouse

http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/5-tricks-animal-writers-should-know

https://letterpile.com/writing/How-to-Write-an-Animal-Character-for-a-Fiction-Story

http://www.litbridge.com/2012/12/28/creative-writing-prompts-about-animals/

http://jaycwolfe.com/2014/01/15/writing-for-animal-characters-writers-reveal/

http://flavorwire.com/67318/the-birds-and-the-bees-our-favorite-animal-pov-fiction

And here are some websites about nature:

http://naturewriting.com/

http://www.adweek.com/galleycat/how-to-write-about-nature/70188

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/22/nature-writing-literary-gold

https://www.writingforward.com/writing-prompts/creative-writing-prompts/12-nature-inspired-creative-writing-prompts

There are many posts about this exact problem, so here are the most helpful articles I could find. 

http://thepenspointofview.tumblr.com/post/77136504139/vampires-how-to-avoid-a-sucky-story

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/SoYouWantTo/WriteAVampireNovel

http://www.vampires.com/avoiding-cliches-when-writing-vampire-fiction/

http://fmwriters.com/Visionback/Vision25/donetoundeath.htm

http://vermillionworks.tumblr.com/post/133561128067/writing-vampires

http://writing-questions-answered.tumblr.com/post/57237406359/character-development-the-a-typical-vampire

http://howtofightwrite.tumblr.com/post/69906824089/do-you-have-any-tips-on-playing-a-vampire

http://auideas.tumblr.com/post/124846240667/how-do-i-write-modern-vampire-aus

https://www.chrismoore.com/interviews/writing-the-vampire/

And here is another masterlist on writing vampires: