Nowhere is Dull

Image: Welcome to nowhere by ~Paskaler

At Cult Fiction, we talked about our stories.  I laid mine out, as much as I had, and there was much critique.  One question that didn't get asked was, "Where is this taking place?"  Which is good, because my answer would have been something like, "Doesn't matter.  Anywhere, really."

My current story has a cult that engages in human sacrifice.  There's a victim for the cult to murder, and the victim has a rescuer.  When I took my first run at the structural layout, I didn't even ask where it'll take place.  When I imagined staging the events, I pictured some modern city in the United States, during some temperate weather.  There'd be a house in the city, there'd be a cult gathering site on the outskirts.

Well, a major benefit I get at Cult Fiction is being made to face up to my limitations.  How many drafts of how many stories do I need to write before I stop slighting the setting?

Spare No Expense

One lesson I've been slow to learn is that I'm not saddled with a budget.  Were I making a live action movie, I might have trouble putting my cult in the Himalayas.  Or having the cult attack the Lyric Opera House in Chicago, abducting their victim during the middle of a ballet. These would be impossible to shoot on a shoestring, but prose comes cheap.  "A nondescript room in the middle of nowhere interesting," doesn't cost me more than, "A noisy morgue in the embattled city of echoes."

Setting Isn't Clutter

Habitually, I select the minimum number of locations and backdrops, and I aim to make them unimportant to the unfolding drama.  It's as if I regard the setting as clutter that needs to be swept off the page.  Instead, I should seek to mine the locations and backdrops for interesting complications and embellishments.

New Tool: Location Scout

I'm a fan of making tools to overcome writing problems.  This one is less formulaic than others I've made, and it consists of writing a short essay in the voice of an excited location scout.  I come up with my story idea, even do a bare-bones layout of some structural components, then I write a five paragraph essay that explores wild, interesting, and exotic locations and backdrops that would enhance the story.  What this should do is kick me out of my habitual rut.

My goal is to turn in a draft of my new story on Tuesday.  I want to do all the things right that I already know how to do, and I want to deliver an engaging setting along with it.

   - Eric M. Cherry