This week: Setting the Stage Edited by: Jeff  
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You never know what you can do until you try,
and very few try unless they have to."
— C.S. Lewis
About The Editor: Greetings! My name is Jeff and I'm one of the regular editors of the official Noticing Newbies Newsletter! I've been a member of Writing.com since 2003, and have edited more than 400 newsletters across the site in that time. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to email me directly or submit feedback in the comment box at the bottom of this newsletter.
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Setting the Stage
One of the most important elements of a story is where it happens. There are millions of unique locations in the world (and millions more unique worlds waiting for you to imagine them!), and it's important that you select an appropriate place for your story to occur. The reason why so many horror movies have scenes that take place at night is because the darkness adds an air of tension and foreboding. It wouldn't be as scary to walk through those woods on the edge of town if it was the middle of the day and you could see what was lurking around every tree! Similarly, romantic stories are often set in romantic places: Parisian cafes at sunrise, beaches at sunset, and other places that make the reader feel a sense of warmth and/or luxury.
When it comes to stories in any genre, careful thought needs to go into the place where the events will take place. If you're writing about a detective playing a cat-and-mouse game with a crafty serial killer, would a more compelling location be in a remote settlement with a population of 50, or a major metropolis with millions of people who could be the potential killer (or victims)? If you're writing a bank robbery story, the mechanics and approach to the robbery would be completely different if you're talking about a suburban branch of a multinational banking conglomerate versus the lone branch of a local credit union in a remote corner of Nova Scotia.
Make sure that you pick a location that's appropriate to the story you're trying to tell. Or better yet, try and figure out how a unique location can put an interesting new spin on a familiar story. Maybe robbing a small-town bank to get something specific out of one of the safe deposit boxes would be more interesting than a bank heist in the city where the robbers are hoping to score millions. Perhaps you could find some new and exciting possibilities if a detective character were chasing a serial killer through a remote Alaskan township, or worse, knew that it was one of the twenty regular townspeople.
Once you have your setting figured out, make sure you do enough research and know it well enough to make it an engaging part of your story. Make it feel authentic for the reader, so they get a sense of where they are in the world. While sometimes a faceless city or a generic suburb or a nondescript island retreat can be effective, it's usually better to give your readers a real sense of where they are. Embrace the setting of your story and incorporate elements that they can't get anywhere else. Why have a car chase through random and bland city streets when your San Francisco-set mystery can have them flying off the steep hills its streets are known for, or racing across the Golden Gate Bridge? If you're going to have your characters travel to an extravagant ski location like Aspen, or the Swiss Alps, include the details and elements that will help your reader feel like he or she is really there experiencing that location.
If you really go the extra mile to think about and incorporate an interesting setting into your writing, it can add an entirely new dimension to your story. The location might even play a role itself, becoming almost a character in its own right if the protagonist has to struggle against his surroundings just as much as he has to struggle against the villain he's pursuing. As writers, it's our job to spend an extraordinary amount of time developing characters and stories in order to make them realistic and compelling for our audiences. While you're doing all that hard work, consider spending an equal amount of time developing your setting. A realistic, engaging, and interesting setting can be just as much of a draw as a brilliant character or a clever plot twist.
Until next time,
Jeff
If you're interested in checking out my work:
"New & Noteworthy Things" | "Blogocentric Formulations"
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Feedback from "Noticing Newbies Newsletter (October 15, 2025)" about NaNoWriMo:
As a long time participant of NaNoWriMo (2024 marked 17 years), I was crushed when they dissolved. What I loved so much about the challenge was first the focus on my writing, then the amount of support I found within its community. I only hope to be so lucky as to find that here.
— JL Richter 
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Noticing Newbies: November 12, 2025 Issue [#13452]
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