Re: Specifying the setting - must I?
The point is, I'm betting that your story doesn't actually start "in a city." It starts in some particular place -- a street, a house, a particular place in some city in the Southwest.
If you look at most movies that don't start with a helicopter shot flying over a particular city, but start in close on somebody or some street or something happening somewhere, unless there's a little super identifying the place, we really don't know where it's taking place.
I just saw Moonlight. Where does that take place? I'm sure that people who are familiar with wherever it takes place could tell you where it took place. I frankly don't know. And I'll tell you something else. I don't care. It's a story that could have unfolded in any number of places.
What you want is to be specific to the people and the time and their experience. How they live, how they talk, what they eat, how they get around.
It's at that level of detail that stories come to life and feel real. It doesn't really matter if you pull back and identify the city. If the detail of the character's lives feels real, then the reader/viewer will accept the larger reality.
NMS
Originally posted by SBdeb
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If you look at most movies that don't start with a helicopter shot flying over a particular city, but start in close on somebody or some street or something happening somewhere, unless there's a little super identifying the place, we really don't know where it's taking place.
I just saw Moonlight. Where does that take place? I'm sure that people who are familiar with wherever it takes place could tell you where it took place. I frankly don't know. And I'll tell you something else. I don't care. It's a story that could have unfolded in any number of places.
What you want is to be specific to the people and the time and their experience. How they live, how they talk, what they eat, how they get around.
It's at that level of detail that stories come to life and feel real. It doesn't really matter if you pull back and identify the city. If the detail of the character's lives feels real, then the reader/viewer will accept the larger reality.
NMS
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