Writing Place Names

Take a look at these street corner signs. Whoa! Where is this place?

Warsaw, Poland, to be exact. I took this photo in 2011, and I love it because the photo shows how place names differ in different countries.

This corner is a real place, but when we invent stories, we get to make up place names. Why not have fun doing so?

Write about your very own, made-up street intersection. What will you name the two streets? 

The names can be silly, simple, serious, or impossible to pronounce. They can have special meaning for you or your characters, or be completely random.

When you're done naming your streets, put two characters underneath the signs. Now let them have a conversation. Why are they meeting at this intersection? What is their conflict? 

By the way, one of the signs above means "Krakow Suburb." The other sign commemorates a famous general.

What will your signs say? 

Setting and Place

This building is College Hall at Vermont College of Fine Arts, where I got my master's degree in writing.

Pretend I didn't just tell you that. Let's pretend:

• This building is where a family of retired elves live.
• This building is where a lonely widow lives with her pet tarantula.
• This building is where a 12-year-old boy has just moved in with his parents, who are movie producers.

Who else could live in this building?

Setting is all about place. Where a story takes place is important. Details about place, or setting, can make a story come alive. Described vividly, setting can be almost like another character.

The above photo was taken in winter.

Here's the same building in summer.

How would the season change the setting of the story? The building will still be there, but how do snow or leafy trees change what happens in the story?

You could also have fun naming the building:

• The McCreepie Mansion
• The Home for Abandoned Aardvarks
• The School for Wayward Snowmen

Write a story that takes place in this building. You choose: winter, summer, or both. Remember to include details about the setting to make your story come alive!

Naming Places and Things

It's fun to name characters in a story, but it's also fun to name things in your story.

In this exercise, name the following things and imagine the stories they might go in. When you come up with a story idea you love, write the story!

• a desert town
• a disease that's just been discovered
• a diner
• quadruplets
• a combination laundromat and beauty salon
• a new diet soda
• a summer cottage
• a rock band
• a circus
• a tree house
• a parking garage
• a shoe store

Here's my idea for a desert town named Crazy Rock: A girl who's lived near the ocean all her life moves to Crazy Rock, a town of 100 people in the Arizona desert. She misses the water so much, she decides to find a way to bring a bit of the ocean to her new home....

Excuse me while I go write the story. Try naming the things above and finding your own idea for a story!