Writing About Memories

I've been thinking about this building lately. 

It's not just any building. I lived here several years ago. Recently I went back to visit, and when I walked past this building there was a flood of memories.

Do you have a special place that you remember? A house you lived in, or a friend's apartment? The school where you went to kindergarten? A grandparent's yard? The back seat of your parents' old car? 

When we write about these places, something amazing happens: more memories come back, even stronger. It's not necessary to visit. Just the act of writing triggers details we may have forgotten. 

Think of a place that was special to you. To get started, write down three things you remember about that place. Then write down the emotion you felt about each thing.

When more details come, keep writing. Don't worry about forming them into a finished piece yet. Think of your memories as your "compost heap." The memories may spark an idea for a story or an essay about your life.

Our memories are unique to us. What place do you remember? 

A Magical Setting

I normally write realistic fiction, but there are times I like to think about writing fantasy stories. 

Like when I look at this tree.

I took this photo in England, but this wonderful, gnarled tree says to me, "magical setting." 

Who or what lives in the tree? How old is it? What is the name of the forest? What is about to happen?

Use this tree for the setting of a fantasy story, and see what you discover. It may be something magical. 

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? 

Write a Poem About Your Place

Where do you live? 

Is it a big city or a tiny town? Do you live on a farm or in a high-rise building? Do you live on a busy corner or high up a hill? 

To continue celebrating National Poetry Month, let's write about our place. 

Think about where you live. What do you like about it? What don't you like? What makes it different from any other place? How do you get there? By train, car, boat, bus, or elevator? 

First write down some images that come to mind. Use all your 5 senses: what do you see, hear, smell, taste, touch in your mind when you think about the place where you live?

Include details that make your place unique. 

Now take those details and images and put them into your poem, telling the reader--as only you can--about the place where you live.

I live on an island. Here's my poem.

An Island in the Morning

The ferry honks three times:
I'm coming in!

The heron lifts its wings:
I'm hungry!

The salt air stings the nose:
I smell like fish! 

The dock stretches into the harbor:
Tie your boats up here! 

The mountain shows off: 
I'm a giant ice-cream cone! 

The rocky beach makes walking hard:
I'm slippery and wet! 

The grocery store opens its doors:
I hear the morning gossip!

A bus rumbles down the main street:
I take commuters to the ferry!

The ferry honks one time: 
I'm going out! 

What do you want to say about your place? 

Description and Setting

Description and setting. 

Boring, right? The parts we skip over?

Wrong! At least, not if description and setting are written in an interesting way. 

So, how to do that? 

Here's an exercise:

Pick a character from this list:

• a homeless person who carries a pet tarantula
• a waitress who's a millionaire
• a hippie who joins the army
• a guitar-playing banana
• a reporter for a vegetarian magazine 

Then pick a setting from this list:

• a suburb in the clouds
• a water theme park 
• a shopping mall in the middle of the night
• an underground hideout
• a coffee shop that used to be a firehouse

Let's say we pick the guitar-playing banana and an underground hideout. 

How can we describe both with some revealing details? Don't worry what the story's "about." Just a little description about the character and setting. 

Bob the Banana strummed his guitar. It was way too big for him, since he was only seven inches tall. Plus it was hard to hold the guitar with no hands. He couldn't play loudly because the underground hideout had flimsy walls. They were damp, too. Bob had lived here for 5 years, which is a very long time for a banana. He had to admit, he was starting to smell. 

What do we know about guitar-playing Bob? He's seven inches tall, he has no hands, and he smells. What do we know about the underground hideout? The walls are damp and flimsy, not soundproof. 

Now, with these revealing details about character and setting, we can go on to ask questions.  

Why does Bob love to play the guitar?
Why has he been living in an underground hideout for 5 years?
Who is he hiding from?

We're on our way to a story! All because we explored description and setting. Try it. And don't forget to eat your bananas. 

Setting: Houseboats

If you're like most of us, you live in an apartment, a house, a trailer home, a dorm, a cottage, a condo, or some other kind of building that stands on land. 

Not many of us are lucky enough to live on a houseboat. I took these photos in Seattle, where there are several communities of people who live on the water.

Even if we can't live on a houseboat, we can choose it as a setting.

What are the sights, sounds, and smells your character would experience living on the water?


What kinds of people or animals would live there?

• How about a cat named Admiral?

• A girl whose mother is a tugboat captain?

• A boy who's afraid of water?

• A dog who dreams about having a big yard?

• A retired pirate?

Try setting a story on a houseboat. If you're lucky, you actually live on one. For the rest of us, we can create a story where a house surrounded by water gives our readers an unusual setting. 

Happy houseboating! 

Choose an Unusual Setting

Do you recognize this object? Yes, it's a telephone booth! 

A phone booth is a rarity nowadays. But there are still some around. I found this one outside a motel in Wisconsin. 

Using an unusual setting like a telephone booth can make the places in our stories memorable and interesting.  

Imagine the possibilities. What would happen if you inserted a telephone booth into your story? 

Or try one of these ideas:

• The phone rings. Your character, walking by, answers it. What happens next?

• Your character must make an urgent phone call. But his cell phone battery is dead. He runs down the street and finds a phone booth. But now he has no change. What happens next?

• A family of Tele-Fairies lives in the phone booth. Every time a human makes a phone call, a fairy goes out into the world to do good. But no one has made a phone call for ages, and evil forces are outweighing the good. What happens next?

• As a prank, six friends decide to squeeze into a phone booth. They're packed in so tightly they get stuck. What happens next?

• An alien appears on Earth and falls in love with the first object it sees: a beautiful red and silver phone booth. What happens next?

See if YOU can find a role in your story for the humble phone booth, a nearly forgotten part of our culture. 

The phone's ringing. It's for you! 

Setting: The Gum Wall

Here in Seattle we have a gum wall. Actually two walls--on both sides of an alley--filled with (used) gum.

The gum wall has become a tourist attraction, and it's a fun place to go people-watching. 

It could also be a great setting for a story. 

• What if two characters meet next to the gum wall--and one character disappears?

• What if a character's walls at home are covered with gum?

• What if the gum can talk?

• What if the gum wall is magic?

• What if a character writes his or her name in gum--and that's the start of an adventure? 

Get out a pack of gum, chew a piece while you think up story ideas, and then use the gum wall as a setting. 

And if you live in Seattle, add your gum to the brick alley wall. 

Setting: Orange Place

 Last week I wrote about blue trees. Today I'm writing about Orange Place. 

Orange Place is in Seattle. I don't know how the street got its name. When I was there I didn't see any orange trees, orange houses, or orange leaves (because it's February). But I think Orange Place is a great name for a street.

If you were writing a story set on Orange Place, who would live there? Orange people? Orange cats? Or blue people who think it's funny to live on Orange Place?

Set a story on Orange Place. For fun, make the cross street Purple Way, Crimson Drive, or Turquoise Boulevard. What color are the sidewalks, houses, stores, mailboxes, and cars? 

For extra deliciousness, eat an orange while you write your story. And ponder this question: did you know no word in English rhymes with orange? 

Setting: Blue Trees

What's your first thought when you see blue trees? Cool! Weird! Or--huh?  

Your eyes aren't tricking you. These honey locust trees in Westlake Park in Seattle do indeed have blue trunks. The trunks make you want to stop and look, don't they?

Australian artist Konstantin Dimopoulos colored the trunks blue as part of his international art exhibit, "The Blue Trees." He wants to draw attention to the cutting down of forests worldwide. The purpose of the exhibit is to make people think about trees and how important they are to our world. 

Don't worry. The blue color doesn't hurt the trees. The color isn't paint. It's made from azurite--a vibrant blue rock--and water.

For a fun writing prompt, create a setting for a story with blue trees. Who lives among the trees? Or in the trees? Are the characters human or another type of creature? Where are the blue trees? Are they on planet Earth or somewhere entirely different? 

When you're done writing, don't forget to thank a tree. 

Setting a Story on a Cloud

I read on Discover Magazine's blog that a representative from the National Center for Atmospheric Research said that a single, small, white, cotton-ball cloud weighs about the same as 100 (4-ton) elephants.

Wow. 


The weight comes from all the water that's in that cloud. Makes you see clouds differently, doesn't it?


Try this: Set a story on a cloud. It can be a small, white, cotton-ball cloud, but remember, the cloud is actually dense with heavy moisture. 


Who would live on a cloud? Would they wear raincoats and boots? Or would they have special skin that has adapted to all that heavy water weight? 


What would houses be like on a cloud? Would the houses have special roofs? Or would there be no houses at all? 


What would people eat and drink? What would the gardens be like? 


What would your story conflict be? Maybe, despite all that moisture, there's a water war. Or someone on the cloud is allergic to water. Or....use your imagination! 


Setting can be fun to play with in a story, and what's more fun than playing on a cloud?  

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!

A Dog on a Roof

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about designing a house for a cat. Later I saw something really interesting: a dog living next to a trailer in an unusual spot. Here's the trailer:

And here's the dog and its house:

Here's another view:

How do you think the dog likes living here? What interesting things does the dog see from its perch high above the street?

For fun, write a story about this dog. This is a great opportunity to include lots of details about the setting!