creative writing story setting

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Story setting ideas list of writing prompts.

I keep a list of settings. In fact, I keep a list of many things to help jar my creativity while brainstorming—core fears, phobias, careers for characters, character types—just about anything I think might help my brain make a creative cross-connection and get a new idea. I look at brainstorming as a musician practices playing scales—exercising my creativity just makes it stronger.

Of all the lists I keep, story setting ideas is one I use often. When I am freethinking, I close my eyes and point at random. Sometimes when I’m stuck in my manuscript, I look over this list and see if I can’t jar an idea loose. Sometimes I match the settings up. I also use other lists and randomly choose from one list, then the other. Anything to get my creative juices going again.

Here is my list of places or settings for you to begin your own list and use as creative writing prompts.

Story Setting Ideas List

Write about what happens at a(n):

__________ Academy Abbey Airport

Alley(s) Alligator Farm Art Gallery

Art Studio Artist Colony Auto Junkyard

Ancient Pyramid Animal Sanctuary Animal Shelter

Animal Research Facility Art Museum Aquarium

Barber Shop Baseball Stadium Basement

Beach Beauty Salon Blood Bank

Blood Drive Bookstore Botanical Garden

Bridge Buddhist Temple

Cabin Castle Casino

Cathedral Cave (Bat, Collapsed, Crystal)

Cemetery Center for Disease Control Laboratory

Cheap Hotel Chinatown (any city) Church

Circus City Dump City Rooftop(s)

City Street Coal Mine Coffee House

College Dorm Room Concert Hall Corporate Board Room

Day Spa Distillery

Fairground Fishing Boat Floating Fish Factory

Football Stadium Fort

Garden Graveyard Gymnasium

Highway Rest Stop Hospital Hospital Board Room

Insectarium Jazz Club

Landfill Lighthouse Logging Camp (Town)

Mansion Mannequin Factory Medical Laboratory

Mississippi River Barge Mosque

New Orleans during Mardi Gras

Nuclear Reactor Nursing Home

Observatory Opera House

Palace Park Pet Grooming Salon

Precious Metal Mine (Gold, Silver, Copper) Priory

Prison Police Station Pottery Studio

Previously Undiscovered Island

Previously Undiscovered Planet

Principal’s Office

Racetrack Rainforest Roadside Motel

Roadkill Pickup Truck

Salt Mine Sanitarium Schoolroom

School Lab Secret Hideaway Sewer

Shack Shoeshine Stand Shopping Mall

Small Town Spider Farm Steel Mill

Steam Ship (or Boat) Synagogue

Temple Theater Tower

Trailer Park Train Graveyard Train Station

Wax Museum Wildlife Ranch Windmill

Winery Woods Worm Ranch

Story Setting Ideas List, Somewhere Famous

Alcatraz Amazon Rain Forest

Angkor Wat, Cambodia Buckingham Palace

Death Valley Disneyland

Easter Island Forbidden City

Galapagos Islands Golden Gate Bridge

Grand Canyon Great Barrier Reef

Great Wall Hollywood

Jerusalem Kashmir Valley

Machu Picchu Mount Everest

Nile Palace of Versailles

Pike’s Peak Pompeii

Potala Palace, Tibet Pyramids of Giza and Great Sphinx

Sahara Desert Serengeti

Sistine Chapel Statue of Liberty

Stonehenge Taj Mahal

Tombstone Uffizi Gallery

Valley of the Kings Venice (Canals)

The White House Zen Garden of Kyoto

Story Setting Ideas, Combine Setting with Another Idea

Insert a place from above into one of the following creative writing prompts and see what happens. As Stephen King says: “…good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun…”

Pet __________ (okay, Pet Cemetery has been done and so has the idea of combining a pet and racetrack ( The Art of Racing in the Rain) but what about other stories including pets? What about pet & theater? Pet & palace? Pet & casino? Pet & circus? Pet & Stonehenge?)

Old Folks __________ (yes, “home” is the first thought, but keep going.) What about old folks & circus? Old folks & college dorm room? Old folks & garden—Yikes! I just had a thought about planting old folk parts and getting…what? Veggies that if you eat them, you become possessed? Or is this garden a connection to the otherworld? Will the garden produce wisdom? Prophets? Or a zombie plague?

See how this works? So get your creative juices flowing and don’t look back.

Abandoned __________ (logging camp, church, fish boat, trailer park…you get the idea)

Haunted __________

A murder at __________

A secret at __________

A magical __________

An evil __________

A previously undiscovered __________

__________ in the woods

Old __________ turned into apartments

A __________ shrine

A __________ museum

A __________ graveyard

Story Setting Ideas, Combine Two Settings

Write about a blood drive at a nuclear reactor. Or a roadkill pickup truck at a casino. What about an animal protection sanctuary on city rooftops? A mannequin factory near Stonehenge or a secret hideaway wax museum?

Lots of ideas come to mind—not all good, but that’s okay! The point is to jog your brain (or muse) into generating new connections. As your subconscious tries to make sense of connections, ideas will come. Try it. May many excellent, fresh, exciting ideas come flooding your way!

16 Comments

August 24, 2012 at 11:30 am

August 24, 2012 at 1:27 pm

You are so welcome, Kim 🙂

September 5, 2012 at 4:55 pm

Your settings list is great. It just may become my settings list. 😉 For some reason as I scrolled through, “City Dump” piqued my interest the most. Haha.

September 6, 2012 at 6:05 am

I’m glad you find the list helpful, Lauren. You gotta accept inspiration no matter where it takes you, right? 🙂 The settings I seem to choose (or more to the point–that choose me) always end up gritty and less on the “romantic” side of life. Sigh.

April 11, 2013 at 4:15 am

This is great! really useful!! I often use places that I have been as the starting point. In my latest story I used the tomb raider temple that I visted in Cambodia as the base for the setting in one of the scenes. I started with a picture in my minds eye and my imagination did the rest!! Twitter – @anagranimals

April 14, 2013 at 1:07 pm

Wow, Leith, that sounds like quite a trip! Once I get a “mind’s eye” scene, I do the same, I’m off to the keyboard (or pen–depending on my mood 🙂

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March 7, 2016 at 9:41 pm

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