28 creative writing settings to unlock writer’s block

The story setting is the place your story takes place. It is the backdrop for your characters to move freely and exist. It’s the building, the city, or the room. The location of your story can help to serve up emotions and lean into the mood of your piece, like a dark forest could be the backdrop for a scary experience. Or you can use the setting to juxtapose emotions, like adults fighting at a child’s birthday party or a celebration at a cemetery. Perhaps all you need to get out of writer’s block is a change of scenery. Your characters need a new place to exist. You need a new thing to describe. Put them in the mall, behind the counter of Hot Dog on a Stick. Maybe they’re riding in the back of an ambulance. Perhaps you combine the two settings, an accident with the hot dog frier?! What happens next…ohh, I’m intrigued.

Here are 28 creative writing settings to help you get started:

A Crowded Cambodian street

A Museum exhibit where an art house video keeps looping

A Corn field

Stuck in a McDonalds play palace slide

On stage at an open mic night

Sitting around the campfire

A Nightclub in Prague

At the drugstore at night

High school reunion

The public bathroom at a state beach

Parking lot of a dive bar

Abandoned furniture warehouse

Backseat of an Uber

Side of the road

Department store dressing room

The bushes outside of high school prom

Hospital supply closet

At the lake you grew up fishing

At a Baseball game

On a boat

At a gas station convince store

Underneath the bed

In a faulty elevator

An animal shelter

Boston Marathon

In a Dark room developing photographs

Walking the dog

In Grandma’s basement

OK, write!