About the Random Setting Generator
Each draw gives you two things: a genre label and a location. The locations are 64 specific places that could exist anywhere, a salt mine turned into a concert hall, a fen where the horizon is entirely sky, a border crossing that closes for lunch. The genre label in front of it is the interesting part, because the same walled garden reads completely differently under Horror than it does under Romance.
That pairing is the exercise. Ten genres against 64 locations gives 640 combinations, and the awkward pairings are usually the productive ones. Comedy in an underground reservoir open one day a year forces you to invent the reason people are down there, and inventing the reason is most of the work of starting a story.
Novelists use it to break out of the same three settings they always reach for, game masters use it to place the next encounter somewhere memorable, and teachers use it to give every pupil a different starting point. To add what is actually happening in the location, run the Random Scene Generator, and for a problem to drop into the place use the Random Scenario Generator.
How to use
- Pick how many settings you want, for example one per writer in the group.
- Press Generate and take the genre label seriously, even when it does not fit at first glance.
- Copy the settings you like, or download them for a workshop handout.
Common questions
- Why is a genre attached to the location?
- The genre changes what you notice about the place, which is what turns a location into a story idea rather than a description.
- Are these locations real?
- They are real kinds of place rather than named ones, so a windmill still grinding flour on Saturdays exists in many countries.
- Can I ignore the genre?
- Yes. Take the part after the colon and the location works as a plain setting prompt.
- How many combinations are there?
- Ten genres and 64 locations give 640 pairings, enough for a term of daily prompts without repeating.