How to Use Place as a Starting Point for your Writing

Have you ever gone back to a place where you grew up, childhood home, a park, a town or even a room, and memories come rushing back about what happened there? Sometimes surprising ones!

Every experience we have happens somewhere. And our memories of those things are so often embedded in the places where they happened, your own memories, and others’ memories. Details long forgotten can magically appear when you return or think about a place.

1970s Marin

The other day, I drove down the street in Novato, California where my gramma and grampa used to live and I saw their old house. It’s been changed a bit since the 1970s but it still looked familiar.

I saw the kitchen window and remembered my gramma making us Tang (!) and us kids roller-skating loudly down the sidewalk in front of the house. Images appeared of my sister and I playing astronauts with Katie, Renee, and Christopher—who lived next door, and I saw us having strawberry shortcake with them and the rest of the neighbor kids for my fifth birthday in the backyard. It was as if they were all still there somewhere.

Even a Bedroom Closet Qualifies

In my writing workshops, I take students into their memories through places they have been, and there have really been a variety of places. One time, a student decided her ovaries were a place she wanted to consider. Another decided on her bedroom closet in Hawaii. From the closet, this woman began writing about events she had long forgotten, about her time in Hawaii as a child.

You can work with these stories directly as memoir or as a jumping-off point for fiction, essays, poetry, or even other arts.

Try it Yourself

First, begin with a place, it can really be anywhere. It’s easiest to start with a place you enjoyed (no need to traumatize yourself!) Go from there. Write down a basic description of the place, and then keep writing. See what emerges.