: Re: Is having a specific town for a setting in a young-adult novel a bad thing? I'm writing a young-adult story, that is quite clearly set in my home town, because this is where I grew up as

@Debbie451

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I think it's important to figure out why you were bored by the mining community setting. Is it because the character made too much of the details without giving the reader a sense of why they were important? For example, if the reader is following the character through a day in the mines, are the details important because we don't know if at any moment the mine is going to collapse on the protagonist or her father?

I think it's less important to make the setting generic as is it to make the underlying meaning relatable. I can identify with feeling isolated, out of place, like I don't belong, but done correctly, it shouldn't matter if the isolated protagonist is in New York City, Amish country, Paris (France), Paris (Texas), Poughkeepsie, or Peoria.

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