2016 Writing Project - The Setting

Now for the third entry in a short series of posts on my 2016 writing project. I'm thinking there will be just one more after this.

Where and when does my story take place? While many elements of my story have morphed over time, the setting has largely been known since I first started getting ideas many years ago. The story takes place in an alternate reality of our world. Now, to be clear, it's only a slight alternate reality. Essentially the world is the same as the one we know and live in, but with a few details adjusted for the sake of the storyline. As for the time, it's been my intention since the beginning for the story to be a modern one. Granted, the ideas for the story have slowly been building since I graduated high school, so what constitutes modern has continually shifted in the past decade. Because of this, I made the decision awhile back to set a more definitive starting year for the storyline. The story will start in either the year 2014 or 2015, and will span a period of about three years after that. My thought on this is that by starting it in the recent past, the story can end in whatever the present day is, as this project, should it somehow ever come to fruition, will take a few years to complete.