My WiP is YA fiction. It is set in modern times on a dairy farm in a small, quaint town. The action will take place in many places around the world as the plot thickens, but the story will always be pulled back to this farm and the life it represented before the life-changing events turned the protag's world upside down. Is this setting too dull for teens? Will it seem to backwards or out of date for them?
I think it depends. The farm can be seen as the quintessential safe place is a world of turmoil, but really only the reader has some familiarity with that. If it is a story for teens and you are seeking a "safe place" protected from all of the conflict in the story (I am making guesses here as you have not said what the farm symbolizes) I would ask some teens what there safe places are. I know for some it would be sports fields, others libraries, others the Internet. I see nothing wrong with a farm for the setting, but would ask why it must be a farm?
Cough***Forks***cough. I don't think the setting matters at all. It's the story. If that's the setting it takes place in, that's where it should be. There is a whole world of teens that live in small towns and rural areas, you know. And some of those towns are close to big cities, cities bigger that Port Angeles in the case of Forks. There is no limit to the setting.
Only if that's your tone when you write it. Your perception is at least a thick slab of what you communicate to the reader, unless your writing has developed to the point that you can effectively write in a very different headspace from your own.
I grew up on a dairy and BELEIVE me it can be anything but boring some days. What with cows getting out, bad dogs chasing them to the wrong places and having help dad pull a calf (aka folks, that means help a cow through labor) in the dead of night during a HUGE thunderstorm, I doubt that you can go wrong so long as you portray it correctly. Not sure if this is needed but if you ever have questions, I can help. Also your MC cannot afford to be girly or wimpy if they came from a dairy. You get dirty, and end up knee deep in cow pies sometimes. But nonetheless I miss it.
After reading numerous times on here that 'the how' is better than 'the what' I would say do it. Give them party boppers something different for a change. The countryside is an important feature of our landscape, and could do with the attentions of our youth today. good luck.
