Ok, my MC has just traveled through a wormhole to a parallel universe. I already have the world itself laid out, but he started in a lab, and I want him to arrive in a totally different setting, like an abandoned car lot for example. (The setting is post apocalyptic type) Suggestions? Thanks!
Depends on what you want to convey. I have always found the most eerie setting to be that of an abandoned large city. How creepy is it to think of downtown NYC, Chicago, London, etc. with no people around, no cars moving, no noises from humans. Maybe moss starting to grow on the north side of buildings or water flooding the mass transit system.
Hey ChicagoLiz, That's not a bad idea. I was focusing more on an enclosed space of some sort so that the characters had to find or make light, etc... but and abandoned park in a big city at night could give me a big change from a lab, and still support some of my plot points coming up. I will keep it in mind, thanks for the suggestion! -PM
You could make your MC find himself in the middle of a desselent wasteland. The land all dried up, with an eerie silence and maybe something strange going on with the sky from what ever happened to the world. When night comes, maybe there are creepy sounds from mutated beasts out hunting. He wouldn't know where he's going and he wouldn't have a hiding place from those creatures. Maybe it's too much of a different setting from what you want, but I hope it can help in some way to give you an idea.
In the ocean. Maybe the ice caps have melted and he lands in the same location on that earth, but it is within the few hundred feed of shoreline that would be swallowed by the ocean. A brick wall. Ha. Seriously. Time travelers and dimension hoppers always manage to never materialzie over a gorge or inside a volcano or inside another human being that happened to be walking by at the time. At least on the television show Sliders they had a throwaway mention of a "mass-detector" that prevented that.
Maybe he warps into a shopping mall or department store in the middle of the night and crashes through a ton of inventory in a dark store or something. That way, if there are creatures of this post-apocalyptic world that he lands in, they hear his crash and the action starts right away. If you're looking for that. If not, maybe go with a cave? It may be a bit hard for him to get light going, but it would be cool to have that cave open up to the wastelands and that be the big reveal for the character of where he is.
Thanks for all of the suggestions so far! They really help, especially since this book is hopefully the first in a series with travel between parallel universes, so I may be able to use them in future books even if I don't for this one. -PM
Your story, and it sounds like this is a major part of it. You should practice making these decisions yourself.
Yep, and in the end the decision is mine. Just thought this forum would be a good place to listen to other suggestions. Thanks -PM