Read A Writer's Guide to Active Setting Online
Authors: Mary Buckham
Let's look at another example, one in a novel with a shorter word count than Burke's, from the POV of a character who knows the Setting, which will play only a small part in the external plot line.
NOTE:
Always keep in mind how much
particular
Setting your story needs. Don't know how much? Read published authors who are writing types of stories similar to your own and study how much Setting they use. It's an approximation, but it can be very helpful.
In this next example from one of my novels, we're looking at sensory detail involving a tactile description implying taste, among other senses, that's set deep into the novel and used to quickly orient the reader to a new location. Here, taste is a tactile scent implied by the quality of the air, and what's in the air that can be tasted on the tongue.
Indiaâbleating animals wandering the streets, car horns blaring, dust mingling with masses of people, wrapping one in a blanket both suffocating and irritating. The monsoons had not yet broken the dry heat; an air of expectancy choked human and animal alike.
âMary Buckham,
Invisible Recruit
The intention of this Setting description was to let the readers know the characters have arrived in India, but I did not want to spend a lot of page space describing things, buildings, or images. The intention was to anchor the reader in the fact that the characters were now in a totally alien (to them) environment and to set the emotional feel of that change. How many sensory details did I use? Can you pick out sound? Taste? (Dust.) Feel? (Blanket of dust and dry heat.) Smells? (Animals and dust again.) Two sentences and then back to the action of the story, but the reader is now in India instead of simply seeing India.
When you think of the sense of touch in a Setting, think of one's whole body and not just the fingers or the hand. Don't tell the reader that it's ninety degrees in the shade if you can show characters fanning themselves and blotting perspiration from their faces. If your character has grown up in dry heat, have their whole body gob-smacked with the change when they first travel to a location dripping with humidity. Standing on an ocean beach you could feel warm, moisture-laden breezes, or salt-tainted blasts of frigid, damp airâtwo very different beaches shown simply by touch and feel.
Instead of telling the reader your character is exhausted and crawling into bed, can you show his emotional state by what he feels? There's a world of difference between finally creeping under the security of a well-loved eiderdown comforter on a cold night as opposed to falling into a creaking bed and yanking a scratchy, flimsy, paper-thin blanket over his shoulders that then exposes his toes to the freezing air.
Don't worry about sensory details in your first draft as you're juggling choreography, characterization, and so much more, but definitely think sensory in your revision process.
Think in terms of which sensory details a POV character would notice in the particular Setting at that particular time.
NOTE
: The smallest sensory detail can evoke a change in the emotional state of a character. We all know this instinctively, but using this simple technique can reap big rewards by deepening the reader's understanding for and empathy with the POV character.
Texture is so very often overlooked in Setting but can act as a metaphor or quickly orient a reader to the time of day, a change in location, or reveal more information about the POV character.
The bottom line is that sensory detail can enhance your Setting descriptions and thus the readers' experience of your story in so many ways.
Avoid using too little sensory detail so the reader is held at arm's length, waiting for clarification.
The room stunk and I was getting hot.
The next example has more words, but the words pull the reader deeper into the scene.
The room stunk, smelling of day-old cabbage and weak tea, while the radiator chugged out enough heat to make the room feel like Atlanta in the summer.
Below, the writer is bringing in sensory details but it's via a formulaic approach that also creates a pronoun-verb, sensory-detail sentence pattern that the reader quickly notices. Remember to change up your sensory details and how you reveal them to the reader.
Opening of chapter two: He smelled the dead fish.
Opening of chapter four: He smelled the fresh laundry.
Opening of chapter nineteen: She smelled stale socks.
Place yourself in either a familiar Setting or a new one, but someplace you feel comfortable closing your eyes. Now see if you can describe the following:
Be specific and don't stop with just one answerâgo deeper. Example: a grocery store parking lot. First sound is cars driving past or parking. Going deeper: the rattle of grocery carts, birds crying overhead, the squeal of a child released from a car, or the squawk when they're put into a car against their wishes. Tires driving over gravel-sprinkled parking lots in a wintery climate sound different than tires swishing through puddles in a rainy lot.
Now use the same Setting and put one of your characters in that Setting. What would they see, hear, feel, smell, or taste based on their POV?
OR:
Have a friend or family member do this exercise with you. Both of you in the same location, taking notes and then comparing. The one with the most details wins!
Use any two to four sentences of Setting currently in your WIPâone without much sensory detail and preferably one at the opening of a scene, chapter, or change of location for the character.
See what sensory details you can create without adding a lot more words. [
NOTE:
This may require rewriting and replacing some visual details with other sensory details.] Put yourself in the POV character's state of mind and look around. What would he specifically smell, touch, hear, or taste? Write an example of each sense, then add to your current scene. Try for a minimum of two additional details, or more if you wish.
Do you like the rewrite? Did you discover it added more depth to the story or insights into your character?
INTENTION:
To show the power of using sensory details while keeping you aware that if you change the character, you'll change which senses she uses or how she relates to the sensory details of a specific Setting.
In strong writing there is always an overlap of craft techniques, and therefore more integration of the whole. Nothing lives in isolation. This is necessary both for combining the elements into a seamless unit and for helping you assimilate by repetition.
We're looking at very different examples in this next section, so you don't need to have read the earlier excerpts to understand and embrace the concepts here, but these concepts build on one another. They are blocks used to create a strong structure. The more you learn about writing Active Setting, the more you will be able to add depth and texture to your writing as you explore opportunities to use the material.
Using Setting to show emotion is one of the most powerful tools of Active Setting, although it is underused by many writers.
Most readers consciously or subconsciously read for the emotion of your story. They look at the cover to clue them into whether a story is humorous, light, dark, or edgy. Within a story though, emotions can run the gamut from light (happy, relief, joy) to dark (anger, fear, terror) as you lead your characters, and thus the reader, on your story journey. There's enormous energy created on the page through the conscious choice of words to ratchet up the emotions you want the reader to experience, all while the characters move through the story.
Let's jump right in and explore how some amazing authors, writing in a variety of genres, use Setting to show emotion.
Outside, the wind was howling and another line of black clouds was trooping over the city. Big slabs of bruise-colored clouds.
âJeffery Deaver,
The Coffin Dancer
In the above example, Deaver, a suspense/thriller writer, uses weather to clue the reader into the tone of the story by foreshadowing. Things are not only bad, but are looking as if they are going to get worse. Weather in Setting, along with specific descriptive word choices, is one of the easiest ways to orient the reader to the mood of a scene.
What would have happened if Deaver had not been as meticulous in his word choices?
Outside, the wind blew, and another line of clouds was moving over the city. Big clouds.
Any emotion? No. We see clouds, but that image does not enhance the emotion of the story in any way. Look to the descriptive words being used, as many writers depend only on their adjectives. Instead of relying solely on adjectives, consider powering up your verb choices to get more emotion into a Setting description.
Clouds hunkering over the horizon
is a stronger image than
big clouds on the horizon
or
fluffy clouds on the horizon
.
NOTE
: Settings, used well, help pull out the emotions you want the reader to experience.
Let's see another example, envisioning a rough-draft version first. The POV character is driving to the home of a young boy who has run away.
ROUGH DRAFT:
It was a gray-clapboard apartment building in a bad location. It faced north and must have been cold when winter came. Today was very warm.
Any emotion here? We get a concrete image of the building but that's about all. So let's see how Nancy Pickard not only shows the building, but creates emotional tension on the page.
It was big, three stories of dingy old gray clapboard set like a rotten tooth in a nearly empty mouth: This was a decimated block, with empty buildings and blowing litter. It faced north and must have been cold as a sailor's nose on an icy winter's night. On this day, with the temperatures in the upper nineties, we heard the laboring of air conditioners in the windows.
âNancy Pickard,
Confession
Let's dig deeper into the above example to see how the author maximized Setting to make it work harder:
It was big, three stories of dingy old gray clapboard [
Here Pickard doesn't stop at one adjective, but beats home the points she wants to makeâdingy, old, grayâbefore she gives the specific type of building.
] set like a rotten tooth in a nearly empty mouth: [
Here she drills home how the POV character feels about what she's seeing. There's no doubt this impacts how she's thinking about the runaway boy and what she will do for him.
] This was a decimated [
Specific adjective choice.
] block, with empty buildings and blowing litter. [
Note the double beat hereâ
empty
and
blowing
. If she'd eased off and had written buildings and litter the emotion would be toned down.
] It faced north and must have been cold as a sailor's nose on an icy winter's night. [
Again, an internal thought from a specific POV that hammers home how she feels about the place.
] On this day, with the temperatures in the upper nineties, we heard the laboring [
Strong action verb.
] of air conditioners in the windows.
Before you assume that emotion in Setting needs sentence upon sentence, or whole paragraphs to reveal the emotion or subtext of a story, let's look at how
New York Times
best-selling author Marjorie M. Liu shows emotions through specific details in a short, concise sentence. It's important to remember that if you've already established a Settingâa specific locationâthere's no need to extensively redescribe detail when a character returns to that location. If you look back at the Liu example used in the last chapter on sensory details, you'll see that the first experience for the reader into this area of Seattle warranted more words, details, and page space. And all of it was created with showing. This means that here, as the protagonist travels through a familiar Setting, the author can sit back and do more telling than showing.
From the Liu example in the last chapter, the reader has a strong sense of this location, so the author chooses to use specific words to describe where the character was. Then she moves on with the story.
I was still in the warehouse district, a crumbling neighborhood of pale concrete, shattered sidewalks, and broken windows.
âMarjorie M. Liu,
The Iron Hunt