Read A Writer's Guide to Active Setting Online
Authors: Mary Buckham
NOTE:
Showing the same Setting from two or more character's POVs can be an effective technique to let the reader in on conflict that one character may know about, but another doesn't.
Here's another example that gives the reader a strong sense that problems are just around the corner:
It's too bad really, that they hold the reaping in the squareâone of the few places in District 12 that can be pleasant. The square's surrounded by shops, and on public market days, especially if there's good weather, it has a holiday feel to it. But today, despite the bright banners hanging on the buildings, there's an air of grimness. The camera crews, perched like buzzards on rooftops, only add to the effect.
âSuzanne Collins,
Hunger Games
If you look at the passage above closely, there are not a lot of specific detailsâ
square's surrounded by shops, bright banners hanging on the buildings
. This could describe any town with buildings around a central square location. If YA author Collins had only described these images, the passage would have fallen flat and not added to the conflict or emotion of the story. But by interspersing the vague images with stronger emotions that contrast with each other, the reader knows that something bad is just ahead.
Let's pull this last Setting description apart in greater depth to see why it is so effective.
It's too bad really, [
Starting with the POV character's internalization, her thought process, sets up the contrast that's about to unfold.
] that they hold the reaping in the squareâone of the few places in District 12 that can be pleasant. [
And here most readers have an image of a town square of sorts, though the details can vary a great deal from locale to locale. But the details are not what's important here. The fact that this place can be pleasant is what the reader is meant to focus on.
] The square's surrounded by shops, [
Now the reader has a stronger image of the space, but there's a world of difference between St. Peter's Square in Rome, Trafalgar Square in London, and Times Square in New York City. Collins doesn't want you to focus on the specificsâshe is building a sense of a limited space, hemmed in further by buildings.
] and on public market days, especially if there's good weather, it has a holiday feel to it. [
Again, an emotional beat that's comfortable, okay, and reassuring.
] But today, [
Here's a transition phrase that alerts the reader that all is not as it seems. There is underlying tension beneath the bucolic space and this layers in the conflict subtext.
] despite the bright banners hanging on the buildings, [
Another visualâwe don't need to know the colors or images on these banners, or if they are of canvas, cotton, or silk. In another story those details might paint a richer Setting, but the author did not want that here. She wanted the focus on the contrast between what the POV character thinks about this place and what's about to happen. This is how she increases tension.
] there's an air of grimness. [
Specific word choices telling readers what she will show in the next sentence.
] The camera crews, perched like buzzards on rooftops, [
Powerful verb choice that creates a very specific image of foreboding and impending death.
] only add to the effect.
Collins shows that it's the contrast between the peacefulness of the town square and the following setting descriptionsâ
air of grimness
,
perched like buzzards
âthat creates strong conflict on the page.
NOTE:
Not all telling should be eliminated from a writer's story. If you are telling onlyâ
she felt frustrated
,
he was angry
âthis can create weak writing, However, telling and then showing, or showing and then telling at times can help clarify for the reader what you want them to experience at a key point in the story.
What's important to remember about conflict in Setting is that it's a subtle but effective way to add strong emotion, such as foreboding, to a scene. Do all writers use it? No, but it's rare to find a
New York Times
best-selling author who does not.
Use the following writing prompt about two different characters and craft a short passage showing how the Setting creates conflict for one character or the other.
Tyler is a street thief who has survived on his own in Los Angeles for several years. But this evening a gang member corners him in a dead-end street. Describe the Setting from Tyler's POV and then write it again from the gang member's POV. Can you show how what acts as conflict for Tyler might be seen as an asset for the gang member? Or what does Tyler see around him that he can use to his advantage? Does the gang member see that element of the Setting in the same light?
OR:
Brandi is entering a new school environmentâher seventh school since the beginning of the school year, and it's only January. Brandi doesn't expect to be at this school long, but she also knows that as the new kid, every day can be filled with landmines. Write a short, one-paragraph passage showing the school Setting, inside or out, and how what Brandi sees reinforces her sense of impending trouble.
Look at your own WIP. Find a Setting that's currently devoid of conflict or could be enhanced by using some conflict.
Can you focus in and see any ways to ratchet up the conflict or complications as compared to what you have on the page currently?
Look to thread specific word choices, action verbs, and details through what you currently have without adding too many words to the passage.
What is backstory?
The Free Dictionary by Farlex
uses this definition: “The experiences of a character or the circumstances of an event that occur before the action or narrative of a literary, cinematic, or dramatic work.”
Simply, backstory is anything that has happened before your current story that impacts what will happen in your story. Let's say your character likes to eat beets. Yes, that's a decision made before your story begins, but if it doesn't impact your story, it isn't a necessary part of the backstory. Your character losing her mother and father in a fatal car accident and thus avoiding vehicles whenever possible, even when she must save the worldâthat's backstory.
Newer and even some more experienced writers struggle with how to filter in backstory. Very new writers tend to dump a lot of backstory in the first few chaptersâtelling the reader that “x” has happened to this character, which is why they are broken, disillusioned, or afraid now. That's called an information dump and nothing is more effective in stopping the forward momentum of a story than throwing a lot of past history at the reader.
Why? What's happened in the past is over and done with. Not a lot of story questions are raised by past events. For example, look at the difference between these two sentences:
PRESENT:
A car races toward her.
A story questionâwhat's going to happenâis raised and keeps the reader turning pages to find out what's going to happen next.
PAST:
A car had raced toward her when she was seven.
Since she's in the current story, we know she survived, so the story becomes diluted. We might be curious as to how she survived, but we also know she's somewhat okay, so the story question does not create as much tension on the page as what's happening now.
NOTE:
Backstory matters only if it is relevant to the current story choices, decisions, or events.
In this initial example, the POV character has arrived at the home of a murder victim's spouse; he is examining her house as he prepares to tell her that her husband has been killed. This is not the kind of passage most writers would think to maximize in order to reveal some character backstory. But let's look at how Lee Child uses his first glimpse of the home to slide in a hint of his character's backstory. Notice how he uses contrast between what the character is seeing and what he's thinking.
A watery sun was shining on it. There was a faint breeze and the smell of woodsmoke in the air and a kind of intense cold-afternoon quiet all around us. It was the kind of place you would have wanted your grandparents to live ⦠It reminded me of the places in the picture books they gave me in Manilla and Guam.
âLee Child,
The Enemy
A watery sun was shining on it. [
Start of a build-up with sensory details, but not too much yet.
] There was a faint breeze [
Tactile.
] and the smell of woodsmoke in the air [
Scent.
] and a kind of intense cold-afternoon quiet all around us. It was the kind of place you would have wanted your grandparents to live ⦠[
Small steps to the image of a perfect home and the sense of family and belongingâthen the punch line revealing backstory.
] It reminded me of the places in the picture books they gave me in Manilla and Guam.
Sums up a lot in a brief paragraph. What if the author hadn't taken the time to really dig in here and maximize the Setting? He might have written:
ROUGH DRAFT:
I had been a child who had grown up on military bases around the world, who had never had what I saw as a traditional American home.
This version has emotion but it tells, not shows, and showing creates the richnessâthe worldbuilding that's intentionally used by the best authors via their attention to Setting details.
Using Setting to reveal backstory in snippets not only keeps the reader anchored in the current story but also reveals much about the character in small, digestible, but powerful nuggets.
Consider if the POV characters are familiar with this location, if the Setting reminds them of something familiar, if the Setting lets the reader know how far they've come in the world, or how out of their element they feel. All of this can be used to reveal backstory, as we shall see.
Let's dig in and see how some authors use Setting as a powerful tool to show backstory via contrast.
But every town had been promising. Every place at first had said, Here you goâYou can live here. You can rest here. You can fit. The enormous skies of the Southwest, the shadows that fell over the desert mountains, the innumerable cactiâred-tipped or yellow-blossomed, or flat-headedâall this had lightened him when he first moved to Tucson, taking hikes by himself, then with others from the university. Perhaps Tucson had been his favorite, had he been forced to chooseâthe stark difference between the open dustiness there and the ragged coastline here.
âElizabeth Strout,
Olive Kitteridge
Strout could simply have told the reader:
INITIAL DRAFT:
Kevin felt isolated and lost growing up. He went to the University of Tucson and liked it for a while but then moved on.
How boring is that? Strout wanted to bring the reader deeper into Kevin's personality by showing a bit of backstory. She focuses the reader on one place, and shows us very specific memories of that place and his emotional response to it, then contrasts it with where he is now.
Because of this powerful Setting paragraph, the reader can see that the POV character tried to find security and happiness but failed. The reader gets pulled into his emotions, his longings through the viewfinder of how he saw Tucson. The reader can relate to the universal experience of traveling to a new place to start over. Now we're rooting for him to find what he experienced for a short time, under the enormous skies of the southwest.
In this next example, the POV character is an MI-5 agent, and is recovering in a private hospital, badly wounded after a mission gone horribly wrong. Worse, this agent starts to remember something about the tragic murder of her parents when she was a small child and the only witness. She'd repressed the memories for years but now they are seeping back, including the first Christmas she'd spent with her grandfather, her only remaining relative, after the murder.
The damp odor of logs, newly stacked beside the fireplace, mixed with the smell that the Christmas tree spread through the Great Hall. Mulled cider simmered in a copper pot on the kitchen stove. Each time the cook and her helpers rushed by they left the smell of apples, oranges, and cinnamon in their wake.
âMaureen Tan,
AKA Jane