Read A Writer's Guide to Active Setting Online
Authors: Mary Buckham
This is a lovely scene, almost the picture-perfect image of a Victorian Christmas. The Setting details of a Great Hall, logs waiting for the fire, and the scents of mulled cider contrast with the current location of the agentâa cold and sterile hospital room, remembering her past in small snatches, in pain and wanting to forget more than remember.
The author chooses to reveal a positive memory, something that should be a welcomed thought, but it only serves to remind the agent of everything and everyone she's lost. Two sentences are all it takes to paint a bit of backstory to contrast with the current situation.
Let's look at another example. Barbara Kingsolver shows the reader Alice's telescopic view of her world by what she focuses on in her surroundings. The middle-aged woman is at a point of change in her lifeâshe feels discontent in her relationship with her husband, Harland, and feels trapped in a place that no longer nurtures her. Look how well Kingsolver shows rather than tells this:
The sky is perfect black. A leftover smile of moon hides in the bottom branches of the sugar maple, teasing her to smile back. The air isn't any cooler outside the house, but being outdoors in her sheer nightgown arouses Alice with the possibility of freedom. She leans back in a porch swing, missing the squeak of its chains that once sang her baby to sleep, but which have been oppressed into silence now by Harland's WD-40.
âBarbara Kingsolver,
Pigs in Heaven
We want to root for this woman who wants to smile back but cannot as she sees herself snared in her current Setting and situation. We know she's a mother and that she once was comfortable here; she assumed she always would be but things have changed. This one paragraph of backstory via Setting description helps start off this character's story journey. What if Kingsolver had not taken the time to use detail the way she did?
FIRST DRAFT:
Alice went outside to sit on the porch swing, where she thought of her dissatisfaction with her husband, Harland.
Pretty bland isn't it? We as readers do not get to see Alice or what's brought her to this point in her life. We just see an unhappily married woman.
So let's see if we can slide a little more backstory, through Setting, in here.
SECOND DRAFT:
Alice leans back in a porch swing, remembering how it used to squeak when she rocked her baby to sleep. But Harland didn't like the squeak and oiled it so it was now silent.
A little more detail shares a lot more about Alice. As readers, we now start to empathize with her. Kingsolver taps into a universal experience, the act of looking back on something that might not have been great, such as a squeaky swing, and remembering with longing a time that contained what the present is missing. Now let's revisit one more time to see why Kingsolver's final draft works so well. She does not race through this small moment but builds on it to show and tell:
The sky is perfect black. A leftover smile of moon hides in the bottom branches of the sugar maple, teasing her to smile back. The air isn't any cooler outside the house, but being outdoors in her sheer nightgown arouses Alice with the possibility of freedom. She leans back in a porch swing, missing the squeak of its chains that once sang her baby to sleep, but which have been oppressed into silence now by Harland's WD-40.
âBarbara Kingsolver,
Pigs in Heaven
Are you drawn deeper into the character's POV by reading what she notices of her Setting and how it impacts her? Can you see how it stirs positive memories of her past and contrasts them with her current feelings of dissatisfaction?
NOTE:
Contrast can be a formidable tool in using Setting to some show backstory.
Here's another quick example, two sentences long, that helps sum up the childhood of a character in Nevada Barr's thriller. The author doesn't tell the reader that the girl lived in deplorable conditions with a mom who doesn't care about anything, including her; instead she shows it when a teenage girl arrives home.
The kitchen was a mess of dirty dishes. A Miller's can lay on its side weeping beer onto the linoleum, but the lamps were still upright and none of the dishes looked broken.
âNevada Barr,
13
1
â
2
Notice in particular that the author does not stop with the telling phraseâ
the kitchen was a mess of dirty dishes
. She tells and then shows. We're seeing this Setting through the eyes and experience of a teenage girl and, for some writers, the telling portion would be enough. Then the reader would create his own image of a sink of dirty dishes. That could mean breakfast dishes with dried oatmeal or cold cereal on them, the popcorn bowl used the previous evening, or the used baby bottles waiting to be sterilized. But that's not the image Barr wants the reader to remember when thinking about this girl's early years. Barr makes sure the reader is in no doubt what's meant by adding the second sentenceâ
A Miller's can lay on its side weeping beer onto the linoleum, but the lamps were still upright and none of the dishes looked broken
. The very fact that the girl is thinking this is an improvementâthat lamps knocked over and broken dishes are what she expected to seeâreveals so much more.
NOTE:
During your revision process look for opportunities to expand, even by a sentence, what you've started revealing on the page via Setting. This way the reader knows exactly what you intend them to see.
And here's one more example where backstory is revealed by contrast with the current story. It's from my urban fantasy novel where the POV character has journeyed with two others to the Underworld. Since it's safe to say the average reader has never been to the Underworld, it was a little challenging to combine a Setting description along with revealing backstory from a POV character. The POV character, Kelly, with her companion, Mandy, has just left an area that was very uncomfortable and has arrived at a new location, brought by a woman who is neither friend nor foe at this point.
It should have been an improvement but what Kelly saw behind the woman wasn't.
A stone pathway replaced the slick mud path she and Mandy stood on. White sandstone, or maybe marble of a great age, created slanting walls on either side of the path, stepping back in space through a series of metallic wrought arches. Ornate, complicated arches ending in a gateway wide enough to allow entry for one person at a time.
It sure wasn't like the gate to Kelly's backyard in Dubuque.
âMary Buckham,
Invisible Journey
What I did here was set up that the POV character was seeing something that made her uncomfortable. There's a hint of emotion told to the reader. Then the Setting is described in three sentences with specific details making it clear there's an entrance way or gate in front of the character. The backstory is slipped into the last sentence where the character compares what she's seeing to what she knows from her background.
The reader doesn't need to have a description of Kelly's hometown gate spelled out since most of us have an idea of what a backyard gate in an Iowa town might look like. The intention of the short passage is to make it clear that Kelly is feeling out of her element by creating a specific Setting image and contrasting it to Kelly's comfort zone, which comes from her backstory.
NOTE
: Don't be afraid of combining telling with showing to create contrast via Setting. It's using only telling that can trip up a writer.
Now let's look at some examples that not only use Setting to reveal backstory, but also employ a variety of the techniques we've explored in this book.
NOTE:
The most powerful Setting can be used easily to show multiple techniques; for example, combining characterization, emotion, and backstory. Or backstory and conflict. You do not need to limit yourself to one technique per Setting description.
The following example comes from a story of a man on a downward spiral after an unexpected divorce. The author shows the ex-wife, Jen, looking at the new abode of the POV character. Look how much backstory you get about this couple, as well as conflict and emotions in one paragraph of Setting description:
Jen looks pointedly at the crappy house in which I now live below street level. It looks like a house drawn by a child: a triangle perched on a square, with sloppily staggered lines for bricks, a lone casement window, and a front door. It's flanked by houses of equal decrepitude on either side, nothing at all like the small, handsome colonial we bought together with my life's savings and where Jen still lives rent-free, sleeping with another man in the bed that used to be mine.
âJonathan Tropper,
This is Where I Leave You
Let's pull apart the example above to see not only how Tropper uses Setting to reveal backstory, but also to do just about every other thing we've studied in this book. This is why this Setting passage works on so many levels:
Jen looks pointedly at the crappy house in which I now live below street level. [
Internalization by the POV character regarding what a secondary character is doing with clear negative word choices:
crappy
,
below street level
. The use of the detailâ
below street level
âcreates a metaphor for the feelings experienced by the first-person POV character. The sentence also foreshadows the conflict between these two characters and what Jen, a secondary character, is about to see.
] It looks like a house drawn by a child: a triangle perched on a square, with sloppily staggered lines for bricks, a lone casement window, and a front door.
[Powerful word choices here build on what could be a charming description of a houseâ
drawn by a child
. But instead of charming, conflict is shownâ
a triangle perched on a square
âfollowed by specific negative word choices:
sloppily staggered
,
lone window
.
] It's flanked by houses of equal decrepitude [
To make it clear the POV character is not in the lone lower-class house, but in an area of them, a much stronger statement.
] on either side, nothing at all like the small, handsome colonial [
Contrast using backstory via a description of their previous home with the current house.
] we bought together [
Backstory description showing how they were once a couple.
] with my life's savings [
Backstory revealing to the reader why the POV character might have grounds for his anger.
] and where Jen still lives rent-free, sleeping with another man in the bed that used to be mine. [
A powerful and subtle emotional punch. Tropper might have said Jen still lives in their old home with her new husband, but he doesn't. Instead he chooses a specific Setting in that house that sums up all of the POV character's bitterness and hurt.
]
Here's another example. It's more than halfway through the story. Look closely at how the author takes a small visual of the seventeen-year-old boy POV character's room, and shows the reader a lot about his past and present.
I wonder if other people use their bedrooms the same way I do. When things get packed fullâlike they are now for meâI retreat here. Since I was very young, Mom and I had an agreement that my room is private as long as I don't leave anything organic here long enough to change from a solid to a liquid giving off gases. If my clothes are within ten feet of the washing machine on wash day, they get washed. If not, they don't unless I wash them myself. That keeps her out of my room without an invite. I can't think of a time when I would have kept her out, but her respect for my private space has allowed me a true sanctuary. Which is what I need right now.
âChris Crutcher,
Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes
What if the author wrote the standard:
My room was cluttered with clothes, some washed, some unwashed, with a poster of Michael Jordan on one wall and Superman on the other. My bed was plain and buried beneath last week's homework. The walls were pale blue, and a bulletin board hung over the desk.
See? It's a room, but all the reader sees is the room. He doesn't get any backstory on the room's occupant, a sense of emotion, conflict, or anything. It's just a room, so the forward momentum of the story is stopped, and would be held up even more if the description went on for a few more sentences.
Let's examine the Crutcher example one more time and pull out the micro-parts that make this simple description work harder.
I wonder if other people use their bedrooms the same way I do. [
Starts you in the mindset of the seventeen-year-old who's working at finding his place.
] When things get packed fullâlike they are now for meâI retreat here. [
Explains the internal motivation for how he uses his room. It's clear by his word choices that the room is a place of sanctuaryâ
retreat
,
when things get packed full
, needing to hide from things. It also adds conflict, raising a story question about what is happening in his world that he needs to hide from.
] Since I was very young, Mom and I had an agreement that my room is private as long as I don't leave anything organic here long enough to change from a solid to a liquid giving off gases. [
Shows backstory in the relationship between him and his single mother, as well as creates a fresh image of a room that any mother of a messy childâespecially a teenagerâcan relate to.
] If my clothes are within ten feet of the washing machine on wash day, they get washed. If not, they don't unless I wash them myself. That keeps her out of my room without an invite. I can't think of a time when I would have kept her out, but her respect for my private space has allowed me a true sanctuary. [
More relationship disclosure between him and his mother, which is part of his backstory. Specific and consistent word choicesâ
sanctuary
,
respect
,
private
âthat also shows us the emotional tenor of the relationship between mother and son as well as his loving, warm feelings toward her.
] Which is what I need right now. [
And the reader is shifted away from the room and back to the external action of the story. This also raises a story question, revealing conflict, about why he needs sanctuary.
]