Read A Writer's Guide to Active Setting Online
Authors: Mary Buckham
Let's examine this passage more closely to see how it's working so hard.
A mile behind us [
Telling the reader, but when used with showing, a writer can tell. In this example, the reader is quickly oriented to the character's location after she has left her disabled car, without shifting the focus off the action happening.
] some local bar. Lonely way station. Out in the middle of nowhere, [
Three different descriptions that paint a very clear image of isolation, loneliness, and nondescript placeâall of which add to the reader knowing of the breakdown of their car and that a mother and her daughter need helpâratchet up the conflict. This is clearly not the kind of place a mom would want to bring her daughter, but there are no other options around.
] just a shed, [
More specific visual of this bar. It's not a small-town local hangout, or a jammed truck-stop bar; it's almost like it's not even there, being only a shed.
] neon lights shaped like a naked woman flickering on and off through the dirty-tinted glass. [
Look at what the author is getting the reader to focus onâdirty windows, a naked woman sign. This is more conflict being layered in for a woman and child.
] Nipples winking. Pickup trucks in the narrow, shoveled, salted lot. [
Here the author could have stopped with pickup trucks in the lot but she didn't. She wanted the reader to see this place, to be in this placeâso she added three beatsâ
narrow
,
shoveled
,
salted
. The last word builds on what the reader already knows, that it's wintertime and snowy. So these three words, if used differently, could shift the attention off the bar itself, bring home the point that this shed is in a very small footstep of land.
] Scents of fried food and burned engine oil in my nostrils. [
And here the sensory details build a strong image that again pulls the reader deeper into the Setting.
]
If the author had been lazy, or didn't think to use this bar as anything but a building in which to place the next action of the story, she might have written her final draft something like this:
ROUGH DRAFT:
A mile behind us was a bar with neon signs and a few pickup trucks in the adjacent lot.
The tension the author creates by having two charactersâa mother and her young daughter needing to find helpâwould be lessened because the reader could easily see a friendly neighborhood bar, where locals might go to kick back and relax. Nothing threatening there. Instead, the author draws the reader in by using a few lines of description to pull him deeper into the storyâalmost like a series of quick snapshots. That's all that is needed and the author transitions the reader from one Setting to another, makes that Setting specific, uses it to increase tension, and powers up the passage with sensory details. Not bad for less than a paragraph.
NOTE:
In some stories the Settings are meant to be relatively unimportant, but in other stories Setting is vital to understanding everything else about the story.
Be conscious of
your
story and its needs. Setting helps define your characterâproprietor of a yarn shop in a small-town setting, law-enforcement officer in the Florida Keys, horse groomer in Billings, Montanaâso make sure the reader gets a strong sense of the core Setting.
If you are writing a series, make sure you do this in your first book through all of the ways we've mentioned. Then, when you write the story Setting in future books, use a few familiar “landmarks” to orient previous readers and ground new ones, but add a fresh takeâsuch as change of season to give the POV character a different sense of place. Or add a new Setting detail to contrast with previous storiesâa new boat in the marina gives an opportunity to remind readers what the marina usually looks like, or renovations on a nearby building could be used to show how the POV character deals with changes to her everyday world. Look at how Margaret Maron did this in the examples we used earlierâshowing a mill in one story, and later in the series focusing in on another building that had not yet been introduced into the seriesâto keep the stories fresh while at the same time familiar.
Not writing a series? You still need to keep in mind where and when you want to deepen Setting detail and when you want to keep to the bare minimum. Historical, period, or science fiction and fantasy writers must respond to their core readership who read for the time period as well as the storyâmany times they encourage more Setting details. I hope that after reading this book, you've found some fresh ways to get that information across instead of simply plunking down long paragraphs of visual Setting information.
Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.
âAttributed to Anton Chekhov
Read specifically for Setting. The strongest writers make Setting look so easy we can forget how important it is for story to flow. Read once for pleasure but then re-read to see how a specific author creates his world and moves the character through space without ever confusing, or losing, the reader:
Pike moved quickly. He dropped into the condo grounds behind a flat building that faced an enormous communal swimming pool. A lush curtain of banana trees, birds-of-paradise, and canna plants hid a sound wall baffling the pool equipment, and continued around the pool and walkways.
âRobert Crais,
The Watchman
By using very specific, very clear descriptions of the type of foliage the POV character encounters, the author steps away from generic to real in the reader's mind. Any reader who is familiar with Southern California where this story is set is immediately pulled into the Setting by the three plant namesâcommon enough to be familiar to a lot of readers, but specific enough to paint a strong image of this area of the world. Look at what is missing if you remove that one key line below:
Pike moved quickly. He dropped into the condo grounds behind a flat building that faced an enormous communal swimming pool. A lush curtain of plants hid a sound wall baffling the pool equipment, and continued around the pool and walkways.
Do you “see” the Setting as well? Do you get the sense of warm humidity necessary to create a certain type of sub-tropical foliage specific to Southern California, or do your eyes glaze over at the generic description of a building, a pool, and sidewalks?
Avoid stringing a list of adjectives together. Separate the details.
Not:
The plush red chair, pushed against the wide, polished wall panels. ...
But:
Barbara sat stone frozen on the chair and picked at the red velvet nap until a thread unraveled. She then rolled it between her fingers and pushed it flat against the cushion. Wide oak panels gave the room an oppressive feel, everything polished to a shine and reeking of Pledge.
OR:
Bracing her back against the blood-red chair, Matty hoped like hell the ancient relic didn't shed against her white sweater. Brad would decorate in dead relative cast-offs. Aunt Lulu had owned the chair, Second Cousin Fran still ate off her retro-fifties tile table, and Grandmamma Mimi's house had once boasted the oak wall panels, still polished within an inch of their arboreal past lives. Sheesh. The whole place needed to be torched. It'd do Brad a world of good to let go.
See how two very different Setting descriptions create two very different stories? The first gave sensory details and painted the emotional state of the character Barbara. The second example used the same “props” but created an impression of both Matty and Brad by how each responded to the props surrounding them.
Consistency of Direction:
Don't have a character walking away from a generically named Main Street, and then be downtown, as Main Street in most cities usually leads toward or away from a downtown. Also don't assume your reader will know what you mean by down, near, close to, far away from, etc., unless you have given the reader some stronger indicationsâ
down the hilly road
or
near the center of town
.
Place Names:
Particularly in the opening of your story, be careful not to introduce too many place names unless they matter to the story or are grouped to give a specific image.
Also, don't overload the reader's focus with extraneous names. Intentionally use a specific name, versus naming every building simply because you know the names. There's a world of difference between a character passing Don's Pharmacyâwhere she recalls a childhood memory from the whiff of ice-cream malts served at the soda fountain in the rear of the storeâand the character passing Don's Pharmacy, the post office, the copy center, a Staples store, or a Starbucks.
Use specific names intentionally:
She passed Fred's Appliances, Wilma's Curl Up and Dye Salon, and Sam Benton's Chevy dealership. Grouped together, the function of these names is to give a certain age to the businesses based on the names, or the feel of a small town where these names might still exist.
NOT-SO-GOOD EXAMPLE:
She passed Blade's coffee shop, then turned the corner at the Laundromat, and walked farther down the street to St. John Vianny's church until she reached Pat's house.
In the example above, the details don't add to the story by painting a strong image or informing the reader that these locations are important to retain. Instead, you're confusing the reader by focusing them on details they don't need.
NOTE:
Writing place names indicates that this building or business is going to recur later and be of some importanceâso the reader subconsciously tries to file the names awayâunless you make it clear they are being given to paint a stronger Setting image.
In fiction, we want to do as much as we can with as little as we can. This means not bombarding the reader with every bit of detail collected from research. That information is for the writer to use sparingly.
NOTE:
Too much information is an especially dangerous pitfall for historical, steampunk, and fantasy and science fiction writers. With regards to Setting details, make sure what a reader focuses on matters in some strong way to the story.
Write what you need in the first draft, and then while revising look for ways to show what you're telling or showing with fewer words. Expect this to be challenging at first, because it forces you to think intentionally and not simply write whatever first comes to mind.
Remember, a reader fills in most of the details automatically, seeing the story play out in his head. The writer's job is to provide just enough to get that process in motion and then get on with the narrative.
Like every other component of fiction writing, the Setting must serve the story, and never the other way around.
Creating and describing a great Setting can be an untapped asset in capturing the reader's imaginationâand that's the primary goal of good fiction.
A great Setting for a story is unique, evocative, and memorable. If the Setting is researched, understood, and then described with skill, it will stay with the reader throughout the length of the story and beyond.
Using Setting in an active way accomplishes double and triple duty. Why waste valuable words to accomplish only one story function? Always think in terms of combining functions. Add sensory detail, characterization, and conflict with one Setting passage; and backstory, characterization, action, and orientation in another.
You should no longer think of Setting as simply describing a room, a building, or the environment in which your characters play out the events of the story. It should be so much more than that, if you work to make it so.
Lack of Setting is like going to a special event half dressed. You can do it, and some folks get away with it, but by understanding and employing Setting to its best effect in your prose, regardless of what you write, you have the opportunity to make the page come alive for your reader.
Think of Setting as you read the works of other writersâboth those who employ Setting well and those who leave you hungry for more. Study both approaches to writing so you can create the kind of story that remains in a reader's mind forever.
Setting that is active never intrudes on the reader's experience of the story. It should be seen in context of the purposes of the scene. If a piece of furniture acts to conflict with the scene goal, then by all means the reader needs to see that piece of furniture. But if that furniture is described simply to let the reader know there's furniture in the room, reconsider your word allocation.
Have fun using Setting in your work and enjoy the amazing results!
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