Setting (12 page)

You can probably think of many other successful fiction characters who seemed to be cast against their setting. Sometimes they were; other times they are shown out of harmony only with a particular setting and were perfectly consistent when considered against the larger setting of their entire life. Wherever the truth lies, however, casting radically against setting remains a dangerous tactic.

USING SETTING TO CHANGE A CHARACTER

Whether the setting changes during the course of a story or remains essentially the same, it can cause changes in your char-

acter's perceptions, feelings, thoughts, motivations and actions.

A moment's reflection will show why this is so. We live immersed in the physical world, dozens and perhaps hundreds of impressions entering our consciousness at every instant. Because no single mind could absorb and meaningfully process all these impressions, our conscious mind ignores many of these stimuli, and gives many others only the briefest notice before dismissing them. It is even possible to act upon some aspect of our environment without consciously giving it much thought.

As an example of ignoring stimuli flowing in from our environment or setting, consider the background music piped into many shopping malls and stores. Often, we simply don't even hear it. Or suppose you happen to live on a busy street, with constant traffic sounds; unless there is a siren or a particularly loud sound, you seldom notice the routine noise at all. Similarly, we get so accustomed to seeing some routine things in our daily lives that we seem not to notice them at all: the trees in the park, perhaps, or the familiar old elm in the front yard, or (tragically, perhaps) the habitual look of strain or pain on a loved one's face.

As to the mechanism by which we take only the briefest notice and then jettison thought about a stimulus, I refer you to the television commercial. Have you ever noticed how you sometimes forget to press the mute button on your remote control because your mind has muted the message already?

But how can someone act upon some aspect of her setting without much, if any, conscious thought? Again, your own experience can provide you with examples. Perhaps a prime one might be the way you drive your car on a familiar route. Haven't you ever had the common experience of getting home after such a jaunt and realizing that you have no recollection whatsoever of changing lanes, making turns, dodging other drivers, or even stopping for traffic lights? You noticed, and acted, without really knowing it.

It has even been suggested that post-surgical depression in some cases may be caused by the fact that the unconscious mind remains alert during anesthesia, that it remembers quite vividly the pain of the operation, and takes time to get over that trauma.

If our real-life setting can din into us in all these ways, then isn't it clear that we are never really out of the impact zone of our environment? And isn't it even more obvious that our setting can affect our personality and actions at those times when we are not conscious of it?

The lesson to be learned, then, is that you as a writer of fiction can tailor changes in your story setting to affect your character. You not only can do so, but almost must do so, if your story is to function like real life. So let's look at the most obvious ways you can consciously craft your setting in order to change a character.

Moving your character into a different setting is the most obvious and perhaps simplest device for using setting as an agent of character change. To be sure, thrusting a character into a new and different setting does not guarantee he will change; in adventure fiction, where the action is the thing, a character can be pushed into all kinds of wild setting variations and yet be the same person throughout. (Think of Indiana Jones.) But if you are writing another kind of fiction where character change is desired, you can show the character first noticing the change in setting, then definitely reacting as a result of taking notice.

This means that you must not only delineate the new setting and how it differs from the previous one, but you should show the character taking note of the change. Ordinarily, if you are in the character's viewpoint, this will be no problem. Just make sure that you include clauses like "She noticed how different this new neighborhood was. . . ." (with specific details added) or "He felt tense here, and knew it was because the unfamiliar area was so dark and isolated, with the great bulk of the mountains. . . ."

Having taken this step in viewpoint, don't forget the next: showing the character reaction as a result. This reaction might be shown in considerable detail, as the character slowly or swiftly goes through feelings about the new setting, then comes to thoughtful decisions designed to make everything feel better or safer again; at other times, showing how the character was reacting would be quite quick and simple.

In the above situation, for example, after showing the character's observation of the new setting (the different neighborhood), you might add three sentences like the following showing resultant immediate action and the beginning of a major character change (the immediate action and suggestion of character change italicized for clarity):

She noticed how different the neighborhood was . . . how empty the streets, how shabby. Every black alleyway seemed like it might hide an attacker. She heard voices somewhere behind her.
She shivered and walked faster. Already she knew she was a different person here. She would never trust anyone again. . . .

Sometimes, of course, it simply isn't practical for you to move your character to some drastically different physical setting in order to produce a desired character change. In such cases, however, it is often possible to keep the character in essentially the same setting, yet introduce significant alteration in that setting.

Any number of possibilities come to mind, and a few examples will help you see what I mean:

• When Jill opened her curtains onto the dear, familiar street, she immediately saw the big moving van next door, and the strange boxes being unloaded. . . .

• "Bill," the boss said, "we are going to redecorate your office to reflect the new duties I have in mind for you."

• Clouds scudded over the sun, and it began to rain. Marianne's depression began to grow. . . .

• The
Detour
signs went up Monday morning, and Ted's store was shut off from traffic.

The key to success in handling all such instances lies in locating the kind of change within the present setting that is most likely to jar the character and create the possibility and even the need for character change. Obviously, you must mix and match properly.

What do I mean by this? Well, look again at the examples above. When Jill opens her curtains and sees boxes being unloaded from the van, she would possibly worry about that kind of change. Storekeeper Ted, however (in the fourth example), wouldn't worry about boxes being unloaded nearby, but the detour (which might not worry Jill) is a potentially disastrous change in
his
setting.

So you can change character by moving him to a new setting, or by introducing the right kind of changes in his present setting. That leaves the third basic way of using setting to change character, which is, essentially to leave the setting the same, but have the character notice new things about it.

One of the most obvious examples of this that I've ever seen involved a friend who had always been physically active and cheerful. One day he happened to fall and slightly injure his back. As a result of this minor injury, which at first had seemed frighteningly serious, he became more cautious and began looking for other possible dangers in his environment. He noticed floor tiles which might be slippery, pavement that was even slightly uneven, area rugs that might slip. He began to see every familiar staircase, escalator and change of floor level in the local mall as a place where he might fall again. He began to see almost everything in his familiar setting in a new way, and so he began
acting
in a new way, no longer taking walks or going out much by himself. . . finally becoming almost a recluse.

I'm happy to report that my friend went into therapy and managed to overcome the irrational fears that had made him see his setting in a new and dark way, which only fed those fears. Finally he saw quite clearly how the mechanism in his case had worked:

1. A sharp experience jolted him out of seeing things as he always had.

2. A growing alertness to a familiar setting, with his new orientation, caused him to notice things he had never noticed before.

3. Interpretation of the new things he noticed made him begin to act differently —he "became a different person," as he later put it.

This is the machinery by which you can get your character to experience his story setting in new ways, and so change as a result. You should first make something happen to get your character looking at his setting freshly, in a new light. You next show him finding "new" things in his setting (new to him, that is). Then you show him changing as a result.

In a few cases you might not even need a dramatic or sharp experience to get the ball rolling. Stories of boredom or desperation are quite common, and in many of them the character finally goes bonkers because
nothing
has changed in the setting, and seemingly never will. Once the character becomes aware of this dreadful unchangableness, then the very lack of change itself becomes a powerful potential instrument of character-change.

You can also use setting to create longer-term and more subtle character growth. Consider the change in the TV series character mentioned earlier, Dr. Joel Fleischman in
Northern Exposure,
over the first two seasons the show was on the air. At first he was in a panic and only wanted out of Cicely, the fictional town. Later, however, as he began to know people in the area and see some of the area's natural beauty, his attitude subtly changed and he became more human and forgiving. (Even his dress changed from modish New York to sloppy Alaskan bush pilot.) He became more calm and the hard edge of sarcasm dulled. Even later in the series, when he learned his forced stay in Alaska was to be longer than he had previously thought, he remained a man changed by his setting even as he bemoaned the fact. The setting's impact on his character, while slow in taking effect, is obvious.

This kind of interaction between character and setting almost always takes place, whether the writer designs it or simply allows it to happen. You should be as aware of it as possible, and use it to your advantage whenever you can.

SUGGESTED EXERCISE

As an exercise at this point, you may wish to write a short story segment in which you quite consciously delineate how a setting changes a character. Place yourself in the character's viewpoint and show him or her observing something about the setting, and reflecting on the observation. Then show, in viewpoint, that the character realizes he is seeing the setting in a different light. Define how his perception has changed, and, if possible, why it has changed. Finally, show the character reflecting on this changed attitude and wondering how the change is going to affect his plot motives and interaction with other characters.

Doing an exercise like this may feel mechanical. No matter. I urge you to do it, writing it step-by-step in the order I've just given you. I think the work will give you a better feel for how setting can have direct impact on character. The better you come to understand this interrelationship, the better you can tailor setting to character, and vice versa.

USE OF SETTING AS A CHARACTER

The tactic of making a setting into a character was mentioned previously in connection with my novel,
Twister.
It seems appropriate to reiterate the point in the context of this discussion. In short, the point is that sometimes a setting (or aspect of a setting) can be so overwhelmingly important in development of the plot (and the characters' lives) that it seems to take on a life of its own. This is a dynamic which cannot be forced; nothing could be cornier than trying to breathe life into a setting not vital and central enough to "take over" a story. But setting can become a character when setting, plot and characters blend perfectly.

In Arthur Hailey's
Hotel,
for example, the setting also becomes something of a character in its own right, practically taking on a life of its own. Similarly, in Hailey's
Airport,
the terminal building and everything it contains seems to become for the reader almost a huge living organism itself. In stories of the sea, the sea often becomes the central antagonist, and seems (even in a classic narrative poem like "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner") to become malevolent.

Clearly, setting and character are inextricably tied in the dynamic of fiction. But setting can affect fiction in other ways, too, as the next chapter describes.

CHAPTER 9

HOW SETTING ADDS TO STORY MEANING AND VITALITY

In designing the setting
or settings for your story, it's important to remember that the setting, and how you handle it, may go far toward finally defining what your story means. In addition, your work on the setting may stimulate your imagination to explore story angles and ideas that weren't at all in your original concept of the tale.