Setting (22 page)

KEEPING TRACK

First and foremost, you need to develop a repository for your ongoing study of setting. You may already have one, in the form

of a daily journal or one or more notebooks in which you make notations about the writing craft. Or perhaps you have a series of file folders where you collect notes, newspaper and magazine pieces or photos that might be useful one day in depicting a setting. If you have such a system for regularly making notes or keeping research material, I urge you to expand your use of it in ways to be mentioned shortly. If you do not have a journal or any kind of file for observations and general writing data, then consider starting one immediately.

I happen to have three such information repositories. One is a simple spiral-bound notebook of the kind students use. The second is a modest collection of file folders in a metal cabinet. The third is a small bookcase whose shelves are packed with maps, travel brochures, books, photographs and a few travel tapes (both audio and video), most of which I made myself.

In the notebook journal I regularly record information on my sales and royalties, as well as ideas for future projects and personal observations about possible characters, plots and settings. This is the place where I transfer short setting notes that I might have jotted down during a trip somewhere, for example.

I always carry some sort of smaller and easily portable notebook on trips, even short ones to places where I have been before. A company called Stationers, Inc., in Richmond, Virginia, makes a "Reporter's Note Book" that I favor; it's spiral-bound, with vertical flip-over, lined pages, and its dimensions are eight inches tall by four inches wide, a size that I can slip into an inside coat pocket, or a female writer might easily carry inside a normal-size purse. My setting notes might include a page or two of specific description or something as brief as a note made recently which read in full: "Ample late-summer rainfall makes aspens turn more red in the fall?" When I return from a trip somewhere, as already stated, I transfer these notes, often fragmentary, to the pages of the journal and discard the original notebook pages.

The same procedure serves well if you are making a more carefully planned trip to "scope out" an actual setting. In such cases, however, a still camera, a video camera if you have one, and a small cassette recorder will also come in handy. As discussed in Appendix 1, the recorder and camera may be invaluable during interviews. But also, you can sometimes gain great insight into the sounds of a place by simply recording several minutes of general background noise, then replaying it later.

Why is this so? While on the site and engrossed primarily in what you can see, you may overlook normal sounds that are vital to the setting, such things as the sound of traffic, a distant train, foghorns in the night, perhaps the barking of dogs. When you play back such a random audiotape later, you often hear things you missed at the time because you were distracted by something else entirely.

On any field trip, you should look for the local tourist information office or chamber of commerce, and see what brochures and maps may be free for the taking. These can go into one of your file folders or on a bookshelf.

When you know you have repositories for setting information, that very fact can motivate you to be more alert to gathering new data, whether you plan to use it immediately or not. If you are actively researching for a known project, you might use a variation of the Nancy Berland setting form found in Appendix 2. Having worked with a form like this a few times, however, you will find that asking some of its questions becomes second nature to you, but later transfer of data to a file copy of such a form puts information into a more-or-less standard format, making it easier to file, quicker to find later, and simpler to use even long after the observations have been made.

What form your own setting repository will take is up to you. These few observations are meant to stimulate you to come up with your own system. You may elect to use 5x7 file cards, or a directory on your computer's hard disk. Format is not as important as having a place, and feeding it information on a regular, sustained basis. The work will pay dividends for immediate projects and future ones that you haven't even imagined yet. It will also keep you focused on aspects of setting vital to your stories.

Several chapters in this book have suggested aspects and uses of setting that should alert you to the kinds of information you should record. The Nancy Berland form is another fine guide. If at first you worry that you might forget crucial questions to ask when you are researching a setting, let me provide you with a short list to keep in mind as a starting point:

• What does this place feel like to you?

• What specific aspects of the setting make you feel that way?

• What do you know of the history of the place?

• What do you know about identifiable local attitudes?

• What is the dominant source of light here? How bright is it? What is its color? How does it contribute to the feeling of the place?

• What is the sense of space here? Vast? Cramped? Open? Closed?

• What three characteristic sounds can you identify?

• Is your sense of smell important in this setting?

• Is there a central landmark or possible setting symbol?

• What dramatic plot possibilities do you see here?

• What kind of character would you most likely put in this setting?

• How would you describe this place from an omniscient vantage point? From the viewpoint of a character?

Of course this is only a suggestive list, the kind I happen to carry around in my own mind. Your genre, interests and tendencies may lead to the development of different questions. The point is that any general list of questions helps focus your efforts in gathering new setting information, and having a general focus also helps you organize whatever filing system you choose to set up for such information.

CONCLUSION

Learning the value of setting is just the beginning of your quest for excellence in storytelling. As you hone your skills and develop your setting-presentation techniques, you will build a database and sharpen your powers of research and observation through field trips and careful recording of the things you find.

It's a lifelong process, learning to be more sensitive to the places and people around you, but it's a process that is not only rewarding in terms of your craft, but richly rewarding, too, in the way it expands your personal horizons and makes you ever more keenly aware of this wonderful world we all share.

Good luck to you!

APPENDIX 1

RESEARCH RESOURCES AND TECHNIQUES

Reference is made throughout the text to various research resources and methods for gathering information. As a central reference point, this appendix will recapitulate most of that information as well as offer additional suggestions.

For one setting project, a single source may furnish almost all the information that's needed. For another, you may need to try several research avenues in order to come up with sufficient data to build a credible setting in your story. Here we'll consider each primary research source in its own right, touching upon the special value of each and upon specialized techniques, if any, involved in mining that source.

On-site visits
almost always represent the most desirable way to get information about an area to be used as part of a story setting. Nothing quite beats being there and experiencing the place yourself. There is a freshness and immediacy to the experience that no other kind of research can quite duplicate.

The moral: If you can possibly visit an actual site, whether you plan to use the site itself or one similar to it, by all means do so.

You should try to do some homework about such a site before you visit. Studying a map, glancing through a local history, or finding something about the place in a travel guide may give you a fine running start when you get there in person. It helps amazingly to know things like which way Main Street runs or where the local college is, for example. If you know a little about the local history and problems, so much the better. The

more you know ahead of time, the less time you are likely to waste getting oriented once you arrive. On most visits, time is of the essence and you simply can't afford to use half of it trying to figure out where you should go or what questions you should ask.

Don't hesitate to write ahead to possible local sources, including the chamber of commerce, the visitors' bureau if there is one, the local newspaper, and even the mayor or city manager. State when you plan to be in town, what your project is, and the general kind of information you're seeking. Most local sources will be flattered by your interest and eager to help. It may even be possible to start your visit by interviewing one or more local experts. (See below for more on interviewing.)

When you arrive on the scene, you should be prepared with a collection of notebooks and pens or pencils, an audiotape recorder, and a videotape recorder if you have one. Plan to make notes on everything, and record as much as you can.

Finally, try to avoid the natural tendency many of us have to be shy in a new situation and to worry about bothering people, although common courtesy, of course, is always desirable. And while it is possible to make a nuisance of yourself, you will usually find local people more than happy to answer questions and give assistance. It's flattering to be told your visitor is a writer interested in using your town, area, neighborhood or business as a story setting; most people will go out of their way to be helpful in such circumstances.

Interviews
are the major sources of information during on-site visits or other data-gathering expeditions. Interviewing is a minor art. I've been interviewed by people who made it a pleasurable and interesting experience, and by others whose awkwardness and lack of preparation made the interview from my standpoint both boring and irritating. You can make your interviews as much fun for your subject as they are informative for you if you will follow three basic principles: prepare ahead of time; have plans for the meeting; be professional.

Preparation for an interview is always possible to some degree, with perhaps the exception of a rare occasion when you happen to run into a source person unexpectedly and conduct an interview on the spot. But such spontaneous interviews are rare. Usually, whether you're on a field trip or meeting a local expert, you know about the interview well ahead of time.

What kind of preparations are required? They vary, but you should at least have some idea about who your source is — her name (and how to spell and pronounce it!), her job title or area of expertise, and other such fundamental biographical information. This information may be sketchy if you have written for an appointment, for example, and were unable to question anyone else about your subject's personal data. But get what you can. (As an interviewee, I have found that there are few things less likely to inspire confidence and a desire to be helpful than having an interviewer say something like, "Good morning, Mr. Brickman!" And yes, it has happened to me.)

In addition to knowing what you can about your interviewee, you should also research whatever is available about the field or area you plan to ask about. If you'll be talking to someone about local history, for example, you should have at least a smattering of information from books or brochures so that you are not totally ignorant about the subject. This not only saves time during the interview, but makes your interviewee feel more relaxed and confident in you because of your obvious preparation. (It also helps your confidence in dealing with a stranger and asking questions which may include some that might sound impertinent.)

If you are seeking other kinds of setting information —if you are planning to ask a business executive about how his company works, as a takeoff point for building a similar story setting, for example —then it helps if you go in with some idea of what the source's area of expertise is. This doesn't mean you have to understand quasar theory to interview an astronomer, but a quick trip to the library or the encyclopedia would give you some idea about quasars before you meet her, and any background is better than none.

In addition to preparation before the interview, you should also have other plans for the meeting. Obviously you should also have a list of factual setting or story-background questions written out in advance to guide you through your talk. You might also have a list of fundamental biographical facts you want to verify at some point—job title, background, telephone number where your subject might be reached, etc.

It may be that the interview will go splendidly, and quickly become a mutually enjoyable chat. That can happen when you're well prepared. But there will be other times when your interviewee is tense or impatient—or you are —and things do not go well. Having the list of prepared questions is helpful as a "fallback position" in such cases; you always have them to run through, and won't likely find yourself stuck in an uncomfortable silence while you wonder frantically what you should say.

All this, of course, is part of how you should conduct yourself before and during the interview. You should be professional.

What does that mean? In addition to preparation ahead of time and having your plans for the interview written down and in mind, it also means having a specific time and place set for the interview, being there on time, and looking presentable. Don't overdress. But don't go looking like you just crawled out of a mineshaft, either.