Setting is an essential part of any fictional work. It anchors your character in time and place, and allows your reader to see, hear, smell and touch the world you have created. This is not an easy task. It takes careful consideration and a deft touch.
Here are my top 15 tips for using setting to its maximum benefit:
Tip One: Personalize Reaction
Each character should react to the setting according to his or her personality. Some people are beach people and others are mountain people. Your characters should react differently to where they are. They should not be the same. For example, not everyone would react the same way to a cottage in the woods. Some would see it as creepy, others would love the isolation and solitude. Imagine a ball field. One character might approach it with excitement for the game; another might be sad walking on the field he no longer played on with his team; while another may recall the time she was struck with a stray ball and left blind. Each person walking that field would describe it differently. Each would feel something vastly different. Use your character to determine how you describe a location.
Tip Two: Make Setting Active
Make setting an active part of your story. Don’t stall the pace and action by telling or adding in huge chunks of description and setting into your story. Break it up and weave it throughout the manuscript. There is nothing worse than flying through a book only to slam into a wall of description. The reader will notice.
Tip Three: New Locations Need More
A new location demands more description than subsequent references. Whenever you introduce a place, you need to fill in the details well enough the reader has a clear idea of what you want to show. Sometimes this will an extensive description, other times it will be quick and serve only to show a background for the action. It depends on the type of novel you are writing and how important the setting is to the plot. If the place is not significant, move on. Give just enough to anchor the action. On subsequent visits to the same location, you can be brief, adding some new detail that reflects what is happening in the plot at that point.
Tip Four: Be Specific
Focus on specifics, not generalizations to make the setting meaningful. Don’t say your character is in a city, name the specific city and give some markers that clearly define that location. Seattle, Miami and Dallas are worlds away from each other. Make sure they stand out. Even unknown cities and towns should be clearly drawn so your readers have a definite picture in their heads.
Tip Five: Keep Notes
If you are creating a fictional world, it helps to sketch out a map and keep notes on what each location looks like so you are consistent throughout the novel. Add details as you add them to the book. If you are using an existing place, it helps to have a file with a map, brochures, notes and pictures to refer to when writing up details.
Tip Six: Write Emotion, Not Facts
Write the emotion of the setting, not the bland, meaningless details. Focus on what matters to your characters and story, not the parts that don’t contribute. For example, if your character was a star football player, then the game ball on his shelf may have particular meaning. For another character, maybe the fading posters of dragons and fantastical creatures show how far she is fallen from the idealist child she was? The point is to focus in on those points that add to the story,
Tip Seven: Pay Attention to Genre
Add in the amount of setting appropriate to your type of novel. Romance novels lend themselves to more description than thrillers. Why? Because romance novels tend to have a slower pace that can absorb the description better than a thriller that relies on a quick pace for tension. Setting nearly always slows the pace. This can be difficult for thrillers that need a fast pace for tension. Historical novels can absorb the most description.
Tip Eight: Use Active Verbs
Use active verbs and specific nouns and adjectives. The anvil didn’t drop to the ground, it smashed into the concrete sidewalk. The stronger your verbs, the better for your readers. Flex your vocabulary. It pays to know the differences between irritated, irate, enraged, incensed and infuriated. Use the best word for the situation. Strengthen weak words during revision.
Tip Nine: Use Your Senses
Places have sounds, sights, smells and texture. They feel a certain way and sometimes even evoke a taste. Ever been to New Orleans? It wouldn’t be Jackson Square without chicory and beignets. Arizona wouldn’t be the same without the baking heat and rainstorms you can see moving across the desert.
Tip Ten: Anchor Your Characters
Anchor your characters in time and place. Be sure your reader knows when and where your story takes place. It’s hard to get swept away by a story that is floating in time and space. The only time that works is when your main character is a Time Lord, and even then, the Doctor always lets you know where you are, even if you don’t recognize the year, planet or indigenous life forms.
Tip Eleven: Add Backstory
Use setting to reveal backstory. Don’t just dump your character’s backstory into the narrative. Reveal it bit by bit in setting and description. Weave it into the setting and action. Setting allows you to tap into backstory as a way to describe how your character feels about a place.
Tip Twelve: Use Contrast
Setting is a great place to set up conflict and contrast between what is expected and what happened. Contrast adds a punch to details. It shows what might be against what is. This is a powerful way to use something familiar and twist it into something new and different.
Tip Thirteen: Symbolism and Theme
Let setting give your story depth by adding symbolism and theme. If a particular item or element has special meaning in your world, be sure to define it within the setting. This could be as simple as adding a cemetery in the back yard that underscores the fragility of life or including a wishing well that has gone dry to show that luck is no longer on a character’s side.
Tip Fourteen: Details
Add in details the reader will remember. Too much detail and it’s overwhelming. Too little and there is nothing to grab onto and hold. It’s like watching a musical that has no memorable songs in it to hum as you leave the theater. The audience wants songs. Readers want compelling details and images.
Tip Fifteen: Take Your Time
Don’t be in a hurry. It’s okay to start writing in basic terms—Exterior Night, an owl was hooting. Then get to the action and dialogue. You can add in setting later if you want. Just as setting slows the reader’s pace, it can slow an author’s pace too. Don’t be afraid to leave it until revision. Put down cues for what you have in mind, but don’t worry about the full description in the first draft. You can fix it later. That is what revision is for.
In my next blog, I will share some great examples of setting in novels for inspiration and share tips on how to use those examples to enhance your own writing.