This is the final installment in my three-part series on Setting. It’s time to share some great examples of setting in novels for inspiration.
Some authors excel at setting. You read them and can feel the wind on your face or get goose bumps from fear. These masters know how to use setting to increase tension, mood, characterization, anchoring and texture.
Here are some examples of setting in fiction for your reference:
“This was after stew. But then, so is everything. When the first man crawled out of the slime and went to make his home on land, what he had for dinner that night was stew.”
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
“At 8:23 there seemed every chance of a lasting alliance starting between Florin and Guilder.
At 8:24 the two nations were very close to war.”
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
“My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary.”
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
“The voice is deep and soft, not a sound so much as a feeling. It is storm and wind and leaves twisting in the night. It is roots sucking deep at the earth, and the pale, sightless creatures that live below the ground. But there’s something wrong with this voice, something diseased at its core.”
An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
“Three thousand bodies swing forward, three thousand pairs of boots snap together, three thousand backs jerk as if yanked straight by a puppeteer’s hand. In the ensuing silence, you could hear a tear drop.”
An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
“In fairy-tales, witches always wear silly black hats and black coats, and they ride on broomsticks. But this is not a fairy-tale. This is about REAL WITCHES.”
The Witches by Roald Dahl
“My daughter, Liza, put her heart in a silver box and buried it under the willow tree in our backyard. Or as close to under that tree as she could anyway. The thick web of roots shunted her off to the side, to the place where the willow’s long fingers trailed down. They swept back and forth across the troubled earth, helping Liza smooth away the dig marks.
It was foolish. There’s no way to hide things underground in Mississippi. Our rich, wet soil turns every winter burial into a spring planting. Over the years Liza’s heart, small and cold and broken as it was, grew into a host of secrets that could ruin us all and cost us Mosey, Lisa’s own little girl. I can’t blame Liza though. She was young and hurt, and she did the best she could.
And after all, I’m the damn fool who went and dug it up.”
A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty by Joshilyn Jackson
These are just a few samples of many great settings in novels. There are so many to choose from. Just read, keeping an eye out for how setting is handled. Collect examples. Learn from them. Analyze them. Break down the examples to see how they did it. How did the authors make you feel when they described the tree, house, forest? How did they establish time while increasing tension? How did they use contrast to reveal more than the few words on the page should?
If you can figure out how these authors show their world instead of tell facts about it, you will be on the road to writing better settings yourself. The key is to dive deeply into the examples and analyze why they work, and then adopt those methods in your own writing.
Many artists use a reference file where they clip pictures of artistic approaches, mediums and compositions that they then use when creating their own art. Writers can do that too. Start a reference file for yourself with great examples of setting, characterization, dialogue, pacing and just great writing in general. When you get stuck, look through it for inspiration. When you feel like you don’t know how to fix your novel, grab your file and learn from the masters. Keep notes. Jot down ideas. Keep those too. They will help you remember lessons learned on those days when you think you can’t write. Don’t believe it. You can.
I also recommend actively studying setting and description. As I mentioned in the first blog of this series, I recommend A Writer’s Guide to Active Setting: How to Enhance Your Fiction with More Descriptive, Dynamic Settings by Mary Buckham. It breaks the subject down in detail. It helps that the book is highly readable.