Why it is Easy to Get Setting Wrong

I’ll have a room of one’s own with a window, please. Settings are my favourite thing to write – I love trying to capture the feeling of a scene. I can’t drop a single word in a room without windows. But a view of trees or the roiling ocean seem to summon the muse and evoke deep emotions. Settings are so important to place the reader firmly in the story but they can easily be done wrong. Here are some easy ways to write setting well.

Setting has two main elements; place and time. This article focuses on making the place vivid for the reader. If setting is done well, it can not only describe a background, but also introduce the characters’ innermost thoughts and/or foreshadow the conflict. The setting of my novel, Provence in the 1700’s, is integral to the story but also completely different to what I see on a daily basis. I’m doing my best to write believable historical fiction, researching everything about the period, and want to include all those little details that transport the reader away.

But large blocks of straight description can let your readers’ attention slip away. Showing character or foreshadowing plot through setting adds another layer of intensity to the story. The setting should have another purpose – not simply to tell us the trees were oak and the daisies were bright, but to set a mood. Why do we want to know what colour the doors were? How does that set us up for the events that follow?

Consider the following:

A. Outside, there was a stand of poplar trees. It was windy.

B. The poplars flashed their silver, restless in the afternoon breeze.

Which one is more interesting? In B, active verbs and emotion bring the reader into the setting. The words ‘flash’ and ‘restless’ get the heart racing and evoke some anticipation of conflict. Below, I give some examples of easy ways to write setting well, from literary works.

Character and Setting

The character’s thoughts or reactions to the setting are vital. The author can show more about the character’s personality, or the way they relate to others, without directly explaining it. Show this through:

Movement

Walking the innocent stick alongside, matching its step to hers, she climbs back up the sandhills. Down the other side in a rush, where it is dark and damp still, crashing through loose clusters of lupins. Dew sits in the centre of each lupin-leaf, hands holding jewels to catch the sunfire until she brushes past and sends the jewels sliding, drop by drop weeping off.

–The Bone People, Keri Hulme

Place the reader inside the setting: what are they thinking, feeling, seeing as they move through the place. Is the reader walking or running? In the above example from an award-winning New Zealand novel, the reader is moving through the dunes slowly, seeing each plant she passes and “crashing through”. We get a sense that the character is perhaps detached and lonely, an invader.

Senses

The sun was out; a rare event for mid-April, and Roger made the most of it by cranking down the tiny window on the driver’s side, to let the bright wind blow past his ear.

-Dragonfly in Amber, Diana Gabaldon

What is the character seeing, touching, hearing, feeling? Describe it from the character’s point of view. It’s no secret that I adore this series and settings are something the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon does really well. If the characters are underneath the trees, perhaps they can hear the sighing, perhaps the sun dapples their arms, or perhaps they squint through the leaves at the sunlight.

To stay in character, use only the details that the character is experiencing at the point in time. For example, if the point of view character wakes up in hospital, there is no point describing the cool wind outside. Instead, you could discuss the stuffiness, stale air, smell of disinfectant.

Tone / Emotion

Slanting, silver ropes slammed into loose earth, ploughing it up like gunfire. The old house on the hill wore its steep, gabled roof pulled over its ears like a low hat.

-The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy

Bring emotion into your setting by adding evocative adjectives and using personification. This quote gives a clear picture of danger. The rain is shooting up the ground and even the house is trying to protect itself.

Angela Ackerman, in her book The Rural Setting Thesaurus states that each object or room can have a deeper meaning and “mood can be set with the condition of the wallpaper in a house or the way a room smells”.

Plot and Setting

Foreshadowing

The wind was moving. It cut right through him. He went to the tree, a vaulting, grey-green sentinel and began to climb. Soon his hands were sticky with sap, and he was lost amongst the needles. Fear filled his gut, like a meal he could not digest.

-A Song of Ice and Fire #1, George RR Martin

Here, the setting sets us up for the action scene which is about to follow [no plot spoilers here] . Martin describes the wind as something alive, unnatural, which slices through the character.

Backstory

Over the past four weeks, the hotel has become something else: a fortress. A detachment of Austrian air-men has boarded up every window, overturned every bed.

• All the Light we cannot see, Anthony Doerr

The description becomes a way of showing events that have taken place before the action of the story in the above excerpt.

Grounding Your Characters in Place

As well as using setting to reveal character, the characters can also reflect the setting of the novel. This is another easy way to project the setting well. Below, I suggest some details to consider about the cast of characters:

What do people do for a living in this place?

What problems do they live with?

What do they do for leisure?

Are they rugged and self-reliant?

What foods do they grow / cook?

Learn more with these articles:

Setting the Scene

7 Basic Elements of Setting

When Setting Becomes Character

Writing Believable Historical Fiction

I hope this is a useful post with easy ways to write setting well. Like any writing rules, there are times when they should be followed and times when they can be thrown out like that container of fuzzy baked beans in the back of the fridge. I know I am always revising my settings to work towards active descriptions that reflect the characters’ emotions and conflicts. At times, it is pretty difficult to get it right but worth it to make your writing pop, like the moody settings of Kristin Hannah or Arundhati Roy.

Your turn: What is the setting of your novel? Do you know of any exercises for writing active settings?