The Importance of Setting in a Story

13
Aug

The Importance of Setting in a Story

Posted by admin

Your story’s setting helps create the context and mood of your tale while simultaneously adding life and texture to your story. Used properly your setting can help create the mood of your story or even act as a kind of background character, subtly shaping and leading events. As such, knowing how to bring your setting to life is a crucial element to writing a rewarding and engaging work of fiction.

Below we present a variety of useful resources to help you learn the subtle art of using and creating a realistic setting. We start with a video by Keith Gray which is an excellent introduction to this topic. We then feature an article by Dawn Arkin which has some solid ideas and tips on how to incorporate setting into your tale. Finally, we end with a brief overview of the book ‘Setting’ from the ‘Elements of Fiction Writing’ series, a guide worth considering if you wish to learn more about this topic.

Featured Video by Keith Gray

This is the fourth video in Keith Gray’s Creative Writing Masterclass Series (produced by The Scottish Book Trust)

Featured Article by Dawn Arkin

Setting has become a very important part of most novels. You need to take your reader there, even if you are using a fictional one. Done right, your location can create mood, atmosphere and even help determined plot. If nothing else, exploring your novel’s location will add color and richness to your story. Without it, your book may lose an important feature - the visual one.

Real or Pretend?

You might be wondering if you should use a real location or just make one up. It is really up to you. How familiar are you with the location you have in mind? Can you bring it to life for your reader? Just because you live there does not mean you do not have to do research.

A word of warning though. If your setting is your own small hometown most people will assume the characters in your book are based on real-life people, even if they are not. Depending on the kind of story you write, you may find yourself fielding questions from your readers as well as your friends.

Creating a fictional location has many advantages for the writer. You get to name the town, streets, businesses, schools, etc. Everything inside your town is under your control. You will still need to do some research, but you get to plan how the town and its surrounding areas look. You can make your setting anything you wish.

Researching your location

If you have chosen to write about a real place you will need to research the location. While reading about a place is nice, visiting it in person is preferred. Go to the spots you want to include in your story. Take pictures and notes about these areas. Pay special attention to the five senses when making your notes.

Do not forget to get travel brochures from various businesses and historical sites. Guide books are also great places to find information and even the local historical society can help you give your location background.

Make your setting work

Now that you have this wealth of information, what do you do with it? Remember; use your setting descriptions sparingly. Do not slow your story with lengthy descriptive passages. Anchor your reader in your novel’s surroundings, but do not overwhelm them.

It is best to sprinkle the information within the story to move your plot along. Use the five senses when describing your setting. And remember weather can be a great scene setter, but only use it to enhance a tense situation or set a mood. Also, the attitudes, opinions, life style in a particular area can also help the overall impression in your story.

Which scene pulls you more into the story?

Miranda sat on the front porch swing sipping her tea, watching the trees move with the wind.”

Or…

Miranda sat on the weathered front porch swing, rocking gently to the beat of the starling’s song. Her delicate china cup held her favorite chamomile tea, its aroma mingling with the sweet scent of the moonflowers covering the porch railing. Sadness filled her as she watched the red and yellow leaves danced across the lush green lawn, pushed by the crisp autumn breeze.

Your setting should anchor your readers in your story. It should help transport the reader into the fictional world of your story and keep them there until the final page is turned, and beyond.

Dawn Arkin is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/ which is a site for Creative Writing. Her portfolio can be found at http://www.Writing.Com/authors/darkin so stop by and read for a while.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dawn_Arkin

Recommended Book by Jack M. Bickham

Setting (Elements of Fiction Writing) by Jack M. Bickham

Even if you have great characters, outstanding dialogue and a gripping plot, your story isn’t complete without the appropriate setting. Setting is the unifying element in most fiction, working in concert with plot, characterization and point of view. Here you’ll explore how to use setting as the basis for creating dramatic, engaging stories. Focusing on detail, language and observation, Jack Bickham’s invaluable instruction will not only improve your ability to create a strong setting, but also enhance your writing skills as a whole.

Customer Reviews

Keeping the Focus
Another Writer’s Digest book that offers a multitude of ways ensure that your reader has a visual and sensual focus on place and time in your stories. The author not only tells you why setting is so important in supporting the plot and characters, but gives pleanty of exercises to help you create a clear picture of where and when your story takes place.

11 out of 12 people found this review helpful

Rating the Elements of Fiction Writing series
by Eldonna Bouton (author of, Journaling from the Heart)
I’ve read all the books in the Elements of Fiction Writing series and this is how I’d rank them.

“Scene & Structure” “Characters & Viewpoint” “Beginnings, Middles & Ends”

The above three books are invaluable — must reads. They are the best of the series, in my opinion, and are packed with good information on every page. Well-done.

“Conflict, Action & Suspense” “Description” “Plot” “Manuscript Submission” “Setting”

The above five books are good, solid reads. Again, they contain good information and cover the subject decently.

54 out of 55 people found this review helpful

Amazon Review

There’s nothing more tiresome, either at the outset of a novel or thrust into the middle of one, than a lengthy description. So the sky was blue and the clouds a billowy white and a sheepdog lolled in the middle of the dusty lane. Get on with it, already. This is not to say that setting is not of utmost consideration to a fiction writer (or to any other writer). Jack Bickham applies the tip-of-the-iceberg theory to setting: “You should have a rich lode of factual information on hand before you begin to write,” he advises here, “and should know how to sprinkle in those facts a few at a time.” In Setting, from the Writer’s Digest Elements of Fiction Writing series, Bickham explores the ways in which the setting one chooses affects the other elements of the story. “In real life as well as in fiction,” Bickham warns, setting “tends to form character.” The setting you opt for will determine what else you may and may not include in your story. Bickham has advice on how to communicate your setting to your readers, how to research a given setting, and how setting varies according to genre. He includes a “setting research form” that would be a nifty thing to take along when you’re on the road. And remember, he says: “you must never deviate from verifiable facts.” Even if the southern town you’ve chosen is completely imagined, you must never let the crape myrtles bloom before late summer. –Jane Steinberg

Buy Setting (Elements of Fiction Writing) Now!