I ran a setting workshop. Here are my notes, based of experience and research.
Setting Workshop
Setting impacts every scene of every book. It can be used to enhance writing or to
detract from it. Below is a brief set of
notes describing the three primary elements of writing setting: 1) Relevance:
When should you describe setting? 2)
Revealing Setting: Through what method should you convey setting? 3) Descriptive Properties: What should be in
setting description?
RELEVANCE: Descriptions should bring immediacy to the world,
not stall you out. Use them for multiple
purposes. (“Skid Row,” from Little Shop of Horrors establishes setting,
conflict, characters, theme, etc.)
Why does the character care?
• Does it affect him/her? Does it inform perception, identity, or
physicality?
• Does the character affect the setting?
Why should we care?
• Is that prop important? What message/feeling are you trying to get
across? What do we need to understand
this scene?
• Does the setting help the reader better
understand the characters’ motivations and backgrounds?
• Does it help the reader better connect to
the story?
• How does the setting prime reader
assumptions?
• Is it interesting?
How does it add to the world building?
• Is it consistent? (Fact checking!)
• (Setting can be physical, social,
emotional, etc.)
Why is it important to the plot?
• Does it make sense that your characters are
there?
• Is there symbolic or thematic importance?
• Does it help move the plot forward?
• Does it add to or subtract from conflict?
REVEALING SETTING: Setting can be revealed through motion,
character perception, or exposition.
Setting can be revealed gradually or all at once. Generally but not universally, setting is
revealed either wide shot to close up or abstract to concrete. More setting description will slow the book’s
pace, so how quickly or slowly do you want to dive into the story? ( For example: fast action sequences
generally have less setting description; slow, tense build-ups generally have
more.)
Motion
• Use action to build setting instead of just
description
• Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher”:
“During the whole of a dull, dark,
and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively
low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a
singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades
of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.”
Character Perception
• Level of experience: Would he know what
type of desk the wood was? Is he in the
right state of mind to notice? How would
different characters perceive the same setting?
• Mood (is the ruin enchanting because
they’re in love or creepy because they’re scared?) (Reader perception and reaction doesn’t have
to be the same as character perception – narrative distance. Does the character think it’s romantic while
the reader actually knows it’s dangerous/creepy?)
• Even a 3rd person narrator has a character
and personality and should be consistent.
How do you move the camera?
DESCRIPTIVE PROPERTIES: Regardless of the method used to
describe the setting in any particular scene, here are some helpful elements to
keep in mind.
Details: What defines the room? What’s the first thing you see? What’s unusual about it? I don’t need to know that the kitchen has a
sink. But if it doesn’t have a sink—that’s
weird.
• The more precise the detail, the more
interesting (my dog is lying against me vs. my dog is curled up against my
thigh).
• Describing in terms of something
else—leaves are tresses now. Don't need
to spell it out.
• Sensory detail: Sight, hearing, taste,
smell, touch, temperature, kinesthetic, pain, balance, vibration, direction
• Locale, time of year, time of day (check
accurate sun/moon positions!), elapsed time, weather, climate, geography
• Effects of time’s passage (What was the
Shire like when the Hobbits finally returned?
The movie left out the Scouring of the Shire. Why did Tolkien think it was so important?)
• Lack of detail: when is it more tactful not
to describe. What should we not
describe? (Sometimes, a brief, dry,
clinical description can be more impactful than a page of gruesome prose. Understatement of that type often feels more
real, especially in contrast.)
Background:
• Consistency (internally, with world, with
character perception, etc.)
• Do your research: know much more than you
put down
• If it’s boring, cut it
• Are you excited about your setting? Do you, the writer, want to spend time there?
Does it frighten you, intrigue you? Or
do you not really care?
https://www.novel-writing-help.com/story-setting.html
https://www.nownovel.com/blog/talking-setting-place/
http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/settings.shtml
TL;DR: Should you include setting description?
How should you
reveal it? What should
you include or not include?
