Have you ever started reading a book and after a few pages asked
yourself, “Where is this book taking place?”
That should never happen. Setting
is as important as the characters and the plot. It’s our job as the writer to
develop the backdrop like we develop our characters. It gives us our sense of
direction and it becomes the ambiance; the atmosphere, the environment, the
mood, even the character of the world surrounding us.
Setting involves the senses. Can you relate to the warmth of the sun or the ice cold water (sense of feel)? What about the sweet
juice of the peach or the soothing mint of the tea (sense of taste)? Consider the click of
a gun hammer or the snap of a twig (sense of hearing).
How about the burning smoke or sickening stench of a dead body (sense of smell)? Finally, there is the shadow moving across the wall or the
flames of a campfire in the distance (sense of sight).
They all add to the setting of your book – they are the details that
pull us in.
Writing is writing, whether it is suspense, historical, SiFi,
thriller, or even contemporary. Setting
will be the prevailing forces of their world. These details bring your story
alive.
Develop ways to uncover setting details that will fuel the world
around your characters.
Settings encompass more – You create setting when using authentic voice and idioms of the
time period. Old maps, vanished villages, dead rivers, or historic plagues take
on life as you unwrap clues and unfold the story. Use threads of character and
sociological/political backdrops to tangle the lives of those you are
developing.
Setting and character - Now, how do you infuse setting and
character? Again, the senses come to
play. Imagine yourself into a setting
and make the character . . . feel it, smell it, hear it, taste it, and see it. You do this and you have character and
setting breathing together.
I do this all the time, naturally!
ReplyDeleteNo - it would be fairer to say I try to do this all the time. Whether I succeed or not is a different matter!
Jen
LOL . . . I know what you mean, Jen. Sometimes I stop and ask myself if I used the senses . . . all of them. I think it's the sense of smell that I have to remind myself to use in every story.
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