A Writer's Guide to Active Setting (4 page)
Read A Writer's Guide to Active Setting Online
Authors: Mary Buckham
The following is an example of orienting the reader via Setting when moving a POV character from one location to another. Add more than a hint of Setting only when that new location has an impact on the story.
In this example, the POV character is showing up to a job interview she didn't apply for, but needs. A beginning writer might write something like this:
EXAMPLE DRAFT:
I went to the address I was given. The place looked okay so I went in for the interview.
What do you see? A strip mall? A single-story building? What's meant by
okay
? See how much you as the reader have to create because the Setting details are so vague? If this interview and place did not matter to the larger story, you could get away with vagueness. But in this story, the location will become a constant through several books in the series, so the reader needs more information.
Look closely at what the author focuses the reader on while describing this area of New York City.
The officeâor whatever it wasâdidn't exactly inspire confidence. The address was a mostly kept-up building off Amsterdam Avenue, seven stories high and nine windows across. Brick and gray stone: that looked like the norm in this neighborhood. We weren't running with a high-income crowd here. Still, I had seen and smelled worse, and the neighborhood looked pretty friendlyâlots of bodegas and coffee shops, and the kids hanging around looked as if they'd stopped there to hang on the way home from school, not been there all day waiting for their parole officer to roll by.
âLaura Anne Gilman,
Hard Magic
Now let's look closer:
The officeâor whatever it wasâdidn't exactly inspire confidence. [
Wariness is expressed here. The reader gets an emotional feel for the area via the POV character's impressions. The reader hasn't seen anything yet, but the emotional feel has been established via internal dialogue.
] The address was a mostly kept-up building off Amsterdam Avenue. [
For those who know New York City, this specific street name can say a lot. But those who don't will skim over the specific name without context, or assume the POV character is seeing an economic state of this particular area of town.
] seven stories high and nine windows across. [
Now the reader has a distinct visual and physical image.
] Brick and gray stone: that looked like the norm in this neighborhood. [
The reader is beginning to be reassured, subtly, that the POV character can enter this building. That this space is the norm means it doesn't stand out as better or worse, and the POV character would not be foolish to enter.
] We weren't running with a high-income crowd here. Still, I had seen and smelled worse, [
Sensory detail (covered in more depth later in this book)âthe reader doesn't get a specific smell, but is subtly reminded that most of us are very aware that the smell of a building or neighborhood can also tell us what kind of world the character has entered.
] and the neighborhood looked pretty friendlyâlots of bodegas and coffee shops, and the kids hanging around looked as if they'd stopped there to hang on the way home from school, not been there all day waiting for their parole officer to roll by. [
Here the reader has been refocused from the wariness at the beginning of the paragraph to a sense of comfortâthe buildings have not changed, but what the POV character focuses the reader onâkids hanging out after schoolâcreates a different emotion and feel for the buildings, making it understandable why the character now enters the building and doesn't run away screaming.
]
And here's a different example where, in spite of the fact the character is arriving at a place new to her, and new to the reader, the author chose simply to describe and not add much more. Why? Because the reader needs a sense of place in order to explain the events that happen in the story, but not more. Sometimes the author doesn't want the focus shifted into too much detail about the Setting, and that's fine.
You'll find this technique used more often in mysteries, suspense stories, and thrillers where the author wants enough detail to anchor the reader, but not enough to stop the fast-paced momentum or the created tension. Other genre stories can afford more Setting detailsâhistorical, women's fiction, SF/fantasy, and literary stories, for exampleâbecause the pacing of these genres can be slower. But even in these stories, too much Setting description that adds little to the story can leave readers dead in the water.
In the following passage, a young woman has gone missing after having car trouble near a well-known cemetery.
Erin knew the road: a narrow strip of pavement that ran a few blocks alongside the sprawling cemetery's high chain-link fence. There was a park on the other side of the roadâwith a smaller, unfenced, old cemetery for Veterans of Foreign Wars. Only a block away, quaint, charming houses bordered the park, but there was something remote and slightly foreboding about that little back roadâespecially at night. Surrounded by so many graves, it was an awfully scary spot to have car problems.
âKevin O'Brien,
Final Breath
The last sentence is the reason for the Setting description. If O'Brien had chosen to simply write:
Surrounded by so many graves, it was an awfully scary spot to have car problems
, and skimped on Setting and word choices that created an emotional feel for where the incident happened, the tension and conflict in the story would have been lessened. The reader would have been told the Setting was scary, but not
shown
that it was scary. The story questionâwhat happened to the missing girl?âwould not be as strong. But O'Brien did not need to go into other details about this cemetery: that it's the largest in Seattle, the final resting place for Bruce Lee and his son Brandon, and one of the oldest cemeteries in the community. A brief three-sentence description, followed by that key summation line, did its job to show you where the incident happened and why it was plausible that this girl disappeared in this location.
Some writers will write really long descriptions, such as this one of a tree:
A Utah pine, I suppose. I know it wasn't an alligator. Remembering, I'd say the trunk was about a foot through, but the reason for the tree's importance was a lightning strike that burnt out the core. So the tree was alive on the outside and dead in the middle. The lowest limbs got thick as trunks and the branches went out and up. The shape was perfect for a tree house. After the dead middle trunk was cut off level with the live limbs that is. Scrounged pieces of 2x4 and small offcuts of plywood formed the tree house, which we lined with gunny sacking to make it feel like a real house. Slept in that tree more than once. Now a road goes over where the tree was. I reckon it provided winter fuel for someone's fireplace. The old jailhouse, though, still stands not a hundred yards away.
This description features a lot of detailsâtoo many, as you get easily shifted from focusing on a specific tree to several other issues. There are almost too many issues in one paragraph. A character's backstory, how the character feels about the absence of the tree, and a secondary building that's now on the site all can be consistent and compatible images, but there are so many other details about the way the tree looked and what happened to it and in it that the sudden shift to a road and jailhouse seems jarring. The reader's focus is shifted by the use of one or two sentences describing the tree when used as a tree house, sliding into the fact the tree is now gone and instead there's a jail next door. In other words too much information that is not necessary.
Overdescribing can cause story issues that will impact your pacing and frustrate your reader. The most important worldbuilding aspect in the above example is the description of the tree as alive on the outside but dead on the inside. This gives enormous insight to the POV character's world and his relationship to itâwe assume the character, too, is alive on the outside, but dead on the inside. No need for details about how the tree fort was built, or the shift to a jailhouse.
Another common Setting detail speed bump:
EXAMPLE:
a blue tract home
Here we have too little detail. The author assumes the reader knows what is meant by a tract home, but since tract housing has been around since the seventeenth century, there can be a huge difference between coal-miner homes in an eighteenth-century Cornish town and wooden detached homes created in an American suburb shortly after World War II. Adding a few more specific words will pull your reader deeper into your specific story Setting.
REWRITE:
A blue tract home in a 1950s suburb.
A copycat row of brick tract bungalows built for the coal miners, some faded red, others painted blue.
Little wooden box tract houses built for single millworkers or families who couldn't afford more.
NOTE:
A few small details can make a huge difference. Don't think that adding Setting means adding paragraphs of details.
EXAMPLE:
Tall evergreen
Another example of too little information or vagueness that does not give the reader a strong enough image to either see or experience this tree. What is meant by tall? Does it mean larger than a child, or a two-story house? And since an evergreen tree can technically be any tree that has leaves all year round, one reader might imagine a ponderosa pine, while another sees a blue spruce, and another a live oakâvery different-looking trees.
REWRITE:
The towering live oak dwarfed the one-story shack built against its trunk. [
The change here gives the reader a clearer idea of the type of tree and its size.
]
The leaning cypress tree once must have stood seventy feet or more, but now looked like a crooked-back elder at half that height. [
The change here gives a specific tree type plus a hint of the tone or feel of the passage.
]
The broad-leafed magnolia once was my height, but now arched taller than my five-foot-seven stretch. [
The change here added a specific tree plus shows the POV character and a hint of his or her backstory.
]
Ignoring Setting details or using vague, nonspecific details as a default mode of writing leaves your reader at a distance from your story. Learning to write with Active Setting will pull your reader in.
NOTE:
Always consider the intention behind why you're showing Setting at all.
Here's an example of Setting that does not need too many details or words because the Setting is not being used to show information about the POV character or to orient the reader into a change in the story's location. The Setting is used to show the reader only one thing.
Woods surrounded the clearing in which Merlotte's stood, and the edges of the parking lot were mostly gravel. Sam kept it well lit, and the surrealistic glare of the high parking lot lights made everything look strange.
âCharlaine Harris,
Dead Until Dark
In the above example, the author wanted to keep the reader focused on the feel and the emotion of the setting, nothing more. Look what would have happened if Harris had chosen to overwrite this Setting.
OVERWRITTEN EXAMPLE:
Piney woods with a few wild magnolia trees surrounded the ninety-foot by ninety-foot clearing in which Merlotte's stood, and the edges of the square parking lot were mostly gravel of the light-gray variety, clashing with the red of the Georgia soil. Sam kept the lot well lit with at least six vapor-arc lights high overhead and a spotlight near the front door of the bar. The surrealistic glare of the high parking-lot lights made everything look elongated and warped, like looking into one of those mirrors at carnivals.
See? All this detail shifts the focus away from the mood of the Setting and can slow the story pacing.
NOTE:
Be aware of the intention of using Setting details. If the reader needs to know the type of tree, then show it. But if they don't need that information, if it doesn't improve your story, then leave it out.
NOTE:
Always aim for that balance in your story between no Setting or very little, and too much or unnecessary Setting.
Part 1
Describe a tree, a house, and a car from your own POV. No right or wrong here, as we're trying to establish your baseline way to use description and Setting. Do this part of the assignment before you look at Part 2. If it helps, think in terms of your story as you describe a tree, a house, and a car.
Notice your default way of describing elements of a Setting. Look to see if you write with too much information, not enough information, or with vague word choices.
INTENTION:
This is to determine how you most naturally write Setting elements. It's hard to change what we don't understand.
Start creating your own library of books where the author creates the world of the story in enough detail that you as a reader feel you are on scene. Notice particularly how these authors use Setting to show characterization and sensory detail. Look at where and how much Setting detail is used.
- A POV character who feels comfortable or at home in his environment will not see or notice the same details as a character who feels threatened or uncomfortable in that same environment. Be aware of whose POV you are in as you reveal Setting details.
- If your POV character is arriving in a place that hasn't been described in depth earlier in your story, the reader will be more open to slower pacing in order to orient or anchor herself. But only if the Setting matters in some way to the story.
- The more narrative in your story, the slower your pacing, so thread your Setting details in judiciously and intentionally. If the piano in the corner of a room is meant to show the reader the environment of a character, then add the piano. But if a couch and tables are described because they happen to be in a living room, and serve no other function, then refrain from wasting words on their description.
- Be specific in your details versus vague. A Ming vase reveals more than a pretty vase.
