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Ah…setting 🏫⛺️🏝🏰

Some writers love it; they pour over every minute description and have to eventually cut back on what becomes a lengthy list of details. For others, setting writing is like pulling teeth 🦷.

But not matter how you feel about it, developing your setting is the key to a solid novel.

Have you ever had the experience of reading a novel or even just a scene, and you couldn’t quite figure out the specifics of the space. Because of that, you couldn’t picture the scene and you were immediately removed from the story. Or perhaps there was just too much detail and you felt bored or like your time was being wasted? I wanted to ensure I was building a quality setting, without wasting reader’s time.

I recently ran across this article written by Dwyer Murphy, debut author of AN HONEST LIVING. He talked about how to write cityscapes in your fiction. And while he was writing about cities in particular, there was a lot to learn about writing any kind of settings. (I’ve linked the article in the podcast description.)

3 Key Takeaways

🥾 Boots on the ground

It’s probably not unsurprising, but one of Murphy’s tips is to get to the location of your story. You want to do your best to walk around in your setting. Make note on the specificity of the place. Generalities and mundane details won’t do. If it’s a city, don’t just talk about the cabs and the honking horns.

Talk about the omnipresent puddles at the crosswalk. Talk about the closed shops with metal gates pressed and padlocked to the sidewalk. Don’t JUST talk about the smell of garbage. What about the flower shops?

Or the burst of cool air and smell of fresh ground coffee and warm bagels when someone opens a cafe door. It’s sometimes the minute details that can make a place come alive.

🌃 Setting should match tone

In Murphy’s article, he talks a lot about the kind of book he’s writing: detective, American noir. It becomes clear that his setting is painted over by the genre he chose.

A rom-com just wouldn’t describe the setting the same way. So think about your tone and your genre. Does your description of setting match the expectations of readers for that genre?

😥 Try not to get overwhelmed

In reality, settings are far too vast to hammer out every single detail. That’s not the point of this exercise anyway. Plus, if you give space in your work for every setting detail, you’ll end up missing the point of your setting. And you’ll bore the crap out of your readers.

Take lots of notes on your setting. But in the end, be highly selective about what you keep. Remember, your setting is also part of your tone. Make sure you’re focusing on the parts of your setting that are both integral to your tone but also help develop the story you’re trying to tell.

In a previous interview, I talked to Christopher Golden about how he develops his realistic settings in his best-selling novels. Here’s the part of that conversation:

2 Quotes

• “Do you want your city to feel vast and intricate or personal and intimate?”
• “You’re never going to capture the [setting] as you might want. It’s too vast. There are too many lives carrying on. Too many mysteries to note and never to solve. Ultimately your [setting] will be found wanting.”

1 Thought

How do you go about writing your setting?

Do you have a system? A plan for what to do when you get stuck? Do you keep a notebook or setting specifics?

Your setting will help ground your reader in your work. It’s not enough to be descriptive, it also has to be carrying the weight of tone and, in some cases, become its own character.

Don’t overlook the importance of setting. It can make or break a manuscript.

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