Novel Writer's Toolkit: Revised Edition

More from Tool 7: Setting

Setting

Setting is both time and place.  Most people think first of place and don’t consider time.  Yet many bestselling books take an idea that has been done and move it to another time and they have a completely different story. 

For example, David Milch went to HBO and pitched an idea and story

Idea:  A miniseries about a city that has no police force; no formal law and order.

Story:  Ancient Rome, which had no police, but rather relied on the street gangs being paid off to enforce law.

Unfortunately for him, HBO had a mini-series in production at the time:  Rome.

Did that stop Milch?  No.  He went home, researched, thought hard, and went back to HBO with the same idea, but a different time and place:  He wanted to set the same idea in a town called Deadwod in 1876.

Some things to consider when choosing a setting

Does it create conflict as an antagonist, a foil?

Does it create mood, and give sensory experience?

Does it push plot and change character?

Does it reflect the POV character’s reality?

Does it bring uniqueness to your story?

Why did you choose these settings?

Setting is mood

Go to the bookstore and open up a bunch of books and read the first line.  A “dark and stormy night” is a cliché because clichés are truisms.  You will find many opening sentences have something to do with setting and evoking an emotion in the reader.  There are some famous writers who say you should never open a book with setting.  That’s fine for them.  It really depends how important the setting is to the story.  If the setting is the predominant factor in tone in the story, then opening with it makes sense.  There are no rules, only tools.

Setting can be a character in your story, although I don’t believe it should be the antagonist.  Many think the antagonist in Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air is Mount Everest and the weather.  I disagree.  I believe the antagonist was the characters themselves.  Who climbs a mountain where the fact is one out of six die?  Play Russian roulette and save yourself a lot of time, cost and effort.  The same with The Perfect Storm.  The storm doesn’t care about the fishermen.  It has no concrete goal and no motivation.  It just is.  The problem is the fishermen who push on when they should turn back.

And think, in both those stories, there were characters who wanted to push forward and those who wanted to turn back.  Thus, you can externalize this conflict and make it personal between characters, which is the essence to a good story.

Some authors are known for books set in a certain place.  Dennis Lehane and Boston.  Michael Connolly and LA.  Pat Conroy and the Low Country.

Some genres rely more heavily on setting than others.  In science fiction, fantasy and paranormal you have to world-build.  You must know everything about your new world.  The reader doesn’t necessarily need it.  You must have rules for your world just like we have rules in our world.  One of the greatest examples of world-building in fiction is Frank Herbert’s Dune.

However--you knew there was a however coming didn’t you?  However, like everything else, you just can’t slam the brakes on your plot and wax eloquently about how magic works in your new world.  You explain magic as it comes up.  When the reader absolutely needs to know about it.

How much is too much detail?  If you can take it out and the reader who knows nothing about your story other than what he’s read so far doesn’t miss it and doesn’t need it.