Setting

[robertlee]

How important is setting in your guys' writing?

 

When I'm writing something I will establish usually an overall setting like the town it's in or something like that but I often don't give a lot of details. When I try and give details of the things around the character it seems to bog down the story to me. Usually I'll just focus on what's happening and the dialogue and leave the setting on the back burner.

 

What about you guys? How important is setting in your stories? And also when reading a story that doesn't have a detailed setting, how do you feel?

[Headstall]

I agree with the bogging down part. I try not to get too detailed once I've established the area/home the story is taking place in, and I try to dole it out in smaller amounts where possible. Often, north, south, east, and west will suffice in continuity... as in... they headed north eight miles to the next town, or, Simon lived two streets east... for example. I find if I'm consistent, it will serve as a mental map for the reader, if they care, and they don't have to think too much. For scenes however, setting can be important if it affects the mood. There is where I may give more detail. Not describing a room, or a special place by the river, or the back corner of a restaurant where the floor creaks, and servers are constantly interrupting as they rush past, and the swinging door keeps casting a sharp glare... well, you get my point... can sometimes shortchange a scene and its potential impact. Underdone can be just as bad as overdone. If I can  answer yes to the question... does this contribute to what I want to accomplish?... then, it stays. As far as when I'm a reader, I hate too much description if I get the vibe the writer it trying to impress, but at the same time, I think there are stories that can be too 'clean,' where a couple of adverbs  might actually contribute something valuable. That doesn't only apply to setting... just saying... cheers... Gary....

Edited April 4, 2017 by Headstall

[metajinx]

Ever since I tried to read Lord of the Rings (I stopped after 58 pages), I'm really sensitive to the descriptions of surroundings in my own stories. I try to keep them short and spread out, implement them only where it makes sense and try not to overshare. For example, if my character has a nervous predisposition, I'll include descriptions of his surroundings in the form of observations of change (dude on the other side of the road next to that grimy Döner store looking a bit too interested, could he have moved into one of the cheap, decrepit flats upstairs, maybe he's the one with the red drapes that always seem to move when my protagonist leaves his house, or maybe his are the cardboarded windows, ...)

When my character moves out of his usual surroundings, I let him notice the differences or react to them in some way. When he first comes to a place he knows or likes/hates, I let him catalogue why he feels that way ("the ten-thousand steps I have to climb until I'm at my floor make me have to keep a spare shirt in my office just so I don't stink of sweat and scare away the sparse paying clients I get in this part of town").

Surroundings aren't that hard to do, but they are vitally important if you have readers like me. I usually try to track the time passing in a story, so it makes me furious if a writer spends 100 pages describing hours of this, hours of that, action here, action there, and then tells me that only one or two days have passed. If a storyline seems to go on way longer than it should actually last, it will probably frustrate a few readers. Like me.

Example: If someone has to catch a plane to, say, Africa, they may be able to get a last-minute-ticket, but they won't get there with daylight left to spare and hours of action before the sun sets, because distance, people, distance!

In my opinion, a writer should always keep track of distances, described timespans and how they play into each other. Maybe I'm an exception, but readers notice stuff like that.

[Ron]

I think that setting is getting confused with scene here, and they're not the same thing. I understand setting as the time and place a story takes place, and perhaps mood as well. Here, description plays less of a role than it does with a scene. That isn't to say that it plays no role at all. Description has a big role in each scene in a story.

 

On 4/4/2017 at 9:19 AM, robertlee said:

Usually I'll just focus on what's happening and the dialogue and leave the setting on the back burner.

I see this as scene, not setting. Setting: closing time, a dinky hole in the wall bar, people are getting restive. Scene: everything else but dialogue.

 

Back in December, 2014, a prompt was offered: Your challenge is to create a scene and include as much detail as you can. Involve as many of the senses as you can in your scene and bring it to life. - Prompt 381 link can be found here. It was a great challenge prompt and I recommend everyone try it out—I did, and I wrote a short story (just over 1k) called Max Cauler and because of the interest in that story I turned it into a much longer story of the same name for one of this site's anthologies. There were five responses (including my own) and I suggest reading all of them. If you read these short stories you will find just how much description can help make a scene sing to the reader. 

 

So don't skirt on description simply because you're uncomfortable with using description, make it work for you. If that takes practice, then practice like crazy, your writing will be better because you did.

 

 

[Mikiesboy]

1 hour ago, Ron said:

I think that setting is getting confused with scene here, and they're not the same thing. I understand setting as the time and place a story takes place, and perhaps mood as well. Here, description plays less of a role than it does with a scene. That isn't to say that it plays no role at all. Description has a big role in each scene in a story.

 

I see this as scene, not setting. Setting: closing time, a dinky hole in the wall bar, people are getting restive. Scene: everything else but dialogue.

 

Back in December, 2014, a prompt was offered: Your challenge is to create a scene and include as much detail as you can. Involve as many of the senses as you can in your scene and bring it to life. - Prompt 381 link can be found here. It was a great challenge prompt and I recommend everyone try it out—I did, and I wrote a short story (just over 1k) called Max Cauler and because of the interest in that story I turned it into a much longer story of the same name for one of this site's anthologies. There were five responses (including my own) and I suggest reading all of them. If you read these short stories you will find just how much description can help make a scene sing to the reader. 

 

So don't skirt on description simply because you're uncomfortable with using description, make it work for you. If that takes practice, then practice like crazy, your writing will be better because you did.

 

 

That was terrific Ron! Thanks for sharing ... and what you say makes sense. 

[Cia]

When creating a setting for a story, it's important to:

 

1) Pick either a real place you know well or research well, or make it up completely. (It has many issues, but quit reading fifty shades of crap just 3% in since they had a character leave Vancouver and go through Portland on their way to Seattle, which makes no sense since Portland is directly south of Vancouver and Seattle is north) Nothing ticks locals off more than someone getting stuff like that wrong--at least look at a map.

 

2) Make sure you reveal the setting in a way that makes sense coming from the POV character. This relates to both the setting of the overall story as well as any setting in a scene. Do you notice (much less list off) what your house looks like room by room when you come home day after day? Then it doesn't make sense for your character to either. Share the setting by the characters' actions. Flick on the light switch next to the door. Drop your keys in the bowl on the kitchen counter. Dig around in the fridge for a beer and then trudge down the hall to the living room to collapse on the couch. Conversely, if your character goes to a new place, it would make sense to describe what they see as well as do, since they're seeing it for the first time. Beamed aboard an alien ship, dark cavern of a hold with cold, metal plates with long, confusing passageways until you enter a bustling center filled with holograms, aliens of different shapes and sizes, this sound/that scent...

 

3) Which leads to remember how you experience your surroundings. You don't just see things. Scent (crockpot left running makes the place smell like warm soup) or Hearing (dog's nails scrabble on the hardwood floors as he runs for the door)  Touch (shiver until the kindling catches in the fireplace and the logs begin to burn and give off heat).

 

 

[robertlee]

@Cia Thanks for the insight there. I guess I fall somewhere in that area of using setting. Not exactly this grand exposition of everything the character sees every single day but the little things. The desk in their room, dirty clothes against the wall underneath the window that is always open no matter the season. Little things like that I never really thought of as a form of setting though it clearly does set the scene.  

[Wicked Witch]

(Late to the party, but that seems pretty regular in this forum)

 

I write high fantasy and space opera, mostly. So for me, setting is critical. I can spend weeks - or in the case of one setting, two years so far - perfecting the world. Only sometimes does the story happen first; a lot of the time I have an idea for the world first. "What if a world existed that had X?" is a mental question that often launches me into another world building project.

Sometimes, I think it slows me down - I have over 20,000 words of planning for a story presently, and only one short story of 10,000 words actually written within the world. But, in some ways it is also the part of the process I enjoy the most. Letting my imagination fly free to create worlds.

Sometimes, the stories that follow are setting driven and sometimes they're character driven. I think they're more successful writing when character driven, but I like the richness that having a well shaped setting gives it. Even if the reader never finds out half the facts I write down in my planning, it helps me to be consistent and to properly get an idea of the world in my head. Nothing annoys me more than reading speculative fiction that contradicts itself on the setting.

 

[MrM]

I establish setting through the eyes of my characters so that while getting your bearings you are, at the same time, catching some of the character of the character. I won't describe a setting at the expense of the character interplay, though. Setting should only work to enhance your experience of the story whether by plot or by character development. In my case both.

[Brayon]

My favorite genres are SciFi and Fantasy. I started writing Aeris - Guardian Force, with the intent of doing a SciFi Space Opera. Though I sometimes feel, like I created, and committed a cardinal sin, with the first chapter being mostly a primer of the era the story is in. Right there, BAM! An info dump of what the world is like. I've noticed that some of my favorite authors in the SciFi genre have done similar approaches, but mostly they start off in some sort of scene then info dump in pieces.

 

The setting is critical in these genres. Not only the scene itself but the overarching world as well. I once wrote a paper on the setting of Dragonlance, a campaign world of AD&D 2nd ED, and the foundation of a major Book line from the same company. You could read the first trilogy which talked about the War of the Lance, without the knowledge of Steel is more valuable than Gold, or that Drow Elves do not exist in that world. Dark Elves are normal Elves that were cast out. But, when you read the Primer of the world, it enhanced the overall experience of the setting.