I've Been Thinking About...Location, location, location

The way we show setting affects every part of our novel, and it's easy to overlook its importance

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"Our relation to time, place and weather, like our relation to clothes and other objects, is charged with emotion, more or less subtle, more or less profound. It is filled with judgment, mellow or harsh. And it alters according to what happens to us. In some rooms you are trapped; you enter them with grim purpose and escape them as soon as you can. Others invite you to settle in, to nestle or carouse. Some landscapes lift your spirits, others depress you. Cold weather gives you energy or bounce, or else it clogs your head and makes you huddle, struggling. You describe yourself as a ‘night person’ or a '‘morning person." The house you loved as a child now makes you, precisely because you were once happy there, think of loss and death." ~ Janet Burroway, Writing Fiction

Oh, yeah, right, setting

I struggled with titling this post today because every time I wrote the word setting I heard the bump bum of boredom and saw all your lovely eyes glazing over and your fingers clicking away.

Because: setting. It’s like the baseboards in your house. They have to be there, but you don’t really notice them until they get dirty. Setting is just there. Characters walk through it, in it, on it, and that’s that. Said the woman who wrote her MFA critical thesis on setting, in a masterpiece¹ paper called Landscape as Character in the work of Willa Cather and Flannery O’Connor.

But, to paraphrase an ad for shyster lawyers that used to run on TV waaaay back in the day, “somewhere in all these dusty law books a great idea got lost.” And that great idea was the importance of setting. I used to love it. I used to adore it. I used to lavish attention on it as I created ideas for my novel in progress. But somewhere along the line, my interest in setting got lost. Ironic, since I bill myself as a novelist who writes stories about people you’d love to know who reside in places you’d love to live. There was always a nod to place in my work, but the nod was brief and glancing.

And I didn’t even notice it.

Then I started reading cozy fantasy. In that genre, as with all fantasy, setting is everything, and world building primary to the enjoyment of the reader. Characters reside in sweet small towns where everybody knows their names or soon learns them. They operate taverns or bookstores or old-fashioned inns. There are magical academies and atmospheric forests, charming shops and lush gardens.

Even when reading in other genres, I started realizing how much I enjoyed descriptions of setting, same as seeing it watching shows. (Dolce Villa, set in, duh, Italy, comes to mind.) And so I began focusing on it more seriously in my own writing. I went back to basics and drilled down on each location, really understanding how the interiors of homes and businesses appeared, what it looked like and felt like to walk down the streets of my imaginary towns, how the town itself was laid out on a map.

And I was amazed.

Because having this grounding in the world of my characters made everything easier. When I could better visualize the place where my character sat while they chatted, dialogue came easier. When I understood the geographic relationship between my proto’s home and workplace, moving her through time seemed more natural. And—dare I say it—a thorough knowledge of setting made plotting easier, too.

It’s not as if I ignored setting before. Now I’m just digging deeper. It’s the difference between knowing characters on a superficial level and really getting who they are down deep. And I’ve found it totally energizing for my novel.

And so, as is my wont, I encourage you to take a closer look at setting. And below are some ideas that have been helpful to me.

(I’ve written extensively on setting in the past and you can find a long-ish post here.)

Researching setting

—Redfin, Zillow, Homes.com, apartments.com, and similar sites are great for peeking in home interiors. There’s also Apartment Therapy, and don’t forget AirBnb and VRBO as great sources of inspiration. For setting inspiration in my women’s fiction WIP, I had a Portland neighborhood and a certain style of home in mind and looking those up on the real estate sites yielded great ideas. There’s just something about seeing a place that makes it easier to describe.

—And for the bigger picture, there’s Google Earth.

—Or, um, maps. Rumor has it they still exist. Illuminating to pour over if you’re using a real location and helpful if you’re making a town up, too. And it’s often a good idea to draw your own.

—Weather records online. Weather if part of setting, too.

—Pinterest of course. Excellent place to store images.

—Visit in person if you can. Take photos.

—Free write how specific places make you feel, as in the Janet Burroway quote above.

Writing setting

My best tip is to pair description to action. As a baby writer, years ago, I was so proud of myself for writing a street scene featuring a teenager skateboarding through it. To me, the most important thing to remember is that the reader understands setting through the characters’ relationship to it. And that most often implies action.

Check out this quote from the book I’m currently reading, The Courting of Bristol Keats:

“She and the knights continued their trek over the largest span, Lugh Bridge. It was a riot of colors and shapes. Shops, homes, gardens, and grand towers were jammed together on either side of the bridge in smug anarchy, teetering and defying gravity. Fae filled the center pathway, weaving through crowds to unknown destinations, while others shopped leisurely. Still others lounged on golf filigree balconies that overlooked the street below. From their perches they sipped mysterious smoky drinks, plucked out tunes on fiddles, preened their feathered arms, or simply observed those passing beneath them with mild interest.” ~ Mary E. Pearson.

Note how the author embeds action of character throughout the description, which gives it dynamism and energy. She uses strong verbs and clever phrases—smug anarchy, be still my heart, that’s just so damned good—to keep your interest.

So get out your WIP if it isn’t already open on your computer so you can sneak looks at it when you’re supposed to be doing other things, and study your settings. Add details the way you’d add herbs and spices to a soup burbling on the stove. Throw in more than you think you need. You can always take them out later (unlike the poor over-salted soup) but I daresay you won’t want to, because you’ll be in love with the world you have created. And with luck, your writing will come easier, too.

That’s it for now. See you back here on Sunday for my weekly love letter.

1. I jest, I jest.