Constructing Worlds
and Setting Scenes:
The Online Masterclass
Dr. Barbara Henderson
Writer, Journalist and WA Tutor
Dr. Barbara Henderson is a published writer for
adults and children. She is a former journalist with
a PhD in Creative Writing. She is programme leader
in creative writing for the Open College of the Arts
and an experienced tutor in writing and journalism.
Webinar Transcript
According to Wikipedia, setting is “the historical moment in
time and geographic location in which a story takes place”.
It may sound like I am stating the obvious – but all stories take
place somewhere. If they didn’t – if someone tried to write an
experimental story that made no mention at all of time and place
- then I think as readers we would mentally invent a setting,
imagining the characters and plot playing out somewhere that we
have thought up ourselves. But we don’t want readers to have to
do that – it would probably lessen the experience of reading and
of entering the imaginary world of the story.
It doesn’t matter if you’re writing for children or teenagers or
adults. The setting can make a huge difference to the impact of the
story. Think of Hogwarts, the futuristic dystopian settings of many
YA novels, Graham Greene’s Brighton, Jane Austen’s Bath and Ian
Rankin’s Edinburgh and Armistead Maupin’s San Francisco. I could
go on and on.
So what kind of elements come under the general umbrella term of
‘setting’?
Perhaps obviously, it’s the country, the town, the city, the street, the
house, the school – anywhere that’s a particular place in your novel.
It’s the time of year – is it summer or winter or a significant date
such as Halloween? Perhaps it has a specific climate – or a climate
issue affects your plot. A writer on one of our recent courses wrote
a story around the Boxing Day tsunami in south-east Asia. She was
subsequently longlisted in the Times/Chicken House competition.
A harsh climate can affect a story, as can a tropical one.
It’s about how the land looks – the mountains or the trees or the
rivers or the coast.
It’s about human-made geography, such as cities and monuments
and tower blocks and cemeteries and bridges and mines and farms.
And population – who’s around your main character and what sort
of society do they live in?
It’s about the time period or era – is your story contemporary or is
it set in another time – the past or the future. If it’s set in the past,
what events were going on at the time, culturally and politically?
What values and social mores did people have that are different
to ours today?
It’s about the time of day – scenes play out at night, in the
morning, over lunch.
Setting is about atmosphere and mood – you can use aspects
like the light, the temperature and the weather to affect the way
a scene feels, the way the reader feels. ‘It was a dark and stormy
night’ has become a cliché, but it is also a kind of shorthand for
letting us know that something bad is about to happen. I’ll say a
little more about mood in a moment.
So many important elements to setting – and yet I do think
setting is something that new writers often overlook. We can be
so concerned with plot and with character that we forget the sense
of place. And yet setting is so much more than just a backdrop
for your plot and characters. It should interact with both of these
things, help to set mood and add to the drama and the tension.
It adds weight to the story, grounds it, helping the reader relate
to it and feel truly inside it.
What’s your setting? How well do you know it? Could you write
a page, for your own use, giving all of the details that I’ve just
mentioned about geography and history and climate and culture?
You should be able to. Could you draw a map? Take the time to
get to know your setting, just as you would with your characters.
Essentially, your setting should work with your character and your
plot, as a help or a hindrance. It could make things worse for your
character, it should show how your character responds in certain
situations and it can act as a symbol. I’ll go into more detail as I
go on.
I think the best way to show how a setting should work with a
character is to give an example. If you have read Miss Smilla’s
Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg you will know how Smilla grew
up in Greenland and has an understanding of snow and ice,
which helps her to realise a local boy’s death is not an accident;
her part-Inuit background has given her a sense of the land and
the way people and land interact.
You may have heard it said that often, a setting is so strong that
it almost becomes a character in a story. What we mean by that
is that the setting is described so powerfully that it almost takes
on a life if its own. JK Rowling is very good at doing this in the
Harry Potter stories: Hogwarts is a friend to Harry sometimes but a contrary and confusing one! It can offer him a Room of
Requirement that no one else can see, to carry out a secret activity
– or the staircase can move as he’s climbing it, particularly when
he’s in an urgent hurry and get him hopelessly lost.
In crime fiction, we often see more examples of this. Take a look
at Leonardo Padura’s Havana Red, for example, to see how Cuba
is evoked. And it is hard to separate Sherlock Holmes from foggy
Victorian London or Agatha Christie’s detectives from her country
houses or Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe from Los Angeles
with its heat and its sleazy eateries.
Why not try writing about the character of your setting. For example,
I wrote a novel set in a small, claustrophobic and gossipy town
called Dowerby. Can you make a list of your setting’s traits: Is it
friendly? Is it secretive? Is it aggressive or dangerous? Is it clean
and shiny or dark and grubby?
One way to really make your setting come alive is not just to describe
it visually, but also to invoke all of the senses.
A character’s perception of a setting will influence and be influenced
by their senses. We tend to respond to what we see on a very
intellectual level – but many of the other senses affect our emotions,
so sensory writing is an important technique to grasp.
Let’s think about some of these senses and how you might use them in
your writing.
Writers often neglect to mention sounds in a scene, as if events are
playing out in a soundless way. So mention if there is a faint hum of
traffic or the sound of birdsong. And remember what effect certain
sounds might have, such as a baby crying or a dog howling or a
favourite piece of music – or a nail scraping down a blackboard.
Sounds can make us smile and relax - or they can put us on edge.
Another sense that’s often neglected in writing is smell, but that’s
one that has a direct link back to memory. It can really help to take
a reader to a place, if you describe the scent of flowers in the air
or the smell of disinfectant in a hospital or of Grandma making
marmalade.
Let your reader imagine how your character feels through touch –
when they stroke a dog or crawl across rough stones or have the cold
cause goosebumps on their arms.
Taste is often more difficult to incorporate into a setting – it may not
quite belong. But where it is relevant, describe it. Make your reader’s
mouth water – or make them gag!
The other thing to remember is to use the sensory detail that your
character would notice. Maybe they wouldn’t notice the smell of
the grass, but they may be very aware of the cold breeze. Some
characters would be able to name that tune or that a whistle
belonged to a thrush – others would just say ‘jazz music’ or
‘birdsong’.
But zoning in on the detail is very important. Where you can, be
very precise about your descriptions – it’s a bit like zooming in with
a camera, and it actually makes a passage of description more
interesting, not less.
Here’s an example – it’s from Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient:
(A Bedouin healer treats a wounded man)
‘He crouched by the burned man. He made a skin cup with the soles
of his feet and leaned back to pluck, without even looking, certain
bottles. With the uncorking of each tiny bottle the perfumes fell out.
There was an odour of the sea. The smell of rust. Indigo. Ink. Rivermud arrowwood formaldehyde paraffin ether. The tide of airs chaotic.
There were the screams of camels in the distance as they picked up
the scents. He began to rub green-black paste onto the rib cage.’
So here you see and feel and smell and hear the scene, making it
very vivid indeed.
Why not visit a place with your writer’s notebook and take a note of
every sensory detail you can: as well as what you can see, get into
the habit of noting sounds, smells, tactile sensations, tastes if they’re
relevant.
Think of the mood that’s established at the beginning of Wuthering
Heights with this description:
‘One may guess the power of the north wind, blowing over the edge,
by the excessive slant of a few stunted firs at the end of the house;
and by a range of gaunt thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as
if craving alms of the sun…
‘A quantity of grotesque carving lavished over the front, and
especially about the principal door, above which, along a wilderness
of crumbling griffins and shameless little boys, I detected the date
“1500”…
‘Above the chimney were sundry villainous old guns and a couple of
horse pistols… The floor was smooth white stone; the chairs, highbacked primitive structures, painted green; one or two heavy black
ones lurking in the shade. In an arch, under the dresser, resposed a
huge, liver-coloured bitch pointer surrounded by a swarm of squealing
puppies; and other dogs haunted other recesses.’
This is also known as ‘foreshadowing’ – the way the description of the
setting is used to create a very threatening feel, using her verbs like
‘lurked’ and ‘haunted’ and adjectives like ‘villainous’ guns.
Or a more recent example: Stephen King’s classic horror novel The
Shining, about a man who accepts a position as a winter caretaker at
a remote hotel.
Jack goes insane at the novel’s climax and tries to murder his wife
Wendy and their little son, Danny. This tragedy is foreshadowed by
elements earlier in the novel. Some of these are particularly linked to
setting. Firstly, it is revealed that the hotel has a dark past - a previous
winter caretaker went mad and murdered his family with an axe.
Secondly, Jack’s son Danny sees ghosts that haunt the hotel. Also,
King details the deteriorating weather conditions outside the hotel; a
huge snowstorm. So, when Wendy and Danny find themselves fleeing
from Jack they have no way to escape from the hotel.
The foreshadowing in The Shining does not detract from the suspense
of the story; it actually helps to make the tale more frightening.
Understanding how to use such techniques to build up the suspense in
a story is a requirement for being an effective writer.
There are fairly obvious examples of foreshadowing – weather is a
very easy one to use – e.g., beginning of A Christmas Carol with the
cold and fog.
One tip is to do it in order. As you approach a building, like Bronte’s
Wuthering Heights, start with describing the outside – and then what
your character notices as they move inside and through the building.
Think of a screenplay – and imagine you are holding the camera.
A wide shot shows the house or the village from afar and then it
begins to close in. Zoom in on detail and out again.
Your details can be concrete – in other words, things you can see
and touch, such as a door with the paint peeling off, for example
– or abstract, such as a smell of evil or a sound the character can’t
identify.
One question that new writers often ask about writing description is:
How much is too much?
Of course, it’s a balancing act and there is a worry that long chunks
of description can bore the reader. But they don’t have to be long
chunks – for example, the paragraph I read from The English Patient
was only 86 words. But it was rich and vivid. The Emily Bronte
passage was less than 200 words – so still not a huge amount.
Even in an action scene, use your setting and its description. Because
one of the dangers with an action scene is that the writing turns into a
list of ‘this happened and then that happened’. A good technique to
avoid this is to occasionally zoom with your writerly camera and focus
on a detail of the setting, to vary the writing and increase the tension
even more. You will find this even in a thriller or a crime novel.
To decide if you should keep any passages of description, or if it’s too
much, ask yourself what purpose it serves. Does it hint at something?
Does it help build an important part of a picture for a reader? Does it
create mood or tension? If it doesn’t do this, then ask yourself whether
you really need it. You should always use description to inform the
reader – not to bore them. Use a sentence in-between action and
dialogue, to remind readers where they are and why the setting
matters.
Too little detail leaves your reader looking at a sort of empty stage
– too much may mean they skip your description to look for action
or for dialogue. With children’s writing, in particular, do keep
description short and to the point. But the more you write and gain
experience, the more you will know how much is necessary and
how much is not.
All of these things apply, by the way, whether you are writing about
a real place like Edinburgh or a fantasy place like Middle Earth or a
mixture of the two, like Lyra’s Oxford in the works of Philip Pullman.
I will talk a little about fantasy worlds, as the setting may take a little
more work.
JRR Tolkein invented languages and grammar and thousands of years’
worth of history. You may not go to those lengths! But you should
know the back story of your invented world and how it came to be
the way it is when your story starts. You can invent new things – like
JK Rowling’s fantastic animals and spells – but these need to be
carefully woven in to be part of the story, not just gratuitous details to
show how much you’ve thought about it! That’s one of the joys and
the drawbacks of making up a new world.
In writing about a real setting, everything’s there for you – but also
remember that you need to do your research, because if you get a
detail wrong, readers truly will notice it.
The late children’s historical fiction writer Geoffrey Trease told a
story of in how one of his books Mist Over Athelney he described a
hermit settling down to a rabbit stew. But a 10-year-old boy wrote him
an indignant letter protesting that there were no rabbits in England
during the time of the Danish invasion. Trease sent him apologies
and a signed copy of the book.
A thing that new writers are sometimes guilty of when it comes to
description is ‘overwriting’. Overwriting is when you use too much
description, too many extravagant words, too many adjectives and
adverbs, extreme reactions and over-the-top emotions, too much
detailed introspection, wordiness in general, and repetition of words
and concepts. In other words, purple prose or flowery writing.
As Strunk and White say in The Elements of Style, “Rich, ornate
prose is hard to digest, generally unwholesome, and sometimes
nauseating.”
Every word doesn’t need an adjective or a list of adjectives to
describe it. And watch out for lots of fancy verbs all on the same
page, or too many similes and metaphors.
Cut back your fancy writing – it’s often what’s meant by the phrase
‘kill your darlings’. (First coined by William Faulkner and emphasised
by Stephen King). Always keep the point of the scene in mind – the
heart of what you are trying to get the reader to see and feel. Focus
on the story. Only use metaphors and similes sparingly. Don’t feel you
must over-explain.
So… to get started on writing some really strong, interesting settings,
here’s what to do...
Start a “settings” notebook, so you can start looking at the world
around you as a writer. Make observations about everyday details,
such as weather, landscape, buildings, etc. Keep lists of useful
resources such as books, articles or websites.
Notice how your favourite writers use setting. You can emulate their
style without copying.
Get to know your story’s setting in the same way that you do with
your character. And just as you wouldn’t create a bland or boring
character, don’t create a dull setting – ask yourself what detail or
details set it apart from other places like it.
Follow these tips and you will be able to bring your setting to life on
the page.
Further resources
For more creative writing resources, visit our blog or have a
browse of The Writer ’s Toolbox.
Contact
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