Getting to Know the Setting of a Story
The setting of a story is just like a character - to get to know it, you must flesh it out on paper before you write a word of your novel.
When Creating Characters in a novel, you write mini-biographies to get to know them - listing their physical characteristics, what clothes they wear, their favorite food, and so on.
With the setting of a story, you do a very similar thing.
Largely, of course, you will concentrate on describing the externals of the novel's setting - how a place looks, in other words.
But don't forget that towns and buildings and the like also have a character, an atmosphere, a soul - call it what you will. This needs to be put into words, too.
The aim of this exercise is to get to know your novel's setting like you know your own neighborhood.
If you actually set your novel in your neighborhood (or in a Fictional Setting based upon it), you won't have much work to do.
If the setting of a story is a place you have never visited before, or if the story is set in a different era, you'll have plenty to keep you busy.
"Even though good writing is not entirely dependent upon the setting, a writer of fiction would be paving the way to miserable failure if he did not first create, using every tool at his disposal, the most clearly depicted time and place he could come up with."
- Ron Rozelle
Getting the Setting of a Story Down on Paper
Here is an idea of the preparatory work I would suggest for fleshing out your story's setting...
Begin by making a few notes on your novel's principal location as a whole (the town, the suburb, the village, the city district - whatever). Describe the houses and the style of architecture. Describe the shops and the bars and restaurants and the open spaces. There is no need to go overboard here. Just jot down a few general impressions, like you are trying to describe an entire community to someone in a few brief sentences. If it helps, draw maps. If the setting has a real-world counterpart, take photographs.
Now move your focus beyond the city limits to what lies beyond. Is the town surrounded by open countryside or by industry? When characters look out their windows, do they see snowy mountain tops or smoke stacks? Where are they likely to head to on a day out? What towns and cities - real or imaginary - are nearby?
Remember, you are not writing a travel guide here, merely attempting to imprint the setting on your mind. You could do this without taking notes at all, though personally I like to jot down any impressions or descriptions that drift into my head.
Next, concentrate on the principal locations within the community where the majority of the scenes in the novel will take place. These will probably include the central character's house, their place of work, the bar they like to frequent, and so on.
Bear in mind that these places must somehow "fit" with the character you have created. A man who lives in an apartment with peeling wallpaper and who drinks in the seediest bar in town will be very different from one who lives in a penthouse and drinks in a cocktail lounge.
Also remember to make these primary locations as interesting and as unusual as you can. Just as you wouldn't create a bland character, so you shouldn't create a bland story setting. If a character works in a downtown record store, for example, find something to say about it that sets it apart from any other record store - the fact that it used to be a greengrocer's, perhaps, and the records are all stored in old vegetable crates. Anything quirky and distinctive will do.
Next, concentrate on the novel's activities and occupations. This is really about research. Whatever activity lies at your novel's core - banking, pig farming, running a Chinese restaurant - do you know enough about it to be able to write with authority?
You don't need to be a world expert on playing poker, for example, to write a good novel based around the game, but you do need to be fluent with the fundamentals and also have enough "insider knowledge" to interest the casual reader.
If someone really wants to find out about poker, they will read a non-fictional guide to the game, not your novel. Your aim isn't to educate them, in other words (do that and you run the risk of boring them with too much detail). You just need to provide enough information in the background - an interesting snippet here, the correct terminology there - to make the poker-playing scenes believable.
Finally, consider all those other elements of the setting of a story that I talked about in the article on What Is a Story Setting? - things like the local weather patterns, the local cuisine, and so on.
If your novel is set in the past, you will also need to consider how to provide the correct period details. Some of these things - like historical detail - you will need to research; others you will have great fun inventing.
How much work you do on your setting at this stage is down to you. It depends on how well you already know the setting you have in mind, and on whether or not you're a "planning" kind of person.
Just like with creating characters for your novel, though, the more spadework you do on the setting of a story now, the less you'll have to break your creative flow once you eventually start writing the story.
Next Step...
Once you have built the setting in your own imagination, so that you know it as well as your own hometown, it is time to bring it to life on the printed page.
And that is the subject of the next article: Bringing Story Settings to Life...
