Setting: Writing a Story With Atmosphere

When writing a story, character and plot are arguably the two most important ingredients. But setting comes a very close third.

Actually, a strong setting in a novel should almost be like a character in its own right - the reader should be able to feel its heart beat.

And it is no coincidence, therefore, that the best way to construct the setting of a story is in exactly the same way that you would build the story's characters...

• When creating characters, you need to "get to know them" before writing a single word of the novel.

• And when constructing the novel's setting, exactly the same thing applies.

Writing a Story with Atmosphere - the Articles

(If you just want a brief overview of setting, check out
The Quick Guide to Building a Novel's Setting.)

What Is a Story Setting?

Dumb question, right? Well, not if you believe that a novel's setting consists entirely of streets and buildings and rooms within buildings. It actually encompasses so much more than that, and you will need to evoke all of these things through rich, descriptive language if you truly want your novel to have atmosphere.

Getting to Know the Setting of a Story

And now for the main event: the two-part guide to building settings. In this first step, you will learn how to flesh out the setting on paper so that you know it as well as you know your own hometown.

Bringing Story Settings to Life

And in part two, you will learn how to take all of these facts and impressions and incorporate them into your story gradually and in the right order, so that the readers can get to know the setting as well as you now do.

Related Questions

To finish on, here are a few of the questions I've been sent related to a novel's setting...

• Can You Write Fiction In a Strange Setting?
• Fiction Writing & Reality
• Writing Research - Should You Pay?

If you have your own question about writing a story with atmosphere, you can ask me in the Fiction Writing Q & A section.