Setting is as important as characterization and plot. When used properly it fades into the background of the text, nearly invisible, giving to your readers a sense of place and time.It is a rich tapestry of description that doesn’t run on and on for paragraphs, but whose threads are interwoven into the dialogue and action.
Setting is an important part of the story, like a character it has its own personality and appearance. Don’t make a laundry list of descriptive details and put them all into your first paragraph. Use the details that are important to the story or help create the mood you want you readers to have going into a scene. Use your setting as you would a character.
But beware, setting can be overdone or underdone. When it moves into either of these two extremes, you’ll either bore you audience or confuse them. When creating settings for your novels, study writing that you enjoy, emulate but don’t copy the writing of authors you like to read, and write the stories you love.
I use a setting sketch to keep track of details that I use or might want to use later. This helps me because I write book series, and going back through a book or several books is a waste of time. So I thought I’d share the sketch I use.
Book Title:
Name of Setting:
Characters living in:
Region/Time Period:
Season:
City and State:
Describe or draw a picture of the Surrounding area:
MISCELLANEOUS NOTES:
Do you find setting to be important in your stories, or do you mostly ignore it?
I used to ignore setting. I have always found it the hardest part of my writing, but as I have learned to set the scene properly (without overdoing it as you say), it has made such a huge difference to my work. I love this sketch =D must give it a go!
I have a tendency to overdo it with setting and go back to tone it down later. LOL I hope this sketch works for you. I know it’s helped me.
This is an important tip. thank you!
You’re welcome
I wish someone would’ve told me this when I first started. I can’t tell you how many times I went back through manuscripts looking for how old kids were or if I’d created a last name for a character. Finally I wised up and keep notecards on EVERYTHING, even the buildings in my fictional towns.
I used note cards once upon a time and then I started losing them. Then I realized I wasn’t losing them as much as my kids were stealing them to play with. LOL
You could hide them, but I often hide things from myself and have to ask the kids to find them.
LOL I did that once with money and couldn’t find it. 10 years later I’m going through old CDs trying to figure out what I want and what I didn’t. Found $50 between the pages of the lyrics booklet.
My characters come as a package deal. They show up after a long time of mulling with how they look and what they are like. The plot line is part of that.
When I work on a scene, if it goes out of character, it goes out of the book.
I’ll really have to make more use of notecards. My organization system tends to be… well, chaotic, and particularly because I’m writing an ongoing series, it’ll be easy for things to fall through the cracks.
There are points in my first book when setting really does become a character in and of its own right in how the characters relate to it.