Setting 101: How to Write a Powerful Setting for your Story
Writers, let’s admit it. When we’re about to start writing a story, we love to jump directly into developing exciting events and cool characters, but as soon as we start putting ink on paper, we get hit by the question: “Where and when do these events take place?” This is the story’s setting.
Here’s how to write a powerful setting for your story:
What Is a Story Setting?
According to Britannica, a setting is defined as “the location and time frame in which the action of a narrative takes place.” I would like to expand on this and define it this way
A setting is a context that describes when, where, and in what social context the story happens.
In a later section, we’ll go through this definition in further detail. Meanwhile, here’s a scene from my novel, The Juncture, that describes the setting for my story:
Russia was warmer than he’d expected, but then again, it was the middle of August. He left the time machine to find himself in the middle of a grass field, green stretching as far as the eye could see. A smile came to his face as he watched his surroundings.
What Are the Types of Setting?
There are two sorts of settings in traditional literature, and your choice is determined by the type of plot:
Backdrop: This type is used for stories where the setting doesn’t have an impact on the plot or the characters. The backdrop setting is unspecific, and the story can happen anywhere—in any forest, any city, or any castle.
Integral: A specific place and period that play a vital role in the tale are known as an “integral setting.” An integrated context might be either real or imagined, static (remaining the same throughout the story) or dynamic (changing within the story). The most fundamental aspect of an integral setting is that it is vital to the story.
1. The Three Keys of Creating a Vibrant Setting
Set the Mood of the Story
The word “mood” refers to the sensations and ambience the author wants their reader to feel.
A good rule of thumb is to choose the mood before the physical location and the time period; this way, you’ll make things easier for yourself.
Here’s the question: “If you were to write a horror tale, what kind of atmosphere would you create?”
A: An atmosphere that evokes a sense of disgust, fear, or shock from the reader
B: An atmosphere that conveys a sense of love, optimism, or attachment to the reader
C: An atmosphere that releases Adrenaline, and makes the reader feel confidence and excitement
Correct! The right answer is A, since the goal of a horror story is to put the reader in an uncomfortable situation.
Through our small quiz, I hope you got an idea on how to establish the mood for your story.
Pick the Environmental Context and Time Period Wisely
I emphasize “wisely.” Consider the sort of narrative you want to create and where and when it might work best. If you’re writing a story about a robot invasion, put it in a futuristic dystopian world; if you’re writing a contemporary romance, set it in our modern time. From these basic examples, you can see how vital it is to choose the correct environment for your novel.
Determine Your Setting’s Cultural and Social Context
You might have noticed that I added the social context to Britannica’s definition. This is because it aids in the sociological definition of your character’s relationship with the area and time period of your choosing. A medieval setting, for example, varies from a contemporary setting because the people of that period had distinct traditions, languages, and ways of living in general. If you are authoring a thriller, you should concentrate on this aspect specifically to make your plot more clear and to help you pay attention to more details when writing your story.
2. Describe the Setting through Your Characters
Now that you’ve decided the setting of your story, kudos to you! But now let’s step it up a notch.
If you want your readers to truly engage with your story, I absolutely recommend that you show how your characters interact with the environments in which they find themselves. To do this, your character has to be alive and use their five senses like a real person would.
The best thing to do in this case is to use the show, don’t tell approach we talked about in Character 101 and also use literary devices.
There’s another passage from my book illustrating the way to describe the setting through your character.
Dr Scott woke up to the sound of dripping water. He sat upright, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Vague memories of the dream he had were starting to resurface, making him wonder when he fell asleep in the first place. He looked at his watch, and realised that he’d been out for a little over an hour, the time he’d inputted into the [time] machine being exactly 2PM. “The hell?” he said out loud, burying his face in his hands before opening his eyes to check his surroundings. He felt nauseous, but the bed underneath him was strangely comfortable. Through his blurry vision, he saw his glasses sitting on the bedside table, as well as a small note. He grabbed his glasses first, looked around, and thought he must either be in a hotel room or a studio apartment. It didn’t matter as long as they deemed it a safe spot to drop him off.
3. Pros and Cons of Creating a World vs. Using a Pre-existing One
I felt it would be a waste to talk about settings without discussing world creation, but I’m still learning how to construct a world from scratch for my next novel. Nevertheless, I’ll offer you some tips to help you decide whether to create your own world or adapt one that already exists.
Another thing to consider is the adaptation of an actual location, such as a country or a real place.
Pros and Cons of Using a Pre-existing One
Pros
- Takes less time and effort compared to creating a world from scratch.
- Readers are familiar with actual settings; for example, if you want to put your narrative in Mexico, your readership will have a basic idea of what it looks like, and if not, they can check it out with a simple internet search, as opposed to a universe based only on imagination.
Cons
- Your story has to conform to the rules of this setting (depends on your story).
- Requires extensive research on many things such as language, social constraints, etc.
Pros and Cons of Creating a World
Pros
- You have total control of your story from physical location, inhabitants of the world, world history, society rules, beliefs and customs, etc.
- Learning how to world-build allows you to reach new horizons within your story, making it more genuine.
Cons
- Takes a lot of time to build a world that is consistent and logical.
- Requires a steep learning curve.
4. My Personal Experience: What I learned
The story of The Juncture takes place in the Soviet Union in 1988. This location is ideal for my novel, but I ran into several problems while writing it, one of which was the severe lack of research material. During the Cold War, Soviet Russia was extremely secretive, and the internet does not give specific details about how life was back then. What made things worse is that my narrative incorporates military and intelligence elements, and you wouldn’t be able to get information like that unless you are quite knowledgeable about the subject, understand Russian, or are in contact with an expert.
The point is that I didn’t think about research before starting to write my novel, so when I needed it, I had double, maybe even triple, the work to do.
Before you choose the setting for your novel, you should make a strategy and conduct preliminary research to see whether it will help or hinder your writing process.
4. Final Word
That’s all there is to it; by reading today’s blog, you’re now prepared to begin writing your book the proper way, as we went through the four pillars of novel writing: plot structure, characters, dialogue, and settings. If you haven’t already checked them, please do so since you will learn a lot from experience and avoid making the same mistakes I made.
If you have any questions or need writing advice, please contact me at bostonscribbles@gmail.com.
As always, have fun writing!
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