The Ultimate Guide To Writing Unforgettable Settings
Write the kind of settings your readers tell their friends about.
Photo by Mark Harpur on Unsplash
Merriam-Webster defines setting, as used for our purposes, as the time and place of the action of a literary, dramatic, or cinematic work.
I think the author Eudora Welty summed it up quite nicely when she said, “Every story would be another story, and unrecognizable if it took up its characters and plot and happened somewhere else. Fiction depends for its life on place.”
Your book’s setting can be as subtle and broad as ‘a city’ or ‘a house.’
In a case like that, it’s your job to create an opportunity for your reader to fill in the details themselves with places they’ve been and sensory experiences they’ve had.
Depending on the story you’re writing, your setting might also be incredibly detailed and nuanced. Some of my favorite stories growing up were Mary Norton’s books about The Borrowers, a family of little people who lived in the walls and under the floorboards of human houses.
The illustrations in her books captivated six-year-old me. The world Norton built within the ordinary world of a perfectly normal middle-class house was fascinating.
Source: Mary Norton’s The Borrowers.
With this post, I want to dive into creating the kind of setting that becomes almost a character in your story.
Settings that bring your reader to a place and make them feel as if they’ve been on a journey.
Settings that make leave your reader desperate to tell their friends all about them.