Writing: Setting

 Again, I find Melissa Donovan informative, thought-provoking. On her Writing Forward blog, I found Fiction Writing: The Setting of a Story.

I worry that too much of my settings are too minimal. Blame this on my reading Shakespeare and Milan Kundera's Art of the Novel. Maybe also from being in Indiana, where on one side of the road is corn and on the other is soybeans. I have set almost all of my stories in Indiana. At bottom for me, setting is the backdrop for the characters - there is the influence of Shakespeare.

Ms. Donovan's thesis is:

Setting may not seem as critical to a story as character or plot, yet it is a core element of storytelling and for good reason. The setting of a story helps us understand where and when it takes place, which gives the story context. If the audience doesn’t have a sense of setting, they’ll feel lost and confused (sometimes that might be the author’s intent).

I think this I have understood. As well as the mechanics described below:

Settings are primarily established through description, action, and dialogue. Description is the simplest and most common way to relay a setting to a reader. But some readers will nod off if forced to sludge through pages (or even paragraphs) of description. Modern audiences like to get to the action and dialogue—they want to know what’s happening.

While paragraphs of description can establish a setting, action and dialogue can also be used to bring readers into a story world. Characters interact with the world around them, and they talk about it, which means setting can be incorporated into action and dialogue, as long as it’s natural to the story.

She closes out a list of tips for creating a setting that I think I have had in my head, but know they are there now. Check them out, they make a  lot of sense. 

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