Elements of Fiction – Part 1: Setting

Next month, I’m participating in this year’s National Novel Writing Month event, or NaNoWriMo 2017. I’m beyond excited to be involved and to see how far I can get to producing a full-length novel in so short a time. And in that spirit, I thought I might put out a series of posts on what I’ve learned about the basics of good writing.

This is the start of a 4-part series that I’m calling “Elements of Fiction.” Each week, I’ll be discussing and examining a new concept related to storytelling. Today, I’ll be looking at the idea of setting and how a good setting choice can aid your plot and character arcs.

What is Setting?

In any given story, the setting is the time and place where that story occurs. If you crack open a Sherlock Holmes mystery, then you’re reading about the detective in Baker Street in Victorian Era London. When you watch any Star Wars film, the very first thing you’ll see, even before the opening titles, is the famous line “A long time ago, in a galaxy, far, far away…”

Now, setting is a useful concept because it gives your audience a sense of where everything is taking place. Even when he had only a bare stage to work with, William Shakespeare still had to try and create the idea of his setting in every play. He had to convince his audience that they weren’t watching two actors emote on a stage, but that they were watching two lovers confess their feelings in fair Verona, or that King Henry was giving a rallying speech to his soldiers on the battlefield of Agincourt.

Setting provides the context of what we want to see happen within a story. It also shapes what we might call the mood of a given scene.

Consider the wedding party scene from The Godfather. The story here cuts between two different locations: the backyard where the party takes place, and the private office where Don Corleone meets every guest who’s come to ask for a crime boss’s favor. Outside, the party is bright, loud, and chaotic, with tons of smiling people. Inside, the Don sits behind his desk and patiently hears every request, with an air of dread and anticipation filling the room. The wedding provides an excellent contrast and a view into Vito Corleone’s life. He’s a man who cares deeply about his family, throwing his daughter the most lavish wedding ever. And indoors, we get a glimpse into how Vito pays for all of this and what kind of power he holds in this world.

When we go outside, the mood shifts to hope and innocence. When we go inside, the mood shifts to cynicism and corruption. It’s no mistake, by the way, that The Godfather ends in that same office, where Vito’s son Michael has taken over the family business. He’s hailed as the new Don Corleone and fully abandoned his innocence from the beginning of the story.

Finally, setting is key when you want to consider what can or can’t happen in a scene. If I set my story on a cruise ship out at sea, there are going to be limits. I obviously can’t have a car chase on the deck. I also have to establish why we’re following these characters on this ship and how being on the ship is going to affect their choices.

That’s what makes a thriller like The Poseidon Adventure so compelling. It takes the idea of a ship capsizing and sinking as its premise, and then builds the tension around a group of survivors trying to escape. It literally turns the world they know upside-down, and it forces them to adapt or perish.

When you can consider your setting, make sure you give it the best treatment you can. Consider all the elements, like the weather conditions, how many people are there, where our characters can and can’t go, and why they have to be there in the first place. It’s amazing what a simple choice like setting can do to define the rest of the story as we know it.

Stay tuned next week for Part Two: Action.