When we hear the word “setting” for a story, we tend to think big as in What is the time and place in which our story unfolds? (In fact, this thought is as big as it gets!). We’ve probably all read those great epic books prefaced with maps to help us get and keep our setting straight. While not all novels need these visual guides, our minds often go first to the big, overarching locations and eras when we think of how to create a setting for a story.
Once we know the bigger picture, we might zoom in a bit and think of the landscapes we’ll visit in our story. Zooming in further still, we consider the particular community or communities where the action will take place…
These are all great things to think about, and necessary things to think about. And of course you can start big. But I’d like to suggest another tactic to help you bring your setting to life, one that I’ve used in my own writing and shared in my writing workshops—and that is to start small. Maybe even so small that the concept will barely come up in your book at all…
How to Create A Setting for a Story That Lives and Breathes
I want you to visit your main character’s bedroom. You can do this in your head, but I highly recommend at least writing some point form notes in your notebook. And if your character doesn’t have a bedroom for whatever reason—perhaps they’ve never had one—choose a place that he or she spends a lot of time, where they’ve left a personal mark. Let your mind stretch beyond conventional bedrooms in the contemporary world. An underwater cave, a hut in the forest, or a sleek pod in a network of similar pods on a distant planet work as well as a studio apartment. This is your story—take us where your character lives.
Now step into this space and take an inventory of what you see before you—what you touch or bump into…what you smell.
What are your impressions on the décor, or the lack thereof?
Now Snoop.
Get nosy.
Note it all down.
You don’t have to write paragraph after paragraph of text, but do be descriptive enough to paint a vivid picture for yourself. You don’t just see a shirt, you see a grass-stained, rumpled soccer jersey tossed on the floor. That’s not merely a bed in the corner. It’s a twin bed with starched white sheets tucked in with corners so sharp they could cut. Immediately, we’re learning something about the inhabitant of this place, of their circumstances, responsibilities or habits.
What books do you find in this room, or are there no books at all? Of course, maybe instead of books you find a stack of yellowed scrolls stuck with wax drippings…
Are the shelves lined with photos of loved ones? Or is the bland, photo-less wall itself suggestive?
It’s up to you how far you go with this and into how many closets and drawers you decide to pry. (But if you find a journal hidden under the floorboard, peek at the latest entry.)
You may not ever show this space to your readers. It might not come up at all in your story. The purpose of this writing exercise is for you to begin to get to know the larger setting of your story by probing into a smaller one. Notice how those larger scale questions of where and when come through in a quick survey of the objects you come across (yellowed scrolls with wax drippings probably suggest something different than a contemporary teenage girl’s room…or if not, what other puzzling things might we find in such an unexpected space, telling us more about this world you’re creating?)
Perhaps even more significantly, what also happens is that we get to know our main character better by the state of this place and the things we find in this place that intimately belongs to them. And once we know that, we are better equipped to step out with them into their larger community, and the world beyond that—wherever their journeys take them—and not only see the when and where of the setting, but feel how they themselves experience this world.
That, to me, is the way a story setting really comes to life—when we feel what it’s like to be there with, and even as, our hero.