The Further Four: Where and When (Or: Location, Location, Location)

The Further Four
(or some Gemini astronauts; you decide)

It's been a while since I've hung out with The Three and The Further Four, but it's the new year, and we're getting back into the swing of things. Today, The Further Four and I hit the highlights of setting; next week, The Three and I will go deeper into the role setting can play in your writing.

So remember talking about the Five Ws? They're all buds, but Where and When are best friends. Together, we call them setting, and in general, each story has two kinds: the setting of the story overall and the setting of each scene.

The Big Picture: The Setting of a Story

The big picture of setting is the where and when of a story’s world: the U.S. in 2015 or during WWII, Medieval France or Planet Taco at the height of the Rah Empire (it was a great time). The big picture setting includes the culture and government of the society your characters are in but also more intimate things like the language they speak and the rivers and mountains near them. Building styles (a suburban strip shopping center versus a corner grocery) and geographic location (the South, the Midwest, Siberia) are also important parts of place.

Parts of a Place

Dude, I'm pretty sure I don't want to live in this world.
I don't care how many suns there are
or how benevolent the government is.

• Buildings, roads, natural formations
• Culture/festivals
• Weather/climate
• Language
• Laws/form of government
• History
• Geographic location
• Urban/rural

Big picture setting also includes time. When it's summer where Cranky Rah lives, she might be out on the river in her canoe. In the fall, she'll be out eating a taco at the truly awesome Folk Festival. In the winter, she mostly hibernates in her cave, like any good bat. So time of year affects your characters, but what year it is does, too. Popular music changes (Elvis, Duran Duran, One Direction); slang changes (fly, awesome, totes); technology changes (three words: rotary dial phone).

Parts of a Time

Joan Baez totes digs that groovy
Bobby Dylan, you get me, dames?

• Year and season
• Time of day/night
• Music, clothing, slang
• Famous people/events/politics
• Technology
• Food
• Gender roles
• Mood (hopeful, violent, exciting)

The Small Picture: The Setting of a Scene

Everything your characters do has a where and when, and both affect how they behave. A fight over the last taco happens differently depending on if the characters are alone or in a crowd. (For the record, Cranky Rah gets the last taco.) Here are a few pieces of the where and when of a scene:

• Space: indoors or outdoors, big or small, crowded or empty, loud or quiet
• Who else is there: not just main characters but people in the background
• What else is going on: eating a meal, running from the law, confronting a werewolf
• Movement: characters staying in one place or characters moving
• Weather: threatened by a tornado, trapped in a haunted house by a thunderstorm
• Familiarity: a place the characters know and feel good in or one that’s strange, unnerving

Setting It Up: Creating Setting

You want specifics? Carne asada with
refrieds on the side. Cumin and garlic!
The way the tortilla dissolves into blissful corn
grit on the tongue! The zing of lime and
silk of avocado! Oh, yeah.

Be specific. If flowers are part of your setting, be specific: Are they roses or daffodils or that really smelly flower that only blooms once every several years?

Use your senses. We tend to focus on sight, but place and time have smell, sound, touch and taste, too. Don’t forget to use the others when setting your scene.

Keep it under control. A quick way to slow a story down is by throwing paragraphs of setting at the reader. Weave your descriptions into the action. It takes practice but gets easier the more you do it.