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Setting is one of those elements typically overlooked by inexperienced
writers – particularly inexperienced writers of crime and m/m fiction. Setting
is where your story takes place. Pretty basic, right? What’s to think about? But
setting is one of those subtle components that can take a good story and turn
it into something great.
Setting often determines what type of mystery you’re writing – certainly readers are quick to
make assumptions as to what sub-genre goes with what setting: isolated country
house means traditional mystery, small New England town
means cozy, multiple international metropolises mean thriller, grungy urban
settings mean hardboiled. And setting also determines what life experiences and
challenges your gay protagonist can expect to confront. The only son of a
Baptist minister who grows up in a conservative Midwestern town is going to be
a very different character than the youngest son of a famous Hollywood
starlet.
Setting directly determines the mood and atmosphere of your
story. To be effective, setting has to feel realistic, regardless of whether
the story takes place in a Denny’s on Topanga Canyon
Blvd. New York
But how do you achieve realism when there’s a very good
chance you’re going to set your story in a place you’ve never been – or at best
only visited?
It’s easier than you think. Of course first and foremost is
research. Books, maps, realtor listings, travel brochures, guide books, tourist
bureaus and websites. You know the drill.
No, you’ve never been on an ice cavern on a distant planet
(and thank God for that because sure as hell, no matter how carefully you
researched it you’d have some reader from outer space contacting you to tell
you the cavern was torn down in ’66 to make way for a Bank of America), but
chances are you have been in a cave or in the snow. And you can use what you
know about the way caves smell and the way snow feels for your alien setting.
Too often setting consists of a catalog of meaningless
detail. The moon was shining brightly, the lawn was a manicured square of
green, the room was large and sunny with flowered wallpaper, the wind was
gusting leaves, blah, blah, blah. Not that there’s anything wrong with all
that, but your descriptions have to be more than a recitation of the facts as
you see them. And that’s the key thing right there. Most setting revolves
around visual cues of what the author is allowing the POV character to see.
There’s nothing wrong with that. Humans — male humans in
particular — are visual creatures. But don’t describe everything, and limit
what you do describe to a few telling details. Stay in character as you describe the scene. What would your character be most likely to notice? The description you give us is actually your POV character’s commentary on the scene. So what would be important or significant to the character?
Use all five senses to describe your scenes — but (as always) think quality not quantity. Stick with the essentials. Readers don’t need to know what the POV characters sees, smells, hears, tastes and touches in every scene. Decide what’s most important for a particular scene, and give us that. For contemporary fiction, usually a sentence or two will be sufficient.
Setting grounds your stories — quite literally. A vivid, well-drawn setting pulls your reader right into the moment with your characters.
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A distinct voice in gay fiction, multi-award-winning author
JOSH LANYON has been writing gay mystery, adventure and romance for over a
decade. In addition to numerous short stories, novellas, and novels, Josh is
the author of the critically acclaimed Adrien English series, including The
Hell You Say, winner of the 2006 USABookNews awards for GLBT Fiction. Josh is
an Eppie Award winner and a three-time Lambda Literary Award finalist
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FUTURE POSTS will cover:
Kindlegraph / the art of research / writing male/male
romance / rejection and writer's block / building suspense / writing love
scenes / anti-piracy strategies / audio books / interviews with editors and
agents / using Calibre.
8 comments:
Great post. Interesting and plenty to think about. For me setting is a character. In my books the protagonists sometimes battle the settings. In thinking about it seems like I make the Y chroms in my stories more sensitive to smell and as you said the visual. The gals are into touch and sound. I also think how much you layer in depends on the location. Walking the corridors of a sterile office building will be quite different than the Everglades.
Absolutely. A powerful setting can be another character.
Good post. I've also used setting as a character, particularly when I set my books in places that the reader will know or know of, like Savannah or New Orleans.
Good post. For me, setting makes or breaks the story. Make me feel, smell, hear, see the place through which the character is travelling and you've likely hooked me for the rest of the story.
And you're absolutely right: setting is very personal. One character may have a great sense of smell and always notice the smell in a room, where another one will always notice the one thing that's out of place. Individuals notice different things.
I love setting :) I find some books you read could be set absolutely anywhere. This leaves me floating around in the air, totally not grounded. You are so right about people noticing different things. Like a mom walks into her kids room and sees a mess, the kids walk in and see toys.
And Midwestern noir? Really??
I absolutely love setting.
Yes, Wynter! There's a challenge when you set a story in a place that's been used a lot in fiction, isn't there? There's a high bar.
Marcelle, I agree. Setting is one of those elements that separate the okay writers from the really good writers.
Hey there, Toni!
Yes on the Midwestern Noir. But think about it. It's actually ripe for the plucking because it's such a dramatic contrast. Very effective when it's done right. But of course doing it right demands treating the setting with understanding and respect, and that can be a challenge. Not everyone appreciates the Home Town Vibe.
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