Setting the Stage
Do you love setting the stage for your stories, or do you struggle to know what details to include? As a writer, you’ll need to know not only what your setting is but how to bring it to life for your readers. While each genre, author, and story will have a slightly different take on the use of setting, it doesn’t have to be a mystery.
How you convey setting should reflect your purpose and mindset. Today, I’m going to share six secrets to better descriptions of your story’s setting and scenes.
Secret #1: Setting Is Intentional.
The physical details of a setting may be immovable facts (apply this to fiction with a grain of salt), but how they are actually portrayed can vary. Three people looking at the same scene are going to notice different details, interpret those details differently, and use different words to write about them. It’s part of being an individual person.
The way you choose to portray a setting is a powerful tool. It lets you call the reader’s attention to where you want it to be, set their emotions to what you want them to feel, and help them experience a scene the same way your characters do.
Don’t waste this tool! The first secret to using it is recognizing that you have it.
Secret #2: Literalness Has a Limit.
Two skills a good writer uses are observing details carefully and recreating them accurately. Some forms of writing call for more literal details than others, but almost every time, there’s a limit to how far you should go in detailing a scene.
For example, let’s say I want to write about the carpet of the coffee shop where I was drafting this blog post. I could say something like this:
“The carpeted section under the north windows curved out into the tiles that formed most of the floor. The carpet itself was dark brown with a pattern of darker and lighter lines crossing each other over the base shade.”
If I was writing something in which the pattern of the carpet mattered, that would be fine. If I mention it just for the sake of describing the scene, however, I might lose a reader’s interest unless I can show that it’s relevant to my point of view character. Likewise, if I expand my description to label the exact shades of brown, mention the dimensions of the carpeted corner, or describe the metal strip at the edge of the carpet, I’m probably saying too much.
Knowing how to describe physical details is good, but knowing when to stop is just as important.
Secret #3: Metaphors May Be Too Much.
Sometimes, good writing is the opposite of literal. It is creative, imaginative, and full of imagery and metaphor. This can creep into scenes in a beautiful way, or it can bog them down with unnecessary, distracting comparisons.
Consider my coffee shop carpet. What if I wrote this instead?
“A silver line was the only barrier keeping the mysterious dark carpet contained—not only from escape, as there was nowhere it actually wanted to go, but also from being influenced by the coldness of the rocky, rigid squares that made up the main tiling.”
It sounds fancy, but it doesn’t mean a lot. Why? Because there is nothing about my visit to the coffee shop that makes the protection of the carpet relevant—or even sensical.
If you’re using imaginative language in your setting descriptions, make sure it matches what’s actually going on in the scene.
Secret #4: Intention Isn’t Pretension.
Using setting intentionally is about showing something that’s there, not creating something that isn’t.
Obviously, fiction will be something you’ve made up, but you want to use setting to add something honest to the story, not something full of pretty-but-meaningless prose. Don’t use words emptily. No matter how musical they sound, they need to mean something too.
There’s a difference between art and pretension. When it comes to writing, this difference is in whether you’re focused on the meaning of what you’re saying or the form. When describing a setting, use just the words you need to get across the picture you’re trying to paint. Depending on your project, it could be two words, or it could be two paragraphs.
Either way, make sure your writing is centered on meaning. A form that is void of meaning loses its beauty.
Secret #5: POV Provides Focus.
The point of view that you and/or your viewpoint characters bring to a scene should guide your choice of details.
When you’re relaying an existing setting, take note of the details you notice naturally. This is the best place to start in setting the scene.
When you’re creating a fictional setting, it can be tricky to know what details to invent and what to just let be. If it helps you envision the scene, write a separate document that describes all of the details of the place. Then, picture what your POV character would actually be taking in during a scene, and include those details in your official description.
If the POV character wouldn’t notice something, the reader probably shouldn’t be seeing it either (an omniscient narrator is the main exception to this guideline). Let natural perspective guide your perspective on a scene.
Secret #6: Feelings Make a Filter.
Setting isn’t just the details that the POV character sees; it’s how they see them. The way someone is looking at the world will influence the words that come to mind to describe it. This includes a character’s beliefs, past experiences, and even thoughts and feelings.
When you’re describing a setting, don’t go outside of your own head in nonfiction or your character’s head in fiction to find a great description. The best descriptions are the ones that are truest to the person experiencing and describing that setting.
Remember my coffee shop carpet? There’s yet another way I could have described it:
“I sat at a side table in the back hall, trying not to chew on the end of my pen. I lost the cap ages ago. It was darker in the hallway, and the tiles felt cold, unfriendly, like I was being excluded from the main bustle of the coffee shop. I had gone out on errands to catch some sun, but there was no sun at my table. Looking around, I saw there was a sunny window in a corner several feet in front of me. It was a welcoming spot, set off from my tiled hall by a sweeping curve that signaled the beginning of a section of carpet. The carpet wasn’t much to look at—just a patterned dark brown to disguise stains, but it still somehow spoke of comfort.”
This version of the scene includes both literal detail and creative interpretation without going too far into either (depending on the goal of the words). It shows what is noticed, what is felt, and how those blend together in one description.
Using this filter takes practice, but it’s absolutely worth it! The better you know yourself and your characters, the more you’ll be able to give strong, honest setting descriptions.
Setting: Flexible Secrets
By now, you might have noticed that the six setting secrets aren’t set-in-stone laws. There’s nothing saying, “Describe these four aspects” or “Always use these three details.”
The six secrets of setting are flexible tools. They don’t tell you what to write; they tell you how to write. They equip you to make the best decisions for your own writing.
Do you have some setting-related resources that you already love? Please leave a comment below! I’m also looking for new resources that I can check out for myself and recommend to the authors I work with.
Are you looking for more help and practice in writing settings? For the next few weeks, I’ll be focusing on setting and scene in the writing prompts that I include in my weekly email. If you’re interested in writing along with me, you can sign up at the bottom of this page.