Tag Archives: setting tip

Technique

Power in Settings mini-series now in PDF!

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We’re digging into the Secret Sauce writing series next week, but first, I wanted to share an oldie but a goodie. I was digging through my old series and found one I didn’t even remember: Power in settings.

settings coverFrom the (all new) introduction:

Whether your work is a locked room mystery, a small town drama or an epic fantasy, your setting plays a key role in your story. Your setting can set the emotional tone, add conflict and increase the tension of your work.

On the other hand, we’ve all read books bogged down with barrels of description, that somehow still doesn’t help us visualize the scene or the milieu.

Using setting effectively isn’t about purple prose or even pretty writing. It’s about making an impact on your reader: drawing them into the story, helping them see the characterization and mood, and keeping them reading.

In this short series on power in settings, we look at the different ways in which setting can apply to our stories, and things to contemplate as we incorporate the setting.

With Tension, Suspense & Surprise, I asked for a Tweet, Facebook post or Google+ post in return for the PDF. But since this series is on the short side, there are no hoops at all. (I would still appreciate you sharing the news about the Power in Settings PDF, of course!)

Ready?

Click here for the Writers’ Quick Guide to Power in Settings!

Picture by Lauren

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Technique

A quick tip on setting (from someone other than me)

This entry is part 2 of 6 in the series Power in settings

I’m not the only one who thinks setting and emotion should go together. Last week, Nathan Bransford linked to some writing tips from author Janet Fitch. And what should we find but this (emphasis mine):

6. Use the landscape

Always tell us where we are. And don’t just tell us where something is, make it pay off. Use description of landscape to help you establish the emotional tone of the scene. Keep notes of how other authors establish mood and foreshadow events by describing the world around the character. Look at the openings of Fitzgerald stories, and Graham Greene, they’re great at this.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that every scene has to begin with six sentences detailing the room, or that a book has to start with a chapter overview on the city it’s set in. It does mean to pay attention to how setting is conveyed. (Like I did with The Cruelest Month, but really, it was unavoidable in that book.)

And I think that using character emotions and perceptions to help set that emotional tone is going to be one of the fastest and easiest ways to create it.

What do you think? How else can we establish the emotional tone through setting?

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