Setting

(image courtesy of Felix Dilly via pixabay.com

I’m a big advocate of settings in fiction. I admit, I sometimes seek out fiction set in specific locations because I love them so much. There’s a great site called Trip Fiction where readers can search by location (and authors can submit their books by location, where location matters).

That doesn’t mean I like pages of info dump about the setting that derails the story. Seeing a new place through a character’s eyes (and carefully chosen detail) is different than pages of narrative about setting. It needs to serve as support, not distraction.

There are three ways I like to use setting.

Setting As Character

I teach a class about this, although there’s no Topic Workbook out on it (yet). I’m sure that will change.

What’s meant by “setting as character?” When I use the term, I mean that the setting is a vital part of the way the characters act and interact, and vital to the plot and narrative drive. The details are specific and integrated, the sense of place comes alive, and it couldn’t happen in any other location than the one(s) the author chose.

This is as true in worldbuilt fiction, such as fantasy or urban fantasy set in alternate worlds as it is in recognizable locations. Think of the worlds created by Tolkien, Lewis Carroll, John Scalzi, Martha Wells, Seanan McGuire, and Sharon Shinn, just to name a few. The settings are vital to the way the story builds and how the characters grow and change. The reader can experience the locations with all the senses, because of carefully chosen details woven into the fabric of the prose.

Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy couldn’t have been set in Kansas or San Francisco or Toronto, although the books can echo emotionally with people living anywhere and everywhere. Don DeLillo’s GREAT JONES STREET couldn’t be set on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Elizabeth Gilbert’s CITY OF GIRLS couldn’t happen anywhere except New York. Dawn Powell set several of her novels in New York, and several of her novels in the Midwest, and the setting, in each, is vital to the core integrity of those stories. They’re not interchangeable. Miami is as vital as any of the characters in Carl Hiaasen’s TOURIST SEASON. Armistead Maupin’s TALES OF THE CITY and subsequent books in the series have San Francisco as character, not just a location. Donna Leon’s Inspector Brunetti and Louise Penny’s Inspector Gamache series use the settings of Venice and Montreal/Three Pines as additional characters.

There are hundreds more examples. Deft descriptions of settings, and their use as additional characters add texture and layers to beautiful prose. They help make the reader’s journey experiential instead of voyeuristic.

Emotional Geography

When I talk of a book’s “emotional geography,” I mean the physical details of the place overlaid with the individual histories of those who’ve lived there in actuality (if it’s a real place) overlaid with the histories of the characters in a particular book.

Even in a country with a relatively short history, such as the United States, standing on the Gettysburg Battlefield or on top of the Empire State Building or landing at the Las Vegas airport at night or watching Mt. Helen’s grumble is going to create specific emotional sensations. Your own experience connects to that of those who experienced it before you, all the way back to the first glimpses.

It's even stronger in Europe, which has even more layers of history, be it standing stones in Cornwall or the modern horrors of Auschwitz.

The history of a place resonates, along with any trope the place has built up, and that will resonate with different characters. One character might find the romantic trope associated with Paris true, and find the city beautiful and magical. Another character might remember traveling to Paris during college and the way a relationship ended there. Paris will mean something different to each of these characters, based on emotional geography, and they will interact with their environment differently. It will almost be as though they are experiencing different cities.

In a completely fictional world, such as one in a fantasy novel, the way the author builds a place’s emotional geography has an impact on whether the world feels fully realized, or it’s just another Ye Olde Almost Renn Faire Trope. Too often, in fantasy novels, the setting is a familiar trope we’ve seen before, but it feels shallow. There’s no sense of the history of place, or the lack thereof. It’s never directly addressed, and feels like a set built for a temporary production, not a place where these characters live. The trope can be used and then turned inside out, as is done in some comic fantasies. Jenn DeLuca uses the actual Renn Faire world and does something fresh with it in her contemporary romances WELL MET, WELL PLAYED, WELL MATCHED, and WELL TRAVELED.

The layers of emotional geography makes the book richer, when done well.

Stretching Geography

I call it “stretching geography” when I mix real and fictional places, using the real locations to be touchstones and context for the fictional ones.

I do this often for books set in my version of New York or Edinburgh or wherever I set something. I set Rufus’s bookstore on Bleecker Street in New York City (THE SPIRIT REPOSITORY) among the real stores. This can become problematic as neighborhoods change, stores close or change hands, and suddenly you have a period piece instead of a contemporary piece that attempts to defy a particular time period. I’ll stretch the Ayrshire coast to stuff in an extra town near Maybole in Scotland. I’ll create additional towns in Westchester County (“Dogs on Beach” and their connected stories, and “That Man in Tights” which had a big section set at Playland Amusement Park in my hometown of Rye).  Or Vermont (The Twinkle Tavern mysteries), or add the town of Persimmon in the Berkshires (CAST IRON MURDER) or maybe put in a fictional street in a real town (too many pieces to list).

The key in that is to know the area and add in something that makes sense for the neighborhood, unless your plot deals with something that’s intentionally jarring in the neighborhood. Setting a brothel next to a church on Bleecker Street means something different in a contemporary piece than it would in, say, urban fantasy or noir. Putting a box store in the middle of Nantucket (which passed legislation forbidding it) is going to ring false to anyone who knows the area, unless the plot directly deals with the issues that creates.

If you’re writing fiction about a real place, you will have to bend reality in the service of your story, to some extent. But you need to do it in a way that is believable. If the audience can’t suspend their disbelief when you create a location, they won’t trust you on the other elements of the story, either.

Learning the Land

If you’re going to write about a particular place, the best way to write about it well is to visit. If at all possible, schedule a research trip to the place and spend some time there. Walk the streets. Take lots of pictures. Gather every physical map and tourist brochure you can get your hands on and store them in a file when you get home. I have several file boxes of maps going all the way back to the 1960s and 70s in storage AND I USE THEM when I write something set in those eras.

Libraries weed. You can’t always find what you need in archives. Historical societies lose space or lose materials in fires or floods. Always save your own research. De-clutter “experts” (who usually get a cut of the profit when you have to buy new organizing tools) who tell you to toss research materials if you haven’t “used them in a year” are saboteurs when it comes to writing. Keep the information from your travels, especially maps. If you’re serious about writing something set in that location, you will use it, even if it’s years down the road. Ephemera is rarely replaceable.

Even if you build worlds, real maps will give you a sense of flow or obstacle or terrain as you build your fantasy world. Real maps will help you visualize, and also inspire you to change things to fit your concepts.

Keep a travel diary. My travel diaries tend to be separate books from my normal handwritten journal. They are books dedicated to a specific trip. I write them up EVERY night, no matter how tired I am. If I am travelling alone, I will usually write them up throughout the day. I put in as much sensory detail of all the places I visit, everything I experience, and the emotions I feel everywhere. I overwrite to the extreme. It’s like running hot with all the senses open. When I write something set in the location, even if it is years later, the travel diary will bring back the sensations, emotions, and texture of the place.

What if you want/need to write about a place and you can’t visit?

I start with travel guides, such as the DK Eyewitness Guides of the Lonely Planet Guides. They are a starting point. I go to the tourist bureau sites and, if possible, the Chamber of Commerce sites. Those lead me to other sites and museums and historical entities. I watch videos posted by other people who visited. I’m not talking one or two. I’m taking a few hundred hours’ worth.  I read blogs by people who live there.

Most importantly, I ask questions. If I’ve been reading the blog of someone who lives somewhere I want to write about, and I’m working on an early draft, I’ll get in touch and ask if something I’m trying to do makes sense. Or I’ll ask someone at the tourist bureau or the chamber. Or I’ll contact someone connected to an historical site.

I do this because I want it to be as believable as possible, while still serving my story and characters. It’s not about sticking to the “way it is” documentary-style. It’s about merging the real and the fictional elements in a believable way that is supported by the story’s internal logic.

When I start a new project and set up the files for it (on computer and in hard copy), I start the acknowledgements document at the start of the project. As people help me, in whatever capacity, I add them to the list.

That way, when it is in final galleys and it’s time for me to provide notes/front matter/back matter to my publisher, I go over that document and create the acknowledgements that are printed in the book from that ongoing list. It’s much easier than scrabbling through all your notes, knowing you’re forgetting someone important, and then feeling mortified when you remember six weeks after publication.

I learned this the hard way, through multiple mortifications.

[Side note: I hope you enjoyed February’s #28Prompts. If you missed any, or want to revisit them, you can do so here.]

How do you use setting? What are your favorite books that use it well? Do you keep a travel diary? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.