Some might say their favorite books transport them to a faraway place or make them feel like as if sitting in the same room with the characters. When I began writing, I assumed a well-crafted setting framed the physical spaces around my characters, but I hadn’t yet learned how to use setting to add depth, or to expand the reader’s journey without bogging it down in backstory or long-winded info dumps.

This powerful device can do much more than add window dressing. It can hint at the late hour, suggest romantic ambiance, or foreshadow dark days ahead. A well-written setting functions beyond physical spaces. It has the potential to pull a reader deeper into the story with lush descriptions that fire all cylinders on the sensual spectrum.

Unfortunately, it took a while for me to maximize my settings. During a time in my life when my writing was stalled in the technical writing lane, I had hoped for the “right time” to jump into writing fiction. I guess one might say the “right time” found me during an afternoon sightseeing trip to a town outside of San Antonio, one that provided the groundwork for my understanding about setting and planted the seeds that would become my first published novel.

Inspiration in Gruene

At first glance, Gruene wasn’t all that different from other Texas towns its size. The main street was dotted with homes and small businesses. Historical markers stood in front of timeworn buildings. Live oaks canopied sidewalks, and a white water tower loomed over the Grist Mill, a restaurant in the ruins of an 1878 cotton gin, where we enjoyed lunch from a deck overlooking the Guadalupe River.

Afterward, our daughter guided us through a quaint courtyard, toward a whitewashed building. I hesitated at the screened door. Why would she drag us into an old dance hall in the middle of the afternoon?

I understood once I stepped inside. Gruene Dance Hall delighted the senses with its simple décor, antique signage, and autographed photos along the walls. The wooden floorboards gave a little beneath my feet, welcoming me in its own special way. As I took it all in, I told my husband, “I don’t know what the story’s about, but when I write it, it’s happening here.”

Beyond what could be seen or heard, the hall felt alive. Its distinctiveness told a story—one that begged to be retold.

Using Setting to Convey Emotions

Years later, when I wrote Goodbye, Lark Lovejoy, I used setting to convey emotions. For example, the story opens in Lark’s Houston neighborhood. Instead of telling the reader Lark is newly widowed, I placed her in a scene jogging past a line of yellow roses.

Here’s how it begins:

Would the neighbors notice if I set fire to their hedge? Lark tightened her grip on the jogging stroller. Just one match, maybe two would do it. She held her breath and increased her pace until the border of yellow roses was behind her. A rose by any other name still smells like a funeral spray.

Our readers are smart, so I try to avoid “on the nose” descriptions that can feel tedious. Rich settings invite the reader to puzzle out the character’s perceptions and emotions. Writers are warned to “show, don’t tell,” and setting provides ample opportunities to get this right.

Consider setting like a nonverbal character. It can indicate who had been there: the lock was broken. How characters regard each other: Sandy and John lived in a mansion, yet they rarely moved more than an arm’s reach from each other. How they feel about themselves: Denise’s clothes had piled up in the corner until she had nothing clean to wear.

Letting Setting Speak for Itself

In a scene where my main character retrieves her son from his first day of school, I could’ve said, “Everyone looked tired at the school.” Instead, I let the setting tell the tale: “End-of-the-day lunchbox aroma and fatigue hung in the air, ending the new-school-year freshness all too quickly.”

The key is to permit the setting to speak for itself, provided it moves the story forward and doesn’t steal the show. Here’s an example where a visit to a farmhouse on the outskirts of town reconciles Lark’s romantic ideas about winemaking:

Within minutes of her arrival, the bloated orange sun teetered on the horizon, threatening to sink and flood the land with darkness. An owl hooted. A floorboard wobbled, and her knees buckled.

Descriptions should serve a purpose. In the example, the dilapidated farm exposed Lark’s readiness to face her fears.

We’re all familiar with the dreaded backstory. What if you could fold backstory into select emotional images and deliver the same information without hijacking your momentum? Let’s take a look as Lark prepares to leave her Houston home:

She returned to inspect the house. In the emptiness, earlier days came into view—romantic dinners, crawling babies, their best memories—and she was determined to take those with her when she left.

The “emptiness” made room for reflective backstory that had taken up multiple paragraphs in earlier versions.

Questions to Consider

Setting is like a Swiss-Army knife. We tend to use the knife, but we overlook the other functions. Here are some questions to help you achieve more with this underutilized tool:

  • Does a setting’s description propel the story or kill momentum?
  • Can you illustrate backstory with artifacts like photos, furnishings, and automobiles to tell the reader where your characters have been, what they’ve experienced, or where they might be headed?
  • Can you convey your character’s emotions by adjusting the size, location, sound, or light in their physical spaces? How about the sounds of a clock ticking? The smell of an old coffeemaker? The feel of a crackly vinyl restaurant booth? Can you link these with dialogue or movement? Is the ticking clock judgmental? Does the cold vinyl remind her of the last time she had dinner with her sister?
  • Does your setting offer opportunities for meaningful action? I placed a line of abandoned grapevines beside Lark’s childhood home. On the cusp of her transformation, she chops them down to their stalks.

Sources

Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi’s The Rural Setting Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Personal and Natural Places. Writers Helping Writers, 2016

Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi’s The Urban Setting Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to City Spaces. Writers Helping Writers, 2016.

Ron Roselle’s Description & Setting, Writer’s Digest Books, 2005.

16 Ways to Make Your Setting a Character in Its Own Right, KM Weiland, https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/?s=setting+as+character

Learn how NOT to Waste Your Story Setting’s Full Potential, KM Weiland, https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/learn-how-not-to-waste-your-story-settings-full-potential/