A few years ago, when Sex and the City: The Movie came out, many reviews referenced New York City as the “fifth character”—an element of the storyline that was just as important as Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda.
When writing stories—especially character-driven ones—we focus on the protagonist, the main characters and secondary characters, their backgrounds and motivations. We focus on conflict, what the characters want and what stands in the way.
But sometimes that means we forget to write about the setting, a crucial part of creating a strong story.
Photo by colin
The Power of Place
Why is the setting so important?
Here are three ways the setting plays a role in a story:
1. It reveals character.
Think about your protagonist’s daily routine, his favorite places to go, his home and workplace. These spaces show what he likes to do and what influences his life. How a character responds to his surroundings also reveals more about who he is. Consider how he may feel or act at a rock concert… at the library… at a busy coffee shop.
2. It contributes to the plot.
The characters in a story physically move to different locations in order to interact with other characters or take action. Perhaps your protagonist goes to her friend’s house and reveals a huge secret. Or perhaps she travels back to her hometown and runs into her high school sweetheart.
3. It creates conflict.
The setting adds to the conflict when it puts a character in danger or in an uncomfortable position. Imagine a stalled car on a long dirt road, a packed train in the middle of a city, or a pop-up thunderstorm while picnicking in a park. Any of these settings have the power to produce conflict and move the story forward.
Does setting play a role in your writing? How does it reveal character or affect the plot?
PRACTICE
Consider a specific setting—a place and time. It could be an indoor or outdoor space; house or building; city or country town; mountains or beach; pleasant weather or stormy; winter or summer; day or night; past, present or future.
Write for fifteen minutes about a scene that features this setting. Be sure the setting plays a role by revealing character, contributing to the plot, or creating conflict.
When you’re finished, please share your practice in the comments section.
Jake Jones couldn’t resist the dare of a corner. He burned the accelerator and they flew around the bend, yelling into the rocky terrain that enveloped them. The new sun cast a yellow light on everything.
Savannah lay sweetly behind them, and so be it. Let the others frolic in the Spanish moss and Southern charm – Julia escaped just before she’d suffocated.
Jake breathed in heavy air for ten hours a day, constructing a new highway next to the marsh. He sweated through that blue outfit, coming home dripping with frustration. The humidity started forming his words, his frowns – everything. Their arguments were because of the moisture in the air too, she was sure of it. Allergies closed her throat up in spring, and the humidity turned him angry in summer.
‘The roads here are so damned straight,’ he used to say, his hand curled around his beer and never around her in those swampy summer nights.
So last night, after he picked another fight with her and after he said sorry and after she cleaned up the pieces of the bills he’d torn up, they decided to leave. She left a Dear John note for the landlord from them both, and swirled the floor with a mop to show him their compunction. But she didn’t leave last month’s rent. She’d mail it when she got a job out West.
She could see through Jake’s smile that he loved this highway, it’s rocks and it’s white sky, maybe more than he knew how to love her. But that didn’t matter. He was smiling. The further West they ventured, the dryer the air and the softer Jake’s mood. He slipped his arm around her shoulder and squeezed her tight, his red truck roaring towards a new challenge.
I enjoyed that your practice isn’t the usual scenario of a person taking off and leaving his/her partner… that they both escaped together and moved onto a new place. The setting helps to show the contrast between their old life in the South and new possibilities in the West.
Thanks Melissa. Really enjoyed this topic! 🙂
“Another Day in Traffic”
It was like rush hour was messing with me.
I made process on the highway in irregular bursts, either going above the speed limit in some sections, or slowing down to snail’s pace. More often than note, it was the latter. Which made the trip excruciatingly agonizing.
More traffic met me as the shopping strips came into sight. In the open air, heat leaked through the sun roof, negating the air conditioning that was going on full blast. Oh yeah. The Cardinals were playing today. I don’t like baseball. Too much waiting, not enough action. Yet, there was nothing I could do about it, except stew in my car as commercial speedily chattered on the radio. That car commercial again?
Unfortunately, the lane next to me sped by, with no place to merge into. On the other hand, some idiot from the opposite side tried to squeeze into the space in front of me, which was clearly too small for that tree-destroying Humvee. The drive honked as he attempted to get in.
Gripping the wheel tight, I flipped through all the stations and frequencies, rambling off a string of curses and variations, resisting the urge to hon. Stupid driver! Nobody knew how to drive when it was hot.
I glanced at the Best Buy as I passed by it. I refused to let it leave my field of vision. I steamed even more. Last time I was there, the employees tried to take advantage and rig me out of a few hundred dollars. Note to self: Make YouTube rant once home. I needed something to rant about, considering how rush hour was being mean to me.
Very nice! I like how you related the traffic situation to the other things that make your character angry. Oh, and I kinda feel the same way about baseball.
Hi all! I’ve been lurking around here the better part of this year, but this is the first time I’m taking my courage in both hands and posting my practice…
In twenty-three years of unquestioned authority, Tracy
had never before found himself at a loss, or doubted his own intuition. Within
a minute of stepping aboard the Grand
Joseph he found himself afloat in a world where he knew nothing. His
habitual arrogance, his ducal self-confidence, abandoned him, and left him
confronted by his own ignorance, vulnerable to the consequences of his
inexperience.
“Bienvenue, señor!” cried the captain, helping him through the entry
port. He swept a hand across the decks. “Is she not a beauty?”
Tracy glanced around, wondering
what the captain described as beautiful.
Among a tangle of ropes and barrels, his eyes alighted on a group of odd
characters who appeared to be debating how best to lower several casks through
a rectangular hole in the deck. A loud, protesting bleat, brought his eyes to
the other end of the ship, where several sailors were hauling a goat up from a
boat below.
“Come, monsieur, and I will show
you around a bit,” invited the captain, almost gleefully. He strode forward
confidently, seemingly unaware of and unconcerned by the strange sailors, the
barrels, or the goat.
A shout sounded high above them.
Tracy, glancing up quickly, saw tiny figures moving like brightly coloured spiders
among the incomprehensible rope that tangled about the masts.
Captain Dominguez, following his
gaze, suddenly frowned. “Señores!” he cried. “Do you call that a lateen rig?
Who is captain of the mizzens? Tell him I want to see him here below at once! Toute de suite! You English are so
funny,” he remarked, striding forward once more.
Tracy, dodging a barrel which
some sailor sent rolling across the deck towards the rectangular opening, found
no fight in him to protest the remark.
“Belay that right forrard on the
orlop, maties!” called someone behind them.
Tracy supposed, almost with
despair, that no doubt the sailors’ idea of English was as different from his
own as their pigtails and checked shirts were different from his white wig and
velvet coat. The din that filled his ears proved him only too right.
“Count those for me, fitty, me
pard! Ee over there—ess, ee, Jack Long—come over here and take this barrel.
Titch-pipe wes over long ago, b’y. Cummas-zon!”
He found Dominguez watching him
curiously from a small staircase. He followed the captain up the stairs, and
was confronted by another host of unfamiliars. The mizzenmast rose from a
tangle of cordage, to the sloped yard against the sky. Great cannons were
lashed beneath ports on either side. The great helm, a double wheel, stood,
looking strangely impotent, before the compass binnacle.
Dominguez rested a hand of one of
its spokes, and a smile, almost of tenderness, played beneath his great
moustache. “One day, señor, one day, you too will feel what it is. To stand
here, and hold the wheel, and feel—far beneath you, but somehow all around you—the
ship’s own heartbeat. Ships are not like humans. They each have their own
heartbeat.”
Humans also have their own
heartbeat, Tracy reflected. Maybe not physically, but somehow, it seemed, each
one was completely different. Even beyond the fact that he was completely English, and Dominguez was some sort of Spanish.
Waves
of sand. In every direction. Stretching on for miles. Here and there
something green emerged from the desolation, a lush-looking cactus
determined enough to find water in a place like this. Where water
hadn’t existed above-ground for centuries.
Anmar
collapsed in the scant shade of a taller barrel cactus, pressing her
sister to her chest. A tiny sound escaped little Limri’s lips, and
she refused to open her eyes. Her skin was beet-red, her lips chapped
and peeling, her dark hair bleached to nearly sand-colored.
Anmar
held her in her arms, rocking her. Humming quietly around the sandy
dryness in her throat. If only she had a knife. To cut open this
cactus, harvest its life-giving water for Limri. If only she had the
strength to keep fighting. She was so exhausted, so very exhausted. .
. .
Fantastic setting – and I love the way you showed how the setting affected each character. It made me feel what it would be like to be there on the dry and desolate sand.
I really like the emphasis on the first word especially with “Waves” it made me think of something cool, then flipped it around and left me in a dry, desolate place.
I love the way you craft words together, Sarah, especially in the final paragraph.
The Bus
The heat is unbearable. The rumble of the engine behind me seems to be channelling more heat in than out. The bus stops again and I pray for escape. There are shopping bags strewn in the aisle and a lady is yelling “cauliflower!” as she realises it has rolled away and has to be rescued by a wilted comrade. All the windows are open but nothing is moving. We can see the bus stop ten meters away and in the distance the traffic winding up the hill. Everything is silent for a moment.
“Can you open doors driver?” someone shouts finally.
We do not hear the response and the doors stay closed. The lady next to me begins to mutter to herself. I watch a trickle of sweat drip slowly down a mans neck wondering if he is the cause of the thick smell of sweat, or if somehow we all have created some new form of unified stench that sits solid, waiting to be purged into the outside world.
That is the moment the yelling starts.
“Please, we are all in the same position” before long the shouts are loud, and the words indecipherable. The cauliflower re-emerges this time at a pace. Rebounding of several heads scattering florets that bounce off the windows. I resist the urge to shout “cauliflower!”This scuffle is smothered by a large dark man with a serious face and a skinny white girl. The offending vegetable is returned to its owner who mutters an apology and nestles it in her bag.
There is silence again.
This is good! The detail makes it seem so real.
Emily, I love your description of the stench, and how the cauliflower thread weaves through the story. It’s so funny and so true!
Great mix of drama and humor with the cauliflower references. And oh boy, I’ve been on a hot, crowded bus stuck in traffic… and this practice brought me back to that place!
This is awesome–to read about, not to really be there.
Great description Emily!
So glad that you shared your practice for the first time today! You did a great job relating how the setting was making Tracy feel out of place and contrasting Tracy’s uncertainty with Captain Dominguez’s confidence.
Today it was raining, yesterday it had been raining, it would probably be raining tomorrow. ‘Maybe’ Bridget thought ‘it would never stop raining’.
The bus was full of students with large bags and dripping coats, they clung to the poles. Bridget had been lucky to get a seat. She peered out the window, rubbed away the condensation.
‘Was this her stop? Had she missed it?’ She pushed the button and lurched her way to the back of the bus, “Excuse me”.The doors wheezed open, she stepped down to the footpath. Water from the overflowing gutter seeped over the top of her ankle boot and down to her toes. She tried to open her umbrella but a gust of wind whipped it to one side, the spoke broke and the thin shield collapsed. The bus rumbled away in a cloud of diesel fumes. Bridget pushed the useless umbrella into a nearby rubbish bin to join another casualty of the wind. She pulled up her collar, hitched her bag more securely over her shoulder, and started to walk toward her office. The rain stung her face and seeped under her collar – a trickle was making its way down her back. She fumbled with her access card but at last the door swung open.”You’re late!”
Poor Bridget! What a rough day!
Haven’t we all had days like this? 🙂 Thanks for sharing a realistic look into those days when it feels like nothing is going right.
Closing his eyes
Aden lay back on the bed and shifted over on to his stomach. He gazed across
his arm at the spacious room. Light radiated from a couple of dark recesses in
the ceiling where the glow-worms lived. The glow-worms gave enough to keep the
room partly alight in a greenish way throughout the night.
The simple curving
walls swept away from him. Two rackets and three balls of different sizes lay
on a desk carved from the wall. A waste basket reflected him and his
grandmother. In the shiny surface he saw her smiling face. His grandfather,
Papa Joe, had sculpted the basket out of clay mixed with straw and overlaid it
in a paste he’d made out of pulverized egg shells. He’d polished it well. Now
it shone an opalescent gem in the night lights.
A racing arc of
electricity appeared, sending a flare of light across the room. The interior
walls flashed for a second. A minute later thunder rumbled, Nana Jeen
jumped and clutched the blanket. The wooden shutters burst open, caught by the
sudden gust of wind, and Aden propped himself up to stare out at the night sky.
He trembled. A dark mass of clouds rolled over, obliterating the moon and it
drove before it a wind that howled through the forest. Papers fluttered off the
desk and flapped through the air. Aden pressed himself flat against the bed,
and the chill wind went straight under his blanket. Whoa! Squinting against the cold sting of night air he watched Nana
hurry over and pull the shutters closed.
I love the details in this post, Yvette
wow… i feel as if i’m standing right there and watching this happen… great attention to details !!
I love all the references to light/glowing in the midst of the darkness. Definitely contributes to the mood!
“That one’s going to hit us,” he said pointing to the storm cloud rolling in. We’d been lucky so far and the first storm of the day blew past us. We wouldn’t get so lucky for the second.
Back at the mainstage, the sky to the right was a beautiful bright blue. The sun was shining. It’s the picture-perfect music festival weather event-planners hope for. To the left was a picture-perfect tornado watch.
We prayed it off, wished it off, blew it off. We disregarded the weatherman hoping maybe just maybe it’d go around us and the day’s events could go on as planned.
One ground-rumbling thunder-crack told us we wouldn’t be so lucky. The dusty gravel became a mud pit beneath our feet. Lawn chairs became umbrellas as the entire crowd ran for shelter: the only true building on the fairgrounds.
While my sisters slid behind the table as extra volunteers selling t-shirts to wet patrons, I sat in a displaced lawn chair in the corner of the expo center.
I watched young boys, drenched to their underwear, offering free hugs. I watched families and strays join together in intense games of Uno and competitive Banangrams. I watched the event’s organizers through the glass door.
The rain didn’t seem to phase them. Together with some youth they went puddle-jumping across the parking lot. They hydroplaned into the door. They danced in the storm knowing that even though all events had been postponed until further notice, the party must go on. There was fun to be had.
You did a great job in making the setting speaking for the story itself. I could feel the weather and the threat for rain on my skin. And as an event manager myself this does relate to how one feels on the day of execution of an event.
Thanks, Sophie
I like how you showed the varying reactions of all the people at the fair. I could really picture the whole crowd and the individuals within it – a difficult task to pull off… well done!
Thanks, I don’t know if I could pull it off again but it’s s start 🙂
Welcome, Chiara! I love the colloquialisms in this practice. I hope you’ll keep posting. 🙂
Susan sat alone on her brown, faux-leather couch staring at
her computer monitor. No one else was
talking. No one was even there. Her television was uncharacteristically black
and silent, failing to create the ever-present white noise Susan had come to
rely upon. Her wine glass stood empty on
the angular, ultra-modern coffee table in front of her.
As she sat in silence, a low thud began to penetrate her
consciousness. At first, she assumed the
wine was giving her a headache, but as she tried to clear her head, she
realized it was the low, rhythmic thump of a neighbor’s subwoofer. “Seriously?
It’s 10:00 pm in the middle of the week.
Do they have to do that now?”
Irritated, Susan turned her focus back to a screen filled
with a virtual sheet of paper containing all but two lines. Lines that meant nothing. Lines that felt cheap. Susan mechanically lifted the wine glass to
her mouth, only to furrow her brow in disappointment when she realized, for the
third time in that hour, that the wine glass still remained empty.
She sighed, set the laptop beside the empty wine glass and
turned off the lamp. She would need more
wine for tomorrow.
Great job creating the feeling of “emptiness” through setting – empty place, silent TV, empty glass.
A slight whiff of cool air flows, carrying the laughter of ebullient children with it. The coffee in a ceramic cup cools off at an alarming rate. My tongue gets scalded as the frequency of my sips increases two-fold. I hate having to finish such a brilliantly made coffee in such a hurry, so I order another. While I wait looking at the towering hill a bird chirps melodiously. My eyes refocus on the tree right in front of me where, atop a bough, sits a bird (I know not which) and sings happily in her angelic voice. My coffee arrives; this time I waste no time gazing at the surroundings and grab it, gently placing the cup near my mouth, absorbing its warmth, and enjoying its smell. The woman who serves the coffee smiles looking at me, flattered to see her work appreciated. Suddenly someone behind me shouts in alarm – “What?!”
I don’t turn but prick my ears up to catch whatever dollops of conversation I can.
“He’s lost in the hill?” says the same voice.
“Yeah. Five days since he went in. No way he survived. That’s just how it is, you know. It provides us with a livelihood but in return, it takes something away sometimes.” replies a second voice, immediately followed by a heavy sigh.
I look again at the hill. It’s might baffles me.
This small settlement right at its foot may have to suffer a lot during bad times. I wonder what makes them stay!
I put my cup down, make my way to pay the congenial looking old woman behind the counter and voice my thought.
“Well, our ancestors have been living here since time unknown”. she says “Sure, it’s dangerous and many a times we pay a heavy price for living here but at the end of the day it is home, you know.”
I nod. I, of all people, should understand that.
Walking out, I saunter along the path that leads to the hill and on a whim I turn to look back at the settlement. Just over two dozen houses stare up at me, smoke oozing out of some chimneys, all painted in the same yellowish color.
“There is something here. I can feel it in my gut.”
I feel a searing pain in the back of my head and everything goes dark.
I want to know what happened next! There is a lot going on here and for me there is a bit too much detail – it sort of got in the way of the story-line.
even I don’t know what happens next…
I’ll keep it mind (to concentrate on the story line) the next time I write something…
thanks!
:->
This setting and the other characters within the story give a dark sense of foreboding… and the line “someone behind me shouts in alarm, ‘What?'” does a good job of interrupting the calm and quiet of the beginning of the story.
thanks !!
I’ve recently started writing diligently so i know that its going to take some time before I start writing some good and proper stories… but in the meantime this blog gives great practice because everyone else can read it and you get good inputs from very helpful people!!!
This is fiction, and yet over my years in Jerusalem, I did hear “snow stories” on the news where the various bits and pieces mentioned here actually happened (brides arriving in ambulances, soldiers and passers by invited to fill the place of missing guests, etc. Many years ago, my son’s Bar Mitzvah was held enough after a major snow storm for the roads to be cleared but with plenty of snow still left on the sides. We had several extra children whose parents brought them along to Jerusalem to see the snow, and then they stayed on for our event…)
Shira glanced out the window and burst into tears.
“Shira, don’t cry!
You’ll ruin your makeup!”
“What difference does it make! Did you see the snow? It’s sticking!”
“Don’t worry, it’s just God decorating the city in
white in honor of your wedding.”
“My wedding?
What wedding? If it’s already
sticking now, early afternoon, what will it be like by evening? How will we get to the hall? How will our guests make it into
Jerusalem?”
“Have a little faith, little one, have faith. God is
sending you a wedding to remember. Just
look—is there anything more beautiful than Jerusalem in white? A bridal Jerusalem for a princess of a
bride.”
Shira sniffed and dried her eyes. “You think?”
Her mother walked over and hugged her. “I think. Now sit down and relax, it’s your wedding
day. Read some Psalms. Don’t forget your wedding day is a day of
repentance, a time of purity, a chance to wash away your past and start
anew. How fitting that it’s
snowing.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“Of course I’m right!
Aren’t mothers always right? It
comes with the turf.” She smiled at her daughter. “Besides, as a soon to be married woman, it’s
time to learn to accept set-backs with grace.”
Her mother’s words calmed her. Shira retouched her makeup and sat down to
dream of Yair and to read through her favorite Psalms.
Now that her daughter was calmed down, Devora left the room
and paced the narrow hallway. Everything
Shira had said was true. Situated on a
mountaintop, Jerusalem did get the occasional snow, but it was rare for it to
pile up. A half-inch of snow was enough to
close down the city, shutting down roads, businesses and schools, getting children out on the streets
building snowmen. Now there was already
an inch, and as Shira had pointed out, it was still only early afternoon.
Enough! Time for
action. She walked into the living room
where the rest of the family was gathered watching the mounting snow.
“Okay boys, we have work to do. We have to find a way to get to the hall this
evening. We have to do whatever we can
to make this a wonderful wedding for Shira and Yair.”
Then the phone began ringing. Aunt Esther called from Tel
Aviv, her friend Edith from the Gush, all calling to cancel because of the
snow. Then another call came, this time
from Yair’s parents.
“Devorah, how’s it going? Everything okay on your end?”
“We’re getting a lot of cancellations, but we’re
ok.”
“Same story here.
Can you believe it—the rabbi cancelled!
He won’t be able to drive in.
Yair was all upset, but we found someone else, thank God.”
“What a start to their life together!”
“Don’t worry, Devorah, it will be fine.
Would you believe it, we got a call from two friends who weren’t going
to be able to make the wedding. Now those
plans were cancelled because of the snow; they said they were coming to the
wedding.”
“That’s so nice!”
“Well, it’s a big mitzvah* to bring joy to the
bride and groom at their wedding. You
know, I’m getting a good feeling about this.
It’s going to be amazing!”
*****
At 5 o’clock sharp there was a knock at the door. A young ambulance driver stood outside. “Have I reached the right
apartment? Shlomo sent me. He told me that his friend David told him
there was a bride here that needed a ride to her wedding. Is she ready?”
At 6 o’clock, the band arrived, stamping the snow off their
boots as they brought their instruments from the truck they’d borrowed to get
there.
At six thirty, the first guests wandered in, all rosy
cheeked and glowing. “We made
it! Snow and all!”
At 7 o’clock more guests arrived, some with unexpected
children along. “We loaded up the
jeep and brought the kids to play in the snow.
We told them they’d have to come dance at your wedding afterwards to
thank you for the treat.”
By 8 o’clock the hall was full, filled with friends, family
and strangers pulled off the street by friends of Shira and Yair. Young soldiers stranded in the city by the
snow, passersby pulled in off the street, all promised food and dancing in return
for performing the good deed of bringing joy to a bride and groom, Shira and
Yair.
As soldiers in uniform, people in street clothes and guests
dressed in their wedding finery joined hands to dance a never-ending Hora
around the joy-filled Shira and Yair, it was indeed a wedding to remember.
*(positive commandment, good deed)
My goodness I never knew it snowed in Jerusalem! I enjoyed the stories and loved the ending – joy-filled never-ending dance.
In Jerusalem, a light dusting of snow that melts as it lands or soon after is not uncommon (well, maybe once or twice a year). A real snowstorm where the snow piles up and lasts hits us every few years. Google Jerusalem snow pictures and you can see it. The beginning of 1992 was memorable because that year we had *several* serious snowstorms which totally shut down the city. After I posted this, I remembered my trip to the airport to catch a plane, when we got stuck in the snow. The 40 minute trip took us several hours, as the road got closed and we had to wait for snow plows to reopen the road. That was quite some story, which I guess I should write up another time. We were with loads of cars and buses stranded on the road. It was freezing and wet. People from a nearby town came with thermoses and went car to car to bring us something hot to drink so that we could warm ourselves up. I missed my plane, of course.
So cool! I love the connection between white snow and bridal white… and that you based this practice on true happenings.
Well, Jerusalem is usually a pretty cool place to live, in many ways (I did mention that it’s on a mountaintop 😉 )