DAVID FULMER

The Reality Show Called Settings

As the author of seven critically acclaimed mysteries, DAVID FULMER has been nominated for a Falcon Award, a Barry Award, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the Shamus Award for Best Novel, and he has won a Benjamin Franklin Award and the Shamus Award for Best First Novel. A native of central Pennsylvania, he lives in Atlanta with his daughter, Italia.

 

 

Like every other lesson that I’ve learned on my path to creating fiction, the importance of setting came the hard way. For years, I regarded setting as a bit of a bore, just a static backdrop or window dressing for the fun stuff like action and dialogue. I’ve found that more fledgling authors than I can count suffer under this curse.

It happened early on, during my prepublished career. As I worked through my stories and novels, I sensed something missing but couldn’t put my finger on it. Then I began deconstructing the work of authors I admired and found that they all gave setting its due.

I had not been paying enough attention to the settings of my narratives and it was costing me.

Once I began working hard on creating strong settings, I discovered that it paid off in ways I hadn’t considered—mostly deeper in the book, where so many authors get hung up and sometimes stuck for good. It’s a desert out there where the bones of once-promising writing careers lay bleaching in the sun. Speaking of settings.

It’s not that settings aren’t considered as part of the original idea for a book or story. It’s no accident that when the curtain goes up on a play, or a movie begins, we’re either immediately or very directly fixed in time and space. It’s the frame of reference and viewers—and readers—need to enjoy what comes next. So the problem is not that we don’t recognize setting as an essential element. The issue is that we tend not to give it enough importance in our narratives. How I wish I had figured this out sooner.

I can condense what I learned and now apply it to two basic principles. One is my belief that setting and character are the two essential foundations of great stories. The second is that a great setting functions as a character in a great story.

As to the first principle, I know that an evocative, vibrant setting is necessary if I want to draw my readers into the world I’m creating or conjuring. Those readers will be there, with all the sights and sounds and smells, immersed in a total sensory experience that comes from the page and takes hold in their minds. And since this is all about evoking, if there was ever a time to employ “Show, don’t tell,” this is it.

So I’ve got my setting. Now, when I introduce characters whom I’ve worked to develop into interesting, dimensional, and nuanced creatures, the amount of heavy lifting they’ll do is remarkable. Think of it as great actors being placed on a fabulous set and told to improvise. They’ll nail it every time.

The second principle—that a setting functions as a character—is a bit harder for some writers to grasp. Put most simply, settings that are treated as static backdrops lie there, without providing support to drive the story. Think of your day and you’ll realize that you’ve been reacting to your environment throughout. We all interact with our surroundings as we walk through history. So should our fictional characters. The goal with settings is to evoke surroundings that are in flux and so are all the more interesting. In short, powerful settings are essential to sustaining the grand illusion of a fictional narrative.

Doing that is a process of immersion, of becoming so familiar with your fictional setting that you can close your eyes and be there in the midst of it all and know what’s around every corner. The way to gain this immersion is research—backstory, if you will—which means first of all absorbing everything written or broadcast about the place. For historical media, this means not just the book learning, but perusing the newspapers of the day. It’s the only way to get down in the muck and noise of daily life in that time and place.

Once the writer has it, the next step is to get it on the page, and to do that we work the craft and study the masters. There are too many authors to mention who flat-out nail settings. A few that have caught my fancy are Joyce; O’Connor; Steinbeck; and more currently, E. L. Doctorow; James Lee Burke; Tony Hillerman; Martin Cruz Smith; and most of the fine Latin American authors. The way to find authors who excel is to read the very first description of setting in one of their books. If time stops and space disappears and you find yourself there, that’s mastery of this component of the craft.

Notice that these authors don’t belabor the point or try to overwhelm you with details and verbiage. They give just enough to make the sale and then they’re out of there. That said, you know these authors understand their settings in their bones.

They understand that they need to provide just enough to get the reader oriented and involved and then get on with the narrative. And that’s all. Novels don’t work as travelogues. Like every other component of fiction writing, the setting serves to drive the story, and not the other way around.

Just as dialogue is a skill that’s based on having a good ear, setting involves concentration of the senses; seeing rather than just looking, in other words. Since we’re a very sight-oriented culture, the visual aspects are foremost in our descriptions. Next come the aural cues like traffic, nature sounds, music, and the like. Followed by smells, which are a tough sell but have incredible power of memory. Then possibly touch and taste, which won’t get a lot of practice in mystery writing. But all five senses are in the author’s tool belt and available to use in creating settings that evoke.

By the way, those who write about their hometowns don’t get a pass. Remember that ninety-nine-plus percent of your readers don’t live there and will need to be introduced and seduced into your setting, with the understanding that they’re strangers. This requires the same editorial discipline that you would bring to writing a story in first person. It’s not a place to indulge yourself. Read it—no, see it—through your readers’ eyes.

Just a few more points. Writers of speculative fiction need to heed these same lessons as they create, rather than re-create, the worlds where their stories take place. I make a habit of finding a good street map of the setting at the time the tale takes place. Then I get it blown up to perhaps three feet by four feet and tack it to a wall. That way I can move through the world the way my characters do. I’ll also dredge up whatever evocative photographs I can find, print copies, and tape them on the walls of my office.

I’m always looking for other little tricks; anything to help me better create the scene. That’s the importance I give to settings in my fiction.

EXERCISE

1. Write a location, such as a park, a store, a house, or some other setting, on each of five index cards.

Then write one sound on each of five cards.

Do the same for one smell and one touch.

Taste is tough, so you can let that pass.

Then pick one from each pile and write a paragraph or two describing the place, remembering always to show and not tell.

2. Select a local news story from the newspaper or radio. Write out a description of the scene where it takes place, concentrating on the sights, sounds, and smells. Share it—and see if your reader gets it.