Chapter 6: Setting and Timeline

Everybody, every story, belongs somewhere. Even if setting doesn’t play a main role in the story, it’s a good idea to have details set in one’s own mind. The setting is the stage that your characters work from. So it’s important to have a clear vision, whether the place is real or fictitious, because the setting can dictate how the plot develops. The setting can also help set the stage for the conflict in your story. Once you’ve identified in your mind where to place your characters, you have to make that place known to the reader. Readers don’t have access to the characters’ environment until you give it to them. Writers can help this process along by asking questions such as, What does my main character’s room look like? How big a house does she live in? Does she walk to school or ride the bus? Does she live in the Midwest? On a farm? In the city? These details will find their way into your story and add life to the book. To help you develop the setting for your novel, let’s take a look at a few of the essential elements that will help you create it.

Setting is the essential foundation of storytelling. Imagine Harry Potter without Hogwarts Castle; Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn without the Mississippi River; or Poe’s Fall of the House of Usher without its setting.

During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.

Setting is the time and location of a story—the main backdrop for the action. Some writers use the analogy of a theater stage to define setting, suggesting that characters appear and interact in front of mostly static scenery as the story is told. Unfortunately, these definitions are simplistic and may limit the story.

As in the Poe quotation above, an author must give the reader a sense of the “place” where characters live as early as possible in the narrative. This is sometimes called milieu. Place can be defined in three broad aspects:

• Emotional: Characters exhibit emotions throughout the story, but the setting can show emotions as well, which is generally referred to as the mood or tone. The mood of the setting tends to operate independent of and without regard to the characters. The calm ocean can become threatening, the clouds can break and a gloomy day can become sunny, and many other changes in physical environment can occur. As a result, they can directly affect or change the emotional state of the characters.

• Physical, which can be subdivided into man-made and natural environments: The human-created physical environment includes locations such as rural, urban, a luxurious hotel room, or a Gothic mansion, as well as clothing, vehicles, the character’s glasses, type of food he eats, and any other man-made item the character can interact with. Aspects of the natural world are the second subdivision. These tend to be of larger scale and include climate, weather, deserts, mountains, plains, and other types of natural phenomena.

• Cultural/social: This aspect is complex and can have enormous impact on the characters’ behaviors, which will direct the story. The texture of a story will vary dramatically between characters who are different racially, politically, or ethnically, or who have different levels of education, affluence, and many more traits.

Taken together, these three aspects define a character’s place in the story. An author may create a global place that is applied to the entire story, or place might be defined for each single scene.

Place is almost always dynamic. Physical environment in particular can change rapidly and affect the action significantly. Cultural settings can change as well simply by moving the character from one geographic location to another. Place can remain static only for a short period of time, even in small settings. For example, a simple setting such as a closed room will change as the result of passing time, which may cause an important change in the action.

The purpose of a setting is to create an environment so that readers can clearly visualize where and when the story takes place. This will anchor the characters in the reader’s mind so that the story cannot happen anywhere else at any other time. When a reader recalls the story, he should be able to see the action occurring within the frame of the setting.

In young adult fiction setting can easily be overdone. Many authors delight in writing lengthy phrases and paragraphs of lush, incredibly detailed descriptions of settings. Today’s young adult readers, having grown up using the Internet and playing high-speed computer games, will skip those paragraphs and pages of dense prose, flipping ahead to find where the story action starts again—or skip the whole novel. It’s best to use only a description of a setting as required at a particular point in the story.

The three types of settings seem obvious, but many beginning writers have difficulty with them. At all times an author must keep in mind that readers of fiction know that the story is imaginary but still want to experience it as if it were real. Setting is the tool that brings a story to life in the reader’s mind. How many millions of young adult readers would like nothing better than to climb onto a broomstick and actually play a game of Quidditch? It’s up to the author to create a setting that allows the reader to imagine himself as part of the story.

• Realistic: Realistic settings are those entirely based in the real world. All of the physical characteristics of the universe are in place, and characters interact with their environment in totally expected ways. The author cannot take any liberties with the world for any purpose. This not as restrictive as it sounds, however. Among the millions of known places on the earth, under the sea, or in space, there are many interesting places a writer can use that are suitable settings for a story.

• Fantasy: Fantasy settings are more or less entirely the creation of the author. These settings range from an entirely imaginary world with its own laws and characteristics such as magic, ESP, and supernatural creatures, and move toward a more realistic setting with some fantastic twists. The most important aspect of a fantasy setting is that it be consistent. All of those points where the characters and the setting interface must be planned in advance. Nothing destroys the magic of a fantasy faster than an arbitrary change in the laws of the world as a plot device.

• Blended: A blended setting is a combination of the real world and the author’s imagination. There are gradual shadings from a free-form fantasy world and a blended setting. In a blended setting the author uses the real world for most of his settings with some specific, well-defined changes for the story. Most of the time, the reader will see a world that he recognizes and lives in every day. The deviation from the expected norm enhances and emphasizes the magical effects of the story by providing a realistic backdrop for the fantasy.

For many authors, the setting of a story is a matter of convenience. A story will be set in a location that the author knows well or that meshes with the theme of the story. To decide where the story should take place, an author should keep in mind that the setting will shape the characters’ behaviors because it is always exclusionary. A particular setting will make some actions of the characters possible—and at times inevitable—but at the same time make other actions impossible. A few examples include settings for science fiction, westerns, fantasy, historical fiction, or specific places like rural and urban environments, the oceans, or a tropical jungle.

Because of the inherent limiting factors of any setting, the author should carefully choose his setting before writing the story. Making abrupt changes with a clumsy plot device simply to move characters from one setting to another only to enable the story to continue interrupts the flow and forces the reader out of the story to reassess what is happening. The following are some pointers to use while planning a setting.

Does the setting allow the characters sufficient freedom to interact with one another and their environments to tell the story as effectively as you wish? All settings have restrictions. Will the restrictions of this setting impede or enhance the story by increasing the conflict?

What is happening at that particular time and place? People almost always do more than one thing at a time and interact on many levels. How they do these things will tell the reader a great deal about the personality, occupation, and social status of a character without using exposition.

No two places in the world are identical. They may have similar characteristics, but the author must look at those things that make a particular setting most useful to his story. How is the difference between Deadwood and Cheyenne or Mars and the moon going to shape the behavior of the characters?

Even a real setting does not have to be an exact copy. Small changes in details can create a completely different tone or feel of a location and add depth to the reader’s image of the place of the story. Modifications of a real setting will provide more flexibility for action in the story.

Limit the use of exposition as much as possible. Lengthy blocks of text with long, adjective-larded sentences present formidable barriers to the abilities and interests of young adult readers, especially at the younger end of the age spectrum. Sketches of a setting where each word has been weighed and tested for its value in describing the scene are much better than exposition. Use the minimum number of words to fire up the young reader’s imagination and let him create the image of the setting in his mind. One of the great strengths of fiction is that each reader will see the story his own way. Only the most egotistical writer would demand that his readers see the image as he sees it by writing lengthy setting descriptions.

The vast majority of sensory information we receive is visual. Physiologically, that’s simply how human perception works, and we can’t help it. As a result, settings are frequently created that use only sight and neglect the other four senses. Keep in mind that on the written page all five senses are on equal footings. In planning a setting include the touch of a rough-haired animal, the smell of the pine-covered mountain, the sound of a nearby interstate highway, and the taste of a flat can of root beer. All will contribute to the overall perception of the setting and fix the image in the reader’s mind.

The setting is not the story. The shorter the length of the story, the fewer words should be devoted to the description of the setting. But because the story is shorter, each word becomes proportionally more important. Each word of the setting must be chosen to provide the best description of the setting as possible.

Setting can define the interaction between characters by limiting or enabling the action. In certain situations the setting can become a character with independent action, forcing other characters to behave in ways that will advance the plot. An unexpected change in weather, avalanches, fire, and drought are typical examples of a setting taking on the role of a character. In some cases the setting can be anthropomorphized into an almost-human character. In the last book of the Harry Potter series, for example, Hogwarts Castle actively joins the final battle against Lord Voldemort.

Okay, so now you have your setting in mind. What things should you include? What things should you not include? What impression do you want to create in the reader’s mind? What details will make your setting linger long after the reader has closed your book? What would be the best way to describe this setting? While you’re thinking about the answers to these questions, here are some important concepts to keep in mind.

A setting written on a page is not the same as a setting created for a visual medium such as television or film. Visual mediums show every detail, whether they are important to the story or not. Listing details in a room or in a landscape or other setting only because they are there slows the story to a crawl by unnecessarily drawing out a scene. Only those elements of a setting that are essential to that moment in the story should be included. Young adult readers want to slash through the excess verbiage and get to the story. An author must decide which details are essential for the reader to understand the scene and are needed to set up later scenes, and cut everything else.

Long strings of adjectives, similes, metaphors, and dependent phrases are no substitute for short declarative sentences that describe the setting. The author’s objective is to link the readers’ imagination to his by creating a mutually understood environment. Young adult readers will not connect to the author’s imaginary world unless the descriptions are easily accessible to them.

Many novels are lost in the first few pages when an author tries to list all the characters, their relationships, locations, and interactions in one large data dump. The novel should open with action as soon as possible, but the description of setting and characters should be limited to only what is needed. A university study of the first few pages of a large number of bestselling novels shows that 37 percent began with a detailed setting while 45 percent limited the setting or integrated it into the character’s dialogue or narrative. The other 18 percent were a mixture that couldn’t be clearly defined. The author of the study concluded that when the setting is based on a shared frame of reference, less text is needed and the reader can focus on the characters and action. Young adult readers want the story to begin immediately with a limited, bare-minimum amount of setting. As the story progresses, more details and characters can be introduced and interwoven into the narrative as needed.

In many cases the author uses a setting he knows well. Some authors set their stories in less familiar locations but learn of the setting through doing research, visiting the site, and discussing the location with others who are knowledgeable. Many fantasy and science fiction novels have a setting that is entirely the creation of the author. There are generally three methods of construction.

In this approach the author begins with a broad overview of what the setting for the entire story will be. From there the setting is broken down as many times as necessary into individual components for specific scenes. The top-down approach is useful because all settings are integrated and tightly bound to one another. The advantage of this method is that the writer can easily see the limitations of the settings of all the scenes, promoting consistency and preventing conflicts later. However, one disadvantage to this approach is that it might be a bit time-consuming.

In this approach the author begins by focusing on a small aspect of the setting of an essential scene. This setting is given considerable detail and serves as an anchor for the other settings of the story. As the story progresses, additional settings can be created with less and less detail. The advantage is that the setting can be used immediately without waiting for the rest of the world to be designed. The disadvantage is that huge inconsistencies can appear near the end or climax of the story.

In this approach the author begins with a loose overview of the story’s setting and at the same time selects essential scenes where he describes the setting in great detail. The advantage of this method is that as the author expands the story, he is filling in the details between the beginning scenes and the end using the overview as a guide. One potential disadvantage to this approach is that inconsistencies can often be introduced.

Many fantasy novels include a map indicating the geography and locations of where action takes place. There is some debate about the use of maps as a device to clarify the setting. Is the map being used as a substitute for sharp descriptions of the setting, or is it actually contributing to the reader’s understanding of where the story takes place? In Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern novels, where the setting is a fantasy world and the action takes place anywhere on that planet, maps are useful to understand distances and the scope of the story. On the other hand, maps that add nothing to advance the plot can be a barrier to the reader, because the map will act as a fence confining the reader’s imagination.

Also, if an author does not understand the geologic and climatic conditions that create features such as mountains, deserts, plains, and arctic and temperate areas, he would be wise not to attempt a map. Land features are not arbitrary, and creating a mixture solely on the basis of plot requirements will produce a chaotic jumble of unrelated geographic features.

An intrinsic part of a setting is time. Unlike the real world, where time runs in only one direction, past to future, an author is in complete control of time in his story. He can speed it up, slow it down, jump forward or backward, or leapfrog over stretches of time to tell the story. Time plus place equals a slice of life where a scene or story occurs.

Ursula K. Le Guin, author of the Earthsea novels and many other award-winning young adult novels, describes her concept of crowding and leaping as follows.

[Crowding is]…keeping the story full, always full of what’s happening in it; keeping it moving, not slacking and wandering into irrelevancies; keeping it interconnected with itself, rich with echoes forward and backward. Vivid, exact, concrete, accurate, dense, rich: these adjectives describe a prose that is crowded with sensations, meanings, and implications.

But leaping is just as important. What you leap over is what you leave out. And what you leave out is infinitely more than what you leave in. There’s got to be white space around the word, silences around the voice. Listing is not describing. Only the relevant belongs.

Crowding a story is essential in young adult novels. For this age group, the story has to move. The young adult reader has an extremely low tolerance for lengthy descriptions of setting, long dialogue, the meditative muse, or philosophical discourse. Absolutely everything that does not move the story forward has to be eliminated. The story doesn’t have to have action on every page, but every page must be sharply relevant to the story, interesting, and meaningful to the theme of the novel.

Leaping is skipping from scene to scene over periods of time, leaving out parts that are dull, irrelevant, or unneeded. Alfred Hitchcock once irreverently quipped that his films were just like life with the dull bits edited out. This is leaping, and its function in writing a young adult novel is to keep the story full and alive while moving it toward the climax.

The fact that an author controls the lives of his characters through the use of time does not give him license to overuse it. Flashbacks, flash-forwards, and foreshadowing are all methods of controlling time and are important tools in telling a story. For the young adult reader, use of these techniques should be limited and inserted in a story when there are no other alternatives. When they are used, great care must be taken to ensure continuity, consistency of characters, and well-defined settings. Readers at the lower end of the young adult age group find multiple flashbacks and other time manipulations difficult to follow. A story that follows a straight timeline from introduction to climax is much preferred over a convoluted, hard-to-follow route.

If a story takes place over a significant amount of time, laying out the timeline on paper is a useful tool that will allow the author to place the characters in the correct setting, pace the story, and identify the essential parts that must be told. The timeline also allows the author to place and rearrange the scenes of the story, much like playing a game of solitaire, to achieve the most impact. It’s also a way of identifying those scenes that are weak or not needed in the story.

After you’ve got your cards laid out on the table, look at the sequence of events you’ve created. Does it make sense? Do the characters age and reach milestones in a realistic fashion? Consider how your timeline relates to your plot. Does it include all the main climaxes of your plot? Are there any events in the timeline that don’t occur in the plot? If so, you might want to consider leaving those out, as they’re probably not necessary to your manuscript.

Some authors, especially those who write science fiction, may create stories that span long periods of times, sometimes hundreds or thousands of years. Building a timeline with the settings required for the story will create a believable history and foundation for the story. Over hundreds of years much of the setting will change, but much will remain the same. These similar threads running through time tend to be those aspects of the human condition that bind all fiction together. Many of the conflicts that society had to deal with when men sailed on wooden ships are the same conflicts of the men who sail spaceships between the stars. The setting and timeline provide readers with an anchor in reality that will make a story come alive.

The setting of your novel can be instrumental in shaping your manuscript’s tone if you handle it well. Remember the atmosphere you want to create, decide on what details will add the most to the feel you want to convey, and pick your approach. If you keep to those general precepts, your setting will resonate in the readers’ memory long after they’ve finished your book.