The Weather in New Orleans has been horrible today and is
forecasted to be the same through the weekend. It's days like this that I get
so much reading and writing done and honestly not much else! Thanks to all the
rain, it's perfect timing for our next blog post which is about the importance
of setting in your story/writing. Our guest blogger has done a thorough job
(including helpful links) in teaching us more about this subject and I know you
are going to LOVE it! So let me introduce you to our guest blogger this week ,
Erica Merchant.
Erica Merchant was born in New
Orleans into a family of readers. Her first memories all involve books and she
began writing at age seven. After graduating from LSU with a double major in
Creative Writing and Philosophy, minoring in French and Painting and Drawing,
Erica moved to central China where she intended to spend a year teaching
English and deciding what sort of graduate studies to pursue. Instead she
spent twelve years developing her career, working a variety of jobs from ESL
teacher to executive coach to soft-skills trainer. Erica successfully
completed NaNoWriMo in 2013 and Camp Nano in both July 2016 and April
2017, writing a draft of a novel about expat life in Beijing and Shanghai and a
non-fiction book about the changes in mainland China from 2003, when they won
the bid for the ’08 Olympics, till 2010 when they hosted the World Expo. Erica
is currently writing a fantasy novel inspired by Asian history which explores
the intersection of science and spirituality. In her free time, she enjoys
hip-hop, practicing yoga, making art with her children, and reading about her
many interests including mysticism, transpersonal psychology, and non-dualistic
philosophy.
Happy Reading!
-L
Setting-Setting-Setting
Last November, I started writing a scientific
fantasy novel that’s been kicking around in my brain since 2015. My draft so
far has a lot of nuanced characters and rollicking action but is incredibly
light on setting details to ground the story. Many fantasy authors can happily
world build for hundreds of pages but I am so caught up in the drama I forget
not everyone can see the vivid and complex world so well developed in my head.
Writer Elizabeth Bowen said, “Nothing can
happen nowhere. The locale of
the happening always colors the happening, and often, to a degree, shapes it.” Location is
an intrinsic part of a story; even if it hasn’t seemed important in your draft
so far, having a convincing setting makes your work more persuasive. It is easy to write about primal landscapes –
the place you grew up or one where you spent a lot of time. But what about
foreign lands, places to which you haven’t travelled? Further out still - what
about imaginary worlds, alternative histories and realities? How do you know
which setting details are important? This is where point of view plays a
crucial role, as the significance is determined by the observer. A person who has never seen the ocean before
will respond very differently to crashing waves on the shore than an
experienced sailor, who may not even notice them.
When you begin your project, it’s helpful to
decide how big of a role the setting is going to play in your work. Is the
setting integral to your plot as with historical/geographical fiction or is the
story more archetypal?
We can find compelling examples of both types.
Take Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire. New Orleans is a central component
of the story. Now imagine it set in small town northern Louisiana like Charlaine
Harris’ Southern Vampire Mysteries (which inspired the HBO series True Blood)
and you have an entirely different story. Salvatore Scibona’s stylish 2009
novel The End is set in an Italian immigrant neighborhood in 1953 Ohio. The
story takes place over the course of one day and would fall apart without the
specific time, place, and location.
On the other hand, many of Shakespeare’s plays
are more humanistic and can be transplanted to a new setting without losing the
essence of the story. Ralph Fiennes set Coriolanus in modern times (while keeping
the original dialogue). Baz Luhrmann remade Romeo and Juliet into a romantic
crime drama. There’s also a film called A Midsummer’s Night Rave, which is exactly
what it sounds like. Wikipedia has a
list of modernized adaptations of old works (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_modernized_adaptations_of_old_works where you’ll
find films like Apocalypse Now and Clueless, the successful film adaptations of
19th century novels.
My
work falls into the first category. I’ve meshed the sweeping deserts,
formidable mountains, and verdant oasis of Central Asia with the towering
skyscrapers of Tokyo or Hong Kong to create an entirely new world inexorably
linked to the story I’m telling. Consider your own short story or novel – how
would a change in setting affect the style, characterization and plot? Which
setting details are significant and which are extraneous?
The answers to these questions can be applied
to world building in our own writing - all fiction, even the most realistic, demands
creative use of ‘reality’ and requires a suspension of
disbelief.
Judicious research will help you choose sensuous details that captivate your
reader. The question then becomes how much research do you really need to do?
The answer will differ drastically depending
on whether you are writing a modern novel set in your hometown or a historical novel
set in 270 C.E. about the intervention of the
central Mexican city of Teotihuacan in Mayan dynastic politics. You also have to consider your audience –
novice, expert, or somewhere in the middle? A glaringly wrong detail takes the
reader out of the story and can put them in a foul enough mood that they may
decide to stop reading. It helps to know your audience. Do some market research and find out who is
reading the kind of stories you are writing to get an idea of how much research
is enough.
Imaginary worlds are often based on real places, and I find
the level of research needed to create a fantasy world matches or exceeds that
of historical fiction. Created worlds are usually inspired by the world we know,
so finding a place to draw from can be extremely helpful. When writing about a
world that has rules different from our own, the
author must be mindful of the internal logic of the story. The rules may be
different, but they must be consistent and non-contradictory, or risk deus ex machina. There should be enough
truth for the reader to relax in the story world without constantly thinking,
‘That’s impossible!’ Rules are particularly important if you are writing about
magic, a subject which already requires appreciable suspension of disbelief for
the average reader. If you are interested in this subject, I would refer you
all to Sanderson’s laws of Magic. The First law can be found at [ https://brandonsanderson.com/sandersons-first-law/ ] and is aimed at fantasy authors, however the second and
third laws have some generally great writing advice using fantasy settings as
the context.
When I
think of research, the first image that comes to mind is a table next to a
window in a quiet room, filled with stacks of books and dust motes dancing in
the light. Research is actually much more varied and sometimes can be done from
your chair with your eyes closed. Writer Amity Gage, who teaches the setting
module in the Coursera creative writing course offered by Wesleyan University breaks
research down into three types: functional, inspirational, and imaginative.
Functional research is discovering facts by visiting
places and interviewing people firsthand, or using libraries, databases, and
websites. It’s ideal to travel to your chosen location and spend
some time walking, observing, and taking pictures. It doesn’t have to be a long
trip, just enough for you to get a feel for the rhythm of the city or
landscape. If you are unable to travel, all is not lost - you just have to get
creative. I use Google Image to help me with visual descriptions. The great
thing about the Scrivener software is that you can split the view finder so your
chosen image takes up one half of the screen allowing you to write in the other.
This helps me with landscape details immensely. I also read about the GDP of
countries, locations of natural resources, food blogs, textiles and other
particulars necessary when creating entirely new nations.
Check in the children’s section of the
Library (900’s non-fiction) for excellent photo books on history, religion, geography,
or anthropology. You may also need to read longer primary and secondary sources,
but for writing inspiration, particularly when it comes to visualizing setting,
picture books with captions and chunks of information can be just what you need
to stimulate your muse.
Inspirational
research involves listening to music that puts you in a certain mood, searching
through junk shops or family photographs, and reading short stories,
poetry, or novels that open your heart and mind. Writing about an ancient land far in the
future led me to discover the oldest known melody, discovered in Ugarit, Syria
dating to 1400 B.C.E. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBhB9gRnIHE ). I’m fond
of listening to regional music while I write and highly recommend the
Traditional Music Channel on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4gNHCugaKSSCpaI2hL2Jmg) though I
would advise against listening to sacred music casually. Sometimes when I am
feeling stuck, I choose a song (instrumental or in another language), close my
eyes, and start typing along to the music. This is a variation on automatic
writing, the Surrealist technique used to transcend the conscious mind and
tapping into the sub- or superconscious mind.
Once we have gathered our facts and found our
inspiration, it is imaginative research that directs the deployment of those
details. You
must walk through your own setting and know it with your skin getting truly
immersed in your world. Use your senses to describe not only the sight and sound,
but also the taste, feel, and smell of a place. These details, even if
fantastical or unfamiliar to the reader, can help to ground your story in a
place.
An excellent way to do this besides
staring out the window (seriously) is to try visualization and meditation
exercises. I’d like to invite you to try a short three-minute meditation. Set
your clock for three minutes and prepare to sit in silence. Think of a setting
you are using or want to use in your story or novel. Close your eyes. Place
your point of view somewhere within that time, place, and situation. Begin
to walk around. Engage your senses. You can remain on the ground or fly into
the air for a hawk’s perspective. Walk in a building. Do you see any
characters? What are they doing, seeing, smelling, tasting, feeling? If your
mind wanders, which it certainly will, simply bring yourself back to the
setting. Focus on sensory input. Do not give up – this exercise is designed to
improve your concentration, a necessary quality for completing a project.
After you have
finished, spend a few minutes writing out a debrief. Was that the longest three
minutes of your life or was it peaceful like a budget mini-vacation?
This is a helpful
exercise when you are feeling stuck. Our imagination is infinite yet the
distractions of modern life make it more challenging to tap into this precious
resource. The more you practice sitting in silence training your mind’s eye,
the more powerful it will be. Think of your imagination as a small puppy. If
you are inconsistent with training, you will have sporadic obedience. With
consistent practice and discipline, the mammal can be brought to heel and come
when you call.
Aside
from the links I’ve included in this post, if you are looking for additional
resources on crafting setting, I would recommend the Great Courses series
Writing Great Fiction: Storytelling Tips and Techniques by James Hynes. It is
available on Audible and Hoopla as well as the Great Courses website. Wesleyan
University has a Creative Writing Specialization in 5 modules offered through
Coursera. There is a special condensed version centered around NaNoWriMo which
has 4 modules taking place from September to November, then a break to write
your novel, then submission of your first chapter for peer review in December. This
version is extraordinarily intense (especially in the two months leading up to
NaNo) but provided a lot of valuable feedback in the form of peer-reviews and a
lot of great insight from the professors.
Whether
your mise-en-scène is so developed it qualifies as a character or just a
backdrop for your scintillating plot will in some part determine the outcome of
your tale. How big of a role does setting play in your current project? What
techniques do you use to transport yourself to your world? What tips do you have for crafting sensuous,
immersive settings? Let us know in the comments.
