ratherastory (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ratherastory) wrote2014-01-06 02:27 am
ratherastory) wrote2014-01-06 02:27 am
Settings and How to Handle Them
Okay, fellow writers, I have a question.
How do you handle real-life settings with which you're not familiar? I've been reading (dangerous, I know), and many of the books on writing all agree that having a strong setting will add richness and depth to your story.
On the surface, I totally agree. I am a big fan of good world-building when it comes to sci fi and fantasy, for instance. I also love books in which I get a real feel for the setting, the stench of a city's underbelly or the stark beauty of the cityscape at night, the fragrant smells of farmland, etc. I can usually tell when an author is writing about a setting they've lived in or experienced first hand.
The few times I've used setting to good effect, it's been when I was familiar with the locale. In my long-abandoned zombie novel, I was able to follow the characters from street to street and describe in very accurate detail not only what they were seeing, but the kind of weather they were experiencing, the colour of the buildings, etc. In another story, The Built in a Day Job, to be precise, I used my recent trip to Rome in the springtime to evoke all the sights and sounds and smells of the city that were vital to what I was trying to accomplish in my story.
So what am I supposed to do when I need to set my story in one or more places with which I'm not at all familiar? Somewhere I've never been? I can give overall impressions of a place based on research, but I have no idea how to get the level of detail I would like to put into a story. Is there really a shop on that street corner in Memphis? Is that a one-way street? What bus routes should my characters be taking in Calgary? Is there even reliable public transit? What's the weather like in Colorado in March? What did Cambridge smell like in summer in the late 1800s?
So how do you handle it when you have to write in an unfamiliar setting? Any advice?
How do you handle real-life settings with which you're not familiar? I've been reading (dangerous, I know), and many of the books on writing all agree that having a strong setting will add richness and depth to your story.
On the surface, I totally agree. I am a big fan of good world-building when it comes to sci fi and fantasy, for instance. I also love books in which I get a real feel for the setting, the stench of a city's underbelly or the stark beauty of the cityscape at night, the fragrant smells of farmland, etc. I can usually tell when an author is writing about a setting they've lived in or experienced first hand.
The few times I've used setting to good effect, it's been when I was familiar with the locale. In my long-abandoned zombie novel, I was able to follow the characters from street to street and describe in very accurate detail not only what they were seeing, but the kind of weather they were experiencing, the colour of the buildings, etc. In another story, The Built in a Day Job, to be precise, I used my recent trip to Rome in the springtime to evoke all the sights and sounds and smells of the city that were vital to what I was trying to accomplish in my story.
So what am I supposed to do when I need to set my story in one or more places with which I'm not at all familiar? Somewhere I've never been? I can give overall impressions of a place based on research, but I have no idea how to get the level of detail I would like to put into a story. Is there really a shop on that street corner in Memphis? Is that a one-way street? What bus routes should my characters be taking in Calgary? Is there even reliable public transit? What's the weather like in Colorado in March? What did Cambridge smell like in summer in the late 1800s?
So how do you handle it when you have to write in an unfamiliar setting? Any advice?
no subject
As a reader, I agree with claudiapriscus that emotional connection is important. To add to that, I think context matters greatly. In my own attempt to write fanfic, I often have a particular place/city in mind although I dispenses with the descriptions -- while it may have add bulk to the story but I tend to ask myself, is this important? What does it contribute to the story? Because if nothing else, I feel over-description (and this may be because of my lack of skill) tend to get in the way of the story.
Amateur observation aside, if I may share from a professional one? Here's what Thomas Foster wrote about the subject in How To Read a Novel Like a Professor. In the discussion of setting, Foster uses Joyce's Ulysses's fictional Dublin to illustrate the point that the goal of any fictional work is to 'create the subjective reality of its object'. Joyce was a notorious recluse so he used whatever informations he could get (i.e newspaper cuttings, ads, playbills etc) to create enough details about the city, in service of the characters -- 'The responsibility of setting is to the characters in the story. Their world doesn't have to be ours but it absolutely has to be theirs'.
All the best!