Lately, Carrie has been talking to a lot of writers that she coaches and edits about settings.
That’s because a lot of writers are blowing them off. So, she’ll read a lot of passages like this:
“Hey,” I sit at my desk, “you coming over later?”
“Yep,” Shaun says.
“Cool.”
“I thought maybe we could have some hanky-panky.”
“Okay?”
So, we know that Shaun wants to have some hanky-panky and the “I” of the story is sitting at their desk. But we don’t know what kind of desk, where that desk is, if there are other people around, or even how she or he or they are reacting to Shaun’s request for hanky-panky, right?
Setting is obviously the place where things happen, but it’s more than that, right?
Setting makes your characters real. It grounds them. It shows the reader what’s going on without saying, “Yo, reader. This is what’s going on.”
What do we mean? Well, here, let’s play with the setting of that excerpt above.
“Hey,” I sit at my desk, flipping through some tentacle porn, “you coming over later?”
The dirt-streaked wall of my cubby gives a bit with the pressure of his hand, holding him up as he leans over my shoulder. “Yep.”
Betty is just on the other side of that cubby wall and beyond her is my boss, the other workers, everyone typing on their computers, pretending to be busy reading emails, analyzing data, reading contract clauses. Liars all. The air smells of old coffee and pot, broken things, broken people.
It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.
“Cool.” That’s all I say.
Shaun clears his throat, moves lower, closer to me, my hard metal desk, standard issue. His giant elbow brushing against the wall again. His voice is a low whisper. “I thought maybe we could have some hanky-panky.”
Someone coughs. That someone is Betty. I flip the page. A tentacle is exploring places on an elf that should probably not be explored. Shaun doesn’t smell like old coffee. He smells of sandalwood and pine, like man.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Okay.”
Totally different, right?
Now we have a lot more context even if we don’t know all the details of her office, the chair, the desk. The characters aren’t floating in a void.
Here, one more example before we move on. Same dialogue again. But different setting and different feelings
And the podcast notes don't fit, but they are here!
The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License.
Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free.
And we have a new podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook.
Here’s the link. This week’s podcast is all about strange things people do for luck.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a39179/five-real-life-horror-stories/
https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2021/07/30/canada-loose-llama-Arkell-Puslinch-Ontario/4701627667041/
