When it comes to writing, the setting is mostly a fixed element; a backdrop against which you paint a world full of memorable characters and compelling plots.
You’ve heard of plot-driven and character-driven stories, but rarely do we talk about setting-driven stories. That’s probably because while most settings affect the plot and characters, they rarely interact with them. They’re simply where events happen.
But sometimes a setting comes alive—in fact, settings have played huge parts in many memorable stories, like Gotham City from Batman, Hogwarts from Harry Potter, and the Forest from Messenger.
Setting as a Character
What does it really mean to make your setting a character? Do you give them eyes and ears? Have them move around and talk with your characters? Not really.
Great stories have settings that are rich and vibrant. They form powerful images that linger in the mind. You evoke the five senses and make your readers feel as if they were experiencing the story themselves.
They feel the burning sand when you describe a desert, taste the salt in the air during a boat scene, and smell the bacon sizzling over a campfire.
That’s not enough, though. Just as well-developed characters grow, your setting must also be dynamic. It changes over time, reacting to events and your characters’ actions—almost like they’re actors participating in the drama.
To be clear, we’re talking about the setting in its entirety. It’s not just about location and time, but also facets of culture, society, and history.
Turn Your Setting into a Character
Here are a few tips you can use to turn your setting into an engaging character:
1. Think of how your setting affects your characters.
People in cold climates wear thick clothes to fight the cold. Desert dwellers are tanned because they live in arid, heat-stricken areas. Those from two different places speak with unique accents.
Your settings are a starting point to creating diversity. If all the places in your story have the same generic imagery and history, you also create the same generic characters.
Keep in mind that, in the context of your story, the setting exists way before the characters. Spend as much time working on its backstory just as much as you do with a character because how your setting develops determines how the characters develop.
Also, think of your characters as characteristics of the setting. Their actions, appearances, way of thinking, and speech patterns will help form a more complete image of the world you’re trying to portray.
Questions to ask yourself:
- How does your setting influence society?
- How do local materials and produce affect fashion, cuisine, architecture, etc?
- What kind of rituals, beliefs, and legends do they form due to certain landmarks?
2. Give the details an emotional quality.
Settings come alive in two ways: the level of detail you add, and how your characters experience these details. You can have one or the other, but a combination of the two leads to a reader’s deeper appreciation of the story. Take a look at this example from Nora Roberts’ The Dark Witch:
The cold carved bone deep, fueled by the lash of the wind, iced by the drowning rain gushing from a bloated sky. Such was Iona's welcome to Ireland. She loved it. How could she not? she asked herself as she hugged her arms to her chest and drank in the wild, soggy view from her window. She was standing in a castle. She'd sleep in a castle that night. An honest-to-God castle in the heart of the west.
Use sensory details to describe your setting. Descriptions that use smell, sound, taste, feel, and appearance create stronger images. If you look at the example above, you can see how details like “carved bone deep”, “gushing from a bloated sky” and “wild, soggy view” lead to a better reading experience.
These images, in turn, evoke emotions from the readers that will come from their own experiences. This leads to them forming a strong, personal bond with the places you’re describing.
Questions to ask yourself:
- What is a character’s first reaction to the setting? Are they overwhelmed, disappointed, or ambivalent?
- Who has a connection to the setting?
- How does a character experience the setting? How do they look, feel, taste, hear, and smell the various elements in it?
3. Get specific with the details.
This is something you will hear all the time when it comes to writing, but it doesn’t mean you need a high level of detail in everything. Instead, zero in on the details that will have a large impact on the story.
Imagine that you’re viewing your setting through a camera. Sometimes you zoom in or out to either look at the finer details (the micro setting) or view the bigger picture (the macro setting).
Check out this introduction of the graveyard in Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book:
The fog was thinner as you approached the top of the hill. The half-moon shone, not as bright as day, not by any means, but enough to see the graveyard, enough for that. Look. You could see the abandoned funeral chapel, iron doors padlocked, ivy on the sides of the spire, a small tree growing out of the guttering at roof level. You could see stones and tombs and vaults and memorial plaques. You could see the occasional dash or scuttle of a rabbit or a vole or a weasel as it slipped out of the undergrowth and across the path.
Nature reclaiming the chapel provides a powerful image that lends to the importance of what comes next in the story: a meeting between otherworldly characters to decide the fate of a baby.
Notice how Gaiman gives more details on the chapel and then quickly passes through the other elements of the graveyard. He trusts the reader to imagine what is unsaid and focuses on the parts that matter to the current scene.
Establish a general outline through the macro setting, then get specific in the micro setting. This helps you add information that doesn’t bog down the story.
Questions to ask yourself:
- Which part of the setting matters most to what is currently happening?
- What details need to be shown in the setting?
- Can the readers form a complete image of the setting using the given details?
4. Suggest a setting’s characteristics.
There are times when suggesting something works better than telling the audience. Their imagination fills in the gaps, creating an image that is more complete than any you could give them.
Consider this the second part to tip #3. While there is merit in being highly detailed, some details are better off being suggested than stated. Saying that a house is haunted is boring compared to implying it through unidentified noises and unexplained movements.
Do this in two steps. “Tell” a story in your first draft. Continuing the above example, you could simply say:
There is a creepy house at the end of the lane. I think it's haunted.
It seems counterproductive, but you’ll be revisiting these awkward descriptions in your next round of writing. Consider them placeholders for when you actually “show” readers the setting. Like so:
I pushed the gate open, the rusted iron bars stinging my hands with cold. Inside was a cobblestone path that cut through dead grass until it reached crumbling cement. Everything was a dull color, as if the house itself gave up the will to live. Clearly, no one's been here for ages. But I swear I saw something move from a window.
Show, don’t tell. This makes the setting more believable and gives the readers a chance to visualize it more clearly. A combination of suggestions and concrete details works well in bringing your setting to life.
Questions to ask yourself:
- How can the setting be described without using this particular word?
- What relevant details need to be given to suggest a certain mood or atmosphere?
- What do you want the characters and readers to feel when interacting with your setting?
5. Make changes over time.
Just like your characters, a setting must have some development over time. It can be as simple as new locations, changing seasons, or the destruction of a place.
This can be shown in two ways: the actual change of the setting, or a change in how the characters view it.
For the first, take a look at the Overlook Hotel from The Shining. At the beginning of the novel, it’s presented as an ordinary, although creepy hotel. As the plot progresses, you slowly learn that it has a sinister agenda. In the end, the Overlook is destroyed by an explosion.
For the second, consider the East and West Egg from The Great Gatsby. Nick Carraway moves to New York and is immediately entranced with the two prosperous communities. But he soon discovers they’re not as glamorous as they look.
Your audience needs to see a change in the setting that matches the events of the plot. It’s all part of creating an immersive world where the things that happen in it are believable in the context of its story.
For example, you often see wide-scale destruction during superhero fights in movies. Some criticize it as over the top but you can’t have beings with godlike powers sling giant fireballs around without causing massive damage.
Questions to ask yourself:
- What is each character’s viewpoint of the setting?
- Will the setting change because of a significant event?
- How will the characters react to the change?
Sentient Settings
Occasionally, some writers do go the literal route by making their settings actual characters. You’ll mostly see this in fantasy and supernatural fiction.
Sometimes a place gets possessed. In Monster House, a man’s dead wife takes over their house, turning it into a malevolent structure that devours any person who isn’t the husband.
Some writers have their settings become sentient, going as far as manifesting avatars that talk. In Codex Alera, it is revealed that the titular continent can manifest into a female avatar. And Tom Bombadil from Lord of the Rings is heavily implied to be a spirit of uncorrupted Middle-earth.
Perhaps the oldest examples can be found in mythology, where the ancients believed that a location has its own spirit. Two notable examples are Gaia and Uranus, who are personified locations (the earth and sky).
It doesn’t matter if you go the literal route, the process will largely be the same. Build up your setting’s backstory, personality, and character traits. The goal is to ensure that the setting isn’t static, but an element that feels alive and actively contributes to the plot.
Did you find this post useful? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
If you enjoyed this post, then you might also like:
- Worldbuilding Questions to Bring Your Setting to Life
- How to Write the Setting of a Story: 4 Tips for a Memorable Backdrop
- Story Pacing: 8 Tips To Keep Your Story Moving
- Creating a Myth: 7 Tips for Building a Richer World
Cole is a blog writer and aspiring novelist. He has a degree in Communications and is an advocate of media and information literacy and responsible media practices. Aside from his interest in technology, crafts, and food, he’s also your typical science fiction and fantasy junkie, spending most of his free time reading through an ever-growing to-be-read list. It’s either that or procrastinating over actually writing his book. Wish him luck!
