Set it up

It’s Wednesday! We’ve made it to the middle of the week! Woo-hoo! … I think. This week has been really long, hasn’t it? Oh, aren’t they always?

Well. Monday we talked about detail, and why it’s an important thing to include, no matter what perspective we’re looking from. So today, I wanted to talk about something along the same vein, something equally as important, but something I felt would be better understood if we look at it through our three hats (reader, writer, and editor).

Why do we need…

Setting?

Maybe it seems obvious to you, but for some people, it’s not. I’ve actually read a ton of novels where I couldn’t figure out where anything was taking place, because the writer never fully described the setting, or never used cues to explain where any given character was at any given moment within the story. Thus, we’re discussing it today.

From the point of view of a reader…

Like I mentioned before, I have read things where I struggled to understand where anything was taking place, simply because the writer didn’t include enough setting. That alone should be a clue that setting is very important. Readers really want to be able to see what’s going on, the way that writers intended for it to be seen. Your readers are looking for something to ground them to the location, whether that be the bow of a ship or a tree beneath which your characters are lounging. Without that, it’s just people floating in the middle of nowhere, and it really makes it difficult to follow the story as a whole.

From the point of view of a writer…

For me personally, setting is something I have a lot of fun with. My main problem is that I do occasionally give too much setting in any given scene. I’ll explain too many things, and end up having to cut them out of the final rendition of the story. Thing is though, by adding a mass of setting details while you’re writing, it’s less likely that you, the writer, will forget precisely where everyone is at any given time. It’ll help you to keep things straight, so that even if you do end up cutting out those setting notes, your readers will still be more likely to see things the way you intended.

From the point of view of an editor…

I want to know that you know your stuff. As an editor, I’m looking for writers, authors, who know enough about their setting that they’re not throwing out random words at any given time. I want to see similar words used to describe one thing, and different words used for another. I’m looking for use of setting as a character, or as a backdrop. I’m reading the setting, looking for clues as to what type of writer you are. And if there isn’t enough setting there to work with, then that means we’ll have a lot more work to do before the story can be published.

Setting, as we all know, is important! It’s not something we can cut out, not something that we can avoid. We need to embrace it, learn to use it to our advantage, and understand how to use it to the benefit of our story and our readers.

Don’t worry, your editor can help with that if you’re not sure where to go from here.

[love]

{Rani Divine}