Any Clever or Novel Ways for Creating a Setting?

[SimonDoom]

Everything I learned about setting I learned from Sleepy Hollow and Salem's Lot.

Those are both good examples of how description can be used 1) to create a mood (in these two cases, spookiness and dread), and 2) to explain the interior mood and fear of the main characters. Setting is extremely important in both (both stories are named after the towns in which they take place). In Salem's Lot the Marsten House is almost like a character.

I think a helpful guideline is to put yourself in the shoes of the characters in your story and ask how important the setting is to the characters who move through it and act in it.

In a horror story, setting often is extremely important, because the setting is usually scary in some way -- a haunted house, a monster's lair, an isolated space station in deep space, etc. Describing the scary qualities dovetails with the character's experience.

In an erotic story, I think this isn't always true. Characters do kinky things in settings that are often prosaic and uninteresting. Or, they're interesting only because somebody is having sex in them. Say you tell a story about two people having sex on a subway train. It's an exhibitionism story. It's only necessary to describe the details of the subway that convey the riskiness and exposure of what they're doing -- the short distance between subway stations, the large size of the windows that expose them to the outside, perhaps the awkwardness of the seats or the way the subway sways, making sex a challenge. It's not necessary to describe the posters and ads in any detail, or the colors of the seats. Focus on heightening the eroticism of the story. If the detail is irrelevant to that, you can leave it out.

If you're focusing on the POV of a character, describe things the way that character would. If you're telling a story about a biology professor in the woods, then it might make sense to describe the trees in some detail and give their specific names. But that would make much less sense if the story is about someone who knows nothing about trees and has never noticed them before.

 

[gunhilltrain]

It seems we are almost universally agreed on minimizing the details. Also that what is minimal depends on the characteristics of the story. I would also agree that I don't like to be forced to see things one exact way. When I feel that happening I often start skimming for a few sentences until it's over.

This specific suggestion is intriguing. I would read a whole short story with this as a synopsis. I do think that it would have to be very well written to avoid having a big neon sign that says "Plot Device" appear over it, but that could be avoided by a bit of good writing.

I guess you haven't read much by John Updike. He can't have two people in a restaurant without describing what they're eating and what else is on the menu, what the waiter or waitress is like, maybe something about the cashier, what the interior of the place looks like, probably the history of the place and what other restaurants occupied the location, and what the surrounding neighborhood is like. He particularly does this in the Rabbit novels, because the characters have mostly lived their whole lives in Brewer (based on Reading, PA) and really know the place.

And yet he does the same thing in the last novel when Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom is around his vacation condo in Florida. At one point he describes Harry's entire three-day car trip down there, all the way from Pennsylvania to the Gulf Coast of Florida: every road, every motel, every meal I think, everyone he meets along the way.

And yet he was a skilled writer and he mostly got away with it. The only time I skipped something is when he spent several pages describing a golf match Harry is playing in. Updike really liked golf himself, I've heard.

 

[SimonDoom]

I guess you haven't read much by John Updike. He can't have two people in a restaurant without describing what they're eating and what else is on the menu, what the waiter or waitress is like, maybe something about the cashier, what the interior of the place looks like, probably the history of the place and what other restaurants occupied the location, and what the surrounding neighborhood is like. He particularly does this in the Rabbit novels, because the characters have mostly lived their whole lives in Brewer (based on Reading, PA) and really know the place.

And yet he does the same thing in the last novel when Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom is around his vacation condo in Florida. At one point he describes Harry's entire three-day car trip down there, all the way from Pennsylvania to the Gulf Coast of Florida: every road, every motel, every meal I think, everyone he meets along the way.

And yet he was a skilled writer and he mostly got away with it. The only time I skipped something is when he spent several pages describing a golf match Harry is playing in. Updike really liked golf himself, I've heard.

Updike was a social observer, so detail was very important to him. In the Rabbit books he was trying to chronicle the life of a fairly unremarkable man through the social changes that surrounded and affected his life. Detail was important to what he was trying to accomplish. Although his prose style and attitudes are quite different he reminds me in some ways of Tom Wolfe, a contemporary author who also was a social critic and social observer in his nonfiction and fiction. Both have journalistic elements in their writing.

An interesting thing about Updike, apropos of this discussion and this Site, is he wrote about sex a lot. He was very interested in the subject, and his characters fool around and lust after each other and want and have a lot of sex, inside marriage and out. But it's not very erotic sex, in my opinion. Sex often seems kind of sad in his stories. It's something they desperately want but are never completley fulfilled by. And I think one of the reasons is what you've hit on: too much detail. It's very interesting for a reader who wants a novel that has big things to say about society, but it's not so much for the reader that wants to get off.

I see Updike as a cautionary example of how an excess of detailed observation can deaden the erotic quality of a piece of writing.

 

[HappySpouse]

I guess you haven't read much by John Updike...At one point he describes Harry's entire three-day car trip down there, all the way from Pennsylvania to the Gulf Coast of Florida: every road, every motel, every meal I think, everyone he meets along the way.

And yet he was a skilled writer and he mostly got away with it...

You guess correctly, I haven't. Nothing is universal, and the general frame for this discussion is erotica, though I am always happy to step out side of a box. There are two books that I really enjoy (and some others don't) that give the kind of incredibly drawn out description you seem to be describing, Moby Dick and Wizard and Glass. I don't know about the book you mentioned, but in those I thought it was a masterful tool of the author to really make us feel like we were there with them, suffering all the nothing of a two-year whaling trip on the open ocean or a months long game of "castles" were the only thing you can't do is move first.

I don't mean to imply that I don't enjoy a good setting. I'm just wanting to discuss a few clever ways to deliver it.

 

[HappySpouse]

I perhaps read differently than others. The general advice has been 'minimalism' but one of the most extensive weaknesses of many stories on Lit is excluding even any hints at all as to where and when the events happen, which frustrates me as a reader. Minimalism can be overdone, to create an awkward syllogism...

...If going minimal, the unique detail, a striking and perhaps even small observation, will go a long way...

That's a fair criticism. I'm sure there are some stories on this site that don't even mention if the people are inside or outside. I'm also sure there is somebody that took the time to tell us things like how many electrical outlets were in the room. Something for everyone I guess.

I'm not so much interested in how much detail as I am the best delivery mechanism. When I say we all agree on minimal detail, I mean that an effective way to avoid large blocks of descriptive detail, is to not give so many details.

When the story calls for it, or it matters to you or your readers then give me all the details you want. I'd just prefer you do it without boring me to death, or in the case of erotica, turning off the heat. My first published story wasn't originally meant for public consumption, but it has paragraphs and paragraphs describing my wife. I left it alone, and it works for me because, to me, every story I read here is about her anyway. Also, it sets up every other story because they're all about her. In hindsight, I just wish I had done it more creatively.

 

[SimonDoom]

I've responded to a couple of posts but I'll offer my response to the OP's first post. I'm not sure if I'd call them "clever and novel," but I'd describe them as my own personal helpful guidelines for handling the description of setting in a story:

1. The needs of the particular story dictate how much detail to give to describe the setting.
2. In some stories, setting matters much more than it does in other stories.
3. Setting often is relatively unimportant in an erotic story. That's not always true, but I think it often is. Too much setting detail can be a boner shrinker.
4. Setting details should be used to advance plot, explain character, or set a mood (such as describing a scary place in a horror story).
5. The way a setting is described should fit with the perspective, education, and background of the main character experiencing that setting.
6. Stop adding detail when it gets superfluous and unuseful to number 4.
7. Start with the most important elements -- the things the reader really needs to know. Let the reader fill in some details.
8. Describe the scene metaphorically or figuratively or emotionally rather than physically.
9. Rather than giving all details, ask: what's the MOST important detail about the scene? What's one little thing you can relate that gives the reader a really good impression of the setting? Describe that one thing.
10. Don't info-dump. Thread setting description throughout a scene.
11. Use multiple different ways to describe a setting: a) simple narrative description, b) dialogue between characters, c) internal monologue in a character, and d) describing how a character moves through or physically encounters a setting. Don't just narrate.
12. Use active verbs to describe a setting, not just adjectives. Use verbs to describe how parts of a setting relate to each other rather than just draping a lot of adjectives over them.
E.g., "The room was enormous."
Or "The room swallowed him whole."

I think a good rule of thumb of good writing is to mind your verbs. Let them do as much of the heavy lifting as possible. Nouns and verbs are the most important parts of speech. Adjectives are important, but less important. Where you can, substitute an active verb for a linking verb.
E.g., "The sun was directly overhead."
Or "The sun loomed directly overhead." (this can be overdone, it must be said).

13. Get all the senses involved: not just sight, but hearing, smell, taste, and touch. If you're in a garden or outdoor setting, make sure you describe the smell. But don't describe a bad smell in an erotic story if it's going to make it less erotic. I used the word "pungent" in an erotic story to describe smells coming from the kitchen, and a reader said it ruined the story for him. So be mindful.
14. Don't get too focused on precise measurements. Most of the time numbers are not necessary.
15. Give your reader some freedom to fill in the details with their imagination. It's more fun that way.

16. Every single one of these guidelines can be disregarded, depending on the story, except number 1.

 

[Sextified]

I'm not so much interested in how much detail as I am the best delivery mechanism. When I say we all agree on minimal detail, I mean that an effective way to avoid large blocks of descriptive detail, is to not give so many details.

When the story calls for it, or it matters to you or your readers then give me all the details you want. I'd just prefer you do it without boring me to death, or in the case of erotica, turning off the heat.

Everything we do as writers is a learning process. Learn from all your works, the first, middle and last.

But I think the most important thing to remember is that if you have great characters and have even greater plans for them, a lot can be forgiven. If your readers connect with them strongly, they will often follow them thru Hell and back.

The earlier comment about a Biology professor walking thru the woods was very apt. Your characters observe your created world just as intently as your readers will, and from their very own unique perspectives.

If one character notices something, that they SHOULDN'T, I tend to think that it is leaning towards a PLOT device. If it is needed for the scene, either have another character notice it, or have your "narrator" angle handle the setup.

Timing of the release of detail is also very important, both for pacing and reader involvement.

An important location should be fully realized in at least the author's head, and be under continual refinement. What to tell the readers about it, and when, can really add to the depth of the story. The Rescuer's tiny apartment gets visited a few times by many characters, over the course of the three books so far in my series.

Some visitors know the Rescuer very well, but have never been there to see him, and have always wondered what his private retreat looked like. Others have missed him, and not seen the place for years, so their memories of his old self are triggered when they see the space again. One brief girlfriend had her first ever orgasm in his bed, and stares at it longingly, when she comes over to feed his cat. Another current girlfriend has come to think of the same place as her ultimate sanctuary, a place she hopes to escape even from herself, while he helps rebuild her life and strengthen their love.

I have several restaurants in the series, that serve the same function. Often, the Architect is present, either at the table or observing from the shadows. The guests all remark openly on the spaces, and privately express their real thoughts to the reader's in their heads.

Detail . . . about places, memories, feelings, worries, fears, desires, needs, lust and love . . . is how writers communicate and deepen their connection with their readers.

I think far too often we use 'descriptions' of those elements as a shortcut, when how something makes a character 'feel' and 'react' to it moves the story along better.

Saying that the sun splashed guest bed in the spare room was covered in an old vintage handmade quilt, and the small space was filled with dusty antiques? That is 'serviceable'. For a place where a character will be hoping to have sex there later that evening? Description can be a poor substitute for 'connection'.

One half of the couple sees a wonderful comforting retreat. They love antiques and the feeling of history. It connects them to the romance of getting away from the big city, and exploring the body of their lover for the first time. She actually chose the Bed and Breakfast 'because' of this room. Their thoughts are filled with anticipation of slowly learning more about her new boyfriend, far removed from all their cares, where they can dream anything is possible.

The other half of the couple only sees his maternal grandparent's house, and is already on edge. He will never feel comfortable here, and already irrationally feels that his family is watching them from around a corner, or thru a half opened door. The walls are too thin, and the masking noise of the city is gone, and every sound the ancient and creaky bed will make is certainly going to be heard thru the entire house. Not noisy himself in bed, he loves to make his partners moan, gasp, scream, yell and cry out during sex. It's his main source of pleasure, hearing how well he can please someone else.

So how does the couple resolve this? Will the woman mistakenly think that her lover is displeased with her, when instead it's just his reaction to her chosen place to have sex with him for the first time? Will he not realize in time that she just doesn't care what the owners of the B&B will think of her, at the breakfast table in the morning, if she screams the house down the night before? Could they BOTH get what they want, if they just learn to talk with each other before hand? Maybe a picnic for lunch, out in the remote, quiet and very private fields? Foreplay with him kissing her down between her legs, with loud and intensely vocal orgasms for her, all afternoon? And the main event, in the moon dappled bed of her dreams, quietly coming for him, as he finally gives her his all?

Everything written down by the author for the readers to take in can, (and in my opinion should), be there for multiple purposes.

So as you describe the room, from his perspective, recount how repressed he used to feel visiting his grandparents every summer, while he sees the shape of her body thru the thin sundress, as she opens up the ugly old curtains. Let the woman look on his face, nervous and anxious for reasons she can't quite figure out. Explain how she feels as she deliberately lets him see her unpack her sexy things, and places them in the antique dresser she would love to buy from the older couple. Could their week long stay be split into two different halves? The mutual challenge of creative lovemaking in the old bed, ever more intense and perfectly silent, until one of them eventually screams as they come in the dark? How the days could be spent pushing her shy and vulnerable limits, and getting her to walk around outdoors, with less and less clothing each day? To have sex under the sun become a natural spur of the moment occurrence between them, and as loud as they both wish? Can he himself finally learn to moan and scream, the way he loves to make others do, out in the wide open spaces of the now unfarmed and deserted acreage? How on their last night, a terrific thunderstorm gives them the cover they need, to finally please each other in bed as they have spent the entire week learning how to do? And as a closer, during their last breakfast with the older and wiser couple, they learn they can actually buy the remote farmstead, and use it as a permanent getaway from their city life?

If the guest bedroom is going to be used multiple times in a short story, prep the readers for that, and dole out the detail in installments. There is no need to mention the moonlit cracked and faded paint on the ceiling, until the they are both staring up at it, wondering who is going to make the first move.

 

[BuckyDuckman]

For me, fuck stories are much more about character where I want the reader to feel what they are feeling...and the author too!

I agree with much of this. Too many authors are hung up on describing everything in their mind's eye without a sense of service to the story. On the flip side, some authors have such a loose grasp on location that the story suffers.

As far as adding a suggestion to the conversation, it would be this: make sure it's logical. You probably can't see what she did in front of the mirror in the bedroom if you're standing in the kitchen.

Little things like this creep in stories in funny ways:

Standing with her back to him, she smiled as he adjusted the growing lump in his pants.​

How? Does she have eyes in the back of her head?

(To be fair, that one is easily fixed . . . she smiled imagining him adjusting . . . )

 

[gunhilltrain]

Updike was a social observer, so detail was very important to him. In the Rabbit books he was trying to chronicle the life of a fairly unremarkable man through the social changes that surrounded and affected his life. Detail was important to what he was trying to accomplish. Although his prose style and attitudes are quite different he reminds me in some ways of Tom Wolfe, a contemporary author who also was a social critic and social observer in his nonfiction and fiction. Both have journalistic elements in their writing.

An interesting thing about Updike, apropos of this discussion and this Site, is he wrote about sex a lot. He was very interested in the subject, and his characters fool around and lust after each other and want and have a lot of sex, inside marriage and out. But it's not very erotic sex, in my opinion. Sex often seems kind of sad in his stories. It's something they desperately want but are never completley fulfilled by. And I think one of the reasons is what you've hit on: too much detail. It's very interesting for a reader who wants a novel that has big things to say about society, but it's not so much for the reader that wants to get off.

I see Updike as a cautionary example of how an excess of detailed observation can deaden the erotic quality of a piece of writing.

I don't think Updike wanted his readers to get off on the erotic parts of his writing. I think he had a point: some sex, in reality, is sad and unfulfilling. Not all of it, of course, but probably more of it than our society wants to admit. I've heard the term "sexual false consciousness" used, and maybe there's some truth to it.

When I was in my late teens, before I really knew anything about it, I assumed that sex had be one of the greatest thing in the world. Now I think it can be good, bad, or indifferent, depending on many circumstances. In can obviously vary over time between the same two people. Sexual satisfaction in marriages and long-term relationships, based on people's own reporting of it, often drops off quite dramatically in a few years. Maybe the couple still love each other, maybe they don't, but that's a different story.

 

[Sextified]

When I was in my late teens, before I really knew anything about it, I assumed that sex had be one of the greatest thing in the world. Now I think it can be good, bad, or indifferent, depending on many circumstances. In can obviously vary over time between the same two people. Sexual satisfaction in marriages and long-term relationships, based on people's own reporting of it, often drops off quite dramatically in a few years. Maybe the couple still love each other, maybe they don't, but that's a different story.

I think there is a quote from a scene in a Woody Allen movie that goes something like this:

A man and a woman meet privately with a Therapist about improving their relationship. The subject of lovemaking comes up, obviously, and they are both asked how often they have sex.

The woman laments and says, "All the time! About two or three times a week!"

The man groans and says, "Hardly ever! Only two or three times a week!"

 

[yukonnights]

I'm trying to put effort into not being hypocritical about this. As a reader I will skip past anything like that. Boooooooring is an apt description. However, I'm also a control freak, and when writing things, erotica or not, I have the compulsion to shove an exact image directly into your brain.

I don't think hypocrisy has anything to do with your comment. It is really more about individual preference. It's important to realize that preference surfaces in both the author witting the story and the reader who is reading it.

I took a look at some of what you've written, and it's clear we are poles apart in both what we write and obviously in the style we like to read. The story of yours that I scanned is virtually 100% "told/narrated" with no / minimal dialogue. The adage "show don't tell" is my compass. So, it's easy to see that I am at one end of the field and you are on the other. Nothing wrong with that, especially since it's all a hobby anyway.

Too often these questions and ensuing discussions seem void of any awareness of the vast diversity of reader preferences. In most cases there is no right or wrong due to this diversity. I think it's pretty clear this is the situation here.

 

[HappySpouse]

I don't think hypocrisy has anything to do with your comment. It is really more about individual preference. It's important to realize that preference surfaces in both the author witting the story and the reader who is reading it.

I took a look at some of what you've written, and it's clear we are poles apart in both what we write and obviously in the style we like to read. The story of yours that I scanned is virtually 100% "told/narrated" with no / minimal dialogue. The adage "show don't tell" is my compass. So, it's easy to see that I am at one end of the field and you are on the other. Nothing wrong with that, especially since it's all a hobby anyway.

Too often these questions and ensuing discussions seem void of any awareness of the vast diversity of reader preferences. In most cases there is no right or wrong due to this diversity. I think it's pretty clear this is the situation here.

Yeah those first three are me telling the reader a true story like they are sitting in my living room. It would be unusual for there to be much dialogue or scene building in those. My most recent one, , is 3rd person fiction and the first 700 words are all dialogue. I have a pending one that is more along those lines as well, but twice as long.

I appreciated your help early on even though they weren't your cup of tea. I have paid that favor forward a bit here and there.

To your last and first points I intend to write very different stories from each other tied together only by the presence of a beautiful redhead, but I will probably still only read the kinds of stories I have always read. Personally I find the diversity impossible to ignore around here. I've been reading erotica for over 20 years and I still come across stories that send me running away.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I think there is a quote from a scene in a Woody Allen movie that goes something like this:

A man and a woman meet privately with a Therapist about improving their relationship. The subject of lovemaking comes up, obviously, and they are both asked how often they have sex.

The woman laments and says, "All the time! About two or three times a week!"

The man groans and says, "Hardly ever! Only two or three times a week!"

I remember that, but I can't remember which movie it was. (Actually, two or three times a week sounds pretty good to me.)

Since we are talking about settings: A lot of times I have used real locations and buildings, although these might be as they were years ago. Even so, I go lightly on many of the details. I have used the old Paradise Theater in the Bronx as a setting, but I've only described the interior as "Venetian" in style - which was true - but I leave it up to the reader to imagine exactly what that was. If they are really that curious, they can see photos online!

I have used buildings that once existed at City College in New York, but the descriptions of those are light too. Again, they are shown online for those who are curious.

For say, bars and restaurants, even ones that really existed, I usually don't describe the interiors. I may briefly describe the exterior of a house or apartment building - occasionally these are real ones - but there is usually little about the interior. I rarely have anything to say about furniture unless there is something really notable about a certain piece. In one case, it was about how shabby a certain couch was.

 

[yowser]

I remember that, but I can't remember which movie it was.

That was 'Annie Hall' and Allen used a split-screen most effectively (both with the therapist talking with each of them, then again comparing two family dinners - Annie's family looking over at Woody and seeing him clothed in Hasidic garb with sidelocks etc, Annie's WASP family going on about their 'tennis game at the country club' or something, and then in the second screen Woody's family all yelling at each other at once and grabbing food from across the table. My spouse and I nearly got tossed from the theater we laughed so hard, he got it spot-on.)

 

[HappySpouse]

I remember that, but I can't remember which movie it was. (Actually, two or three times a week sounds pretty good to me.)

Since we are talking about settings: A lot of times I have used real locations and buildings, although these might be as they were years ago. Even so, I go lightly on many of the details. I have used the old Paradise Theater in the Bronx as a setting, but I've only described the interior as "Venetian" in style - which was true - but I leave it up to the reader to imagine exactly what that was. If they are really that curious, they can see photos online!

I have used buildings that once existed at City College in New York, but the descriptions of those are light too. Again, they are shown online for those who are curious.

For say, bars and restaurants, even ones that really existed, I usually don't describe the interiors. I may briefly describe the exterior of a house or apartment building - occasionally these are real ones - but there is usually little about the interior. I rarely have anything to say about furniture unless there is something really notable about a certain piece. In one case, it was about how shabby a certain couch was.

One could certainly provide a realistic first impression that way.

 

[Brutal_One]

Setting is important

For me the setting is pretty important. In part this is due to the direct relevance of the settings to the characters over and above just the places where events and conversations take place.

To another thread I started recently the historic research plays a part and that can add the colour and authenticity I am trying to bring into the writing even if these are references and descriptions of events that have happened many years ago where they are not settings where any of the existing story characters ever visit but they are still important enough to be considered the important fabric of the story.

Brutal One

 

[ElectricBlue]

For me the setting is pretty important. In part this is due to the direct relevance of the settings to the characters over and above just the places where events and conversations take place.

To another thread I started recently the historic research plays a part and that can add the colour and authenticity I am trying to bring into the writing even if these are references and descriptions of events that have happened many years ago where they are not settings where any of the existing story characters ever visit but they are still important enough to be considered the important fabric of the story.

Brutal One

Commas, Brutal, commas.

Here ya go, use a few of mine ,,,,,,

 

[gunhilltrain]

That was 'Annie Hall' and Allen used a split-screen most effectively (both with the therapist talking with each of them, then again comparing two family dinners - Annie's family looking over at Woody and seeing him clothed in Hasidic garb with sidelocks etc, Annie's WASP family going on about their 'tennis game at the country club' or something, and then in the second screen Woody's family all yelling at each other at once and grabbing food from across the table. My spouse and I nearly got tossed from the theater we laughed so hard, he got it spot-on.)

Isn't that also the film where Alvy and Annie are having a conversation, and there are subtitles to indicate what they are really thinking?

I also like when Alvy is having a bizarre conversation with Annie's brother Duane, and he finally says, "Excuse me, I have an appointment back on Planet Earth."

 

[gunhilltrain]

I did use this description for an office building, which was based on two real but similar-looking buildings in New Jersey.

"This corporate outpost for about eighty white-collar drones had rented space in a two-story concrete pillbox in deepest New Jersey suburbia. At times I had fantasies of the building being used as a fortress and an attacking army needing flamethrowers to finally drive out the defenders. I supposed that if I imagined the place sprayed with napalm in some future civil war, I was somewhat ambivalent about my job and being there at all."

 

[jack30341]

Those are both good examples of how description can be used 1) to create a mood (in these two cases, spookiness and dread), and 2) to explain the interior mood and fear of the main characters. Setting is extremely important in both (both stories are named after the towns in which they take place). In Salem's Lot the Marsten House is almost like a character.

I think a helpful guideline is to put yourself in the shoes of the characters in your story and ask how important the setting is to the characters who move through it and act in it.

In a horror story, setting often is extremely important, because the setting is usually scary in some way -- a haunted house, a monster's lair, an isolated space station in deep space, etc. Describing the scary qualities dovetails with the character's experience.

In an erotic story, I think this isn't always true. Characters do kinky things in settings that are often prosaic and uninteresting. Or, they're interesting only because somebody is having sex in them. Say you tell a story about two people having sex on a subway train. It's an exhibitionism story. It's only necessary to describe the details of the subway that convey the riskiness and exposure of what they're doing -- the short distance between subway stations, the large size of the windows that expose them to the outside, perhaps the awkwardness of the seats or the way the subway sways, making sex a challenge. It's not necessary to describe the posters and ads in any detail, or the colors of the seats. Focus on heightening the eroticism of the story. If the detail is irrelevant to that, you can leave it out.

If you're focusing on the POV of a character, describe things the way that character would. If you're telling a story about a biology professor in the woods, then it might make sense to describe the trees in some detail and give their specific names. But that would make much less sense if the story is about someone who knows nothing about trees and has never noticed them before.

I really like the idea of giving setting to the story through the POV character and the emotion of that character.

Say, where a pivotal scene for a son and mom occurs in the old family living room, where mom is staring up at a family portrait on the wall.

Great thread.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I perhaps read differently than others. The general advice has been 'minimalism' but one of the most extensive weaknesses of many stories on Lit is excluding even any hints at all as to where and when the events happen, which frustrates me as a reader. Minimalism can be overdone, to create an awkward syllogism.

What beach is the scene of the dunes action? Australia? California? Please give me something to hang my hat on, doesn't need to be much.

If going minimal, the unique detail, a striking and perhaps even small observation, will go a long way. (Okay, I see the setting is an office building, anything unusual about it? The boss yelling on the phone to someone? One messy cubicle amongst all the tidy rest?) If you let the reader know that you, the narrator, are perceptive, confidence in the rest of the story will grow.

I don't think you will have happy readers if you don't give them something to address the 'where.'

The advice about outlining the setting from the emotional point of view of one or more characters is excellent.

Minimalism can be okay once in a while. I have a couple of stories on other sites that take place in generic, unspecified present-day American settings. I suppose I did them that way because I thought the actions in the stories were enough to carry them along.

 

[AlexBailey]

I'm really happy with the way this opening turned out. I managed to set the scene before the MC opens his eyes.


****

Half Awake

Some part of my rum-soaked brain is trying to wake up, trying to adjust to the ambient din of the ocean waves and crying seagulls. Being cautious not to open my eyes too quickly, not knowing what I might find, I try to swallow and feel sand in my teeth. The acrid smell of burnt driftwood is all around and in my tangled hair.

I'm on my side, laying on a blanket on the beach. I'm sharing it with someone... It's Sam. He's behind me and we're using an open sleeping bag as our only cover. Oh wow! He's holding me. How did this happen? Sam, my twenty-one year old surf instructor, is cuddled up behind me, holding me close to his body. I'm using his huge bicep as a pillow.

A little more awake now, I feel his other arm slung over my side, fingers loosely splayed across my belly. His unconscious touch is a cross between coveting and clinging with an occasional twitch or caress in reaction to something in his dreams.

What are we doing here? I rack my brain trying to remember last night. Sam wanted me to have fun on my eighteenth birthday, so I went along to spend the night on the beach near Ballina, not exactly sure what he had in mind.

 

[Wifetheif]

Sometimes less is more. I found this in the Norvell Page Spider novel "Slaves of the Dragon." The Spider was a pulp fiction character directly inspired by "The Shadow" only with more violence and a much higher body count. In this "yellow Peril" novel an Asian gangster is abducting white women into white slavery for a very specific and nefarious purpose. At one point, the Spider's fiancee Nita van Sloan, a major babe with chestnut hair, is abducted by the white slavers.Because the novel was released in May 1936, a quite conservative time in America, Page can't be as overt at he would have liked because of censorship and "public morals." Here is how Norvell Page states that after capture Nita was strip searched without saying she was strip searched.

“Nita smiled faintly at the impossibility of such a feat. She had passed through the double fences now, men with whips beating back the dogs as she crossed, and was thrust into one of the barracks. She was searched there with a thoroughness that brought the shamed blood hot to her cheeks, then allowed to walk untended into the dormitory.”

There is something sexier about an implied but unquestioned strip search than a stated and obvious one. I say that as an author who has written multiple strip search scenes. In a single sentence, Page conveys the simultaneous rage and shame a strip search induces without even mentioning a single garment or its removal. Amazing! It is sentences like this that bring me back to pulp fiction time and again. The guys and gals churning it out for a penny a word sure knew how to write!

 

[dadadadiox]

I don’t consider myself a ‘descriptive’ writer. I’m with you on feeling that descriptive writing can slow a story and in the worst cases drag on too long. This is one reason I don’t read or write in the Sci-Fi or fantasy genres. World building can be boring if an author describes every little detail on pink trees and the red sky of an alien world.

In my current series my MC is traveling. There are many bars, restaurants, hotels, and sites he visits. I won’t describe each setting in detail. Simply saying he entered a cantina is enough for some scenes. When I do choose to describe a setting in detail it’s a conscious decision to make that place like a character in the scene. These are often settings the MC will spend a great deal of time in, multiple scenes. I rarely describe one-off locations.

In those cases I break my descriptive writing into pieces offering one or two paragraphs on the setting and then going back to action and dialogue, back and forth. I think this helps in not slowing the story with long, narrative descriptions that drag on.

That’s my two cents.

 

[Britva415]

I apply a soft version of the "Chekov's Gun" principle to setting. The result is that this attitude influences the way I reveal setting in the story.

The hard version of Chekov's Gun would dictate that no statement about setting should be made without that detail factoring into the actual plot at some point in the story.

The soft version I employ recognizes the fact that a setting detail may not necessarily directly drive a plot element, but still allows me to include setting details even if they don't. But what I generally do is reveal the setting through plot. I try not to ever write a line which reveals anything about setting unless it's part of a sentence in which something is happening. Then the reveal of the setting detail is secondary to the active statement of plot.

I can't think of a situation where a person would absolutely have to know a detail of the setting before it's stated as a detail of the action. There are plenty of writers who do provide setting information without action, but that's a choice, not a requirement. Then there are other writers who (say they) won't even "stoop" to using adverbs. That's another... choice, I guess.

I'm convinced one can always completely skip providing any setting until it's revealed by the line-by-line progress of the narrative. If there's some element of setting which one would need to know in advance of a plot point which depends on it, that element can still be revealed through narrative, you never have to simply state "Cobwebs were present."

The widely ridiculed opening of Paul Clifford by the 1st Baron Lytton illustrates the counter-example well:

• "It was a dark and stormy night." Yeah, but what happened?
• "The rain fell in torrents - " Is the rain a character?
• "except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets - " Okay, this action would take place in the streets - except we still haven't seen any action.
• "(for it is in London that our story lies) - " What story? I still don't see one.
• "rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness." Pray, might there be any people in the dark, there?

78 words in, we finally get to "a man" and what he's doing. It's 116 words before we get any inkling of his immediate goal or motivation, and 123 words before any whiff of conflict arises. It's 301 words before we meet the character who motivated this conflict, and 317 words before we even know the two are in conflict at all. It's 427 words before we know what it is the antagonist even wants, and 632 words before we know why she wants it.

So: Among these 632 words, about 20 are the actual narrative.

Now: Simply telling the 20 words of narrative obviously isn't ideal, and would leave out 100% of the setting. But most of that setting could have been revealed through embellishment of the actual narrative statements.

It's a choice. Infodumping of setting details isn't automatically right or wrong, but it can easily become ponderous overembellishment. Attaching them to the narrative action has the nearly automatic tendency to keep it balanced, while simultaneously giving the reader some plot beats.

I don't think this is either "clever" or "novel." It's just one way to do good storytelling. You can still make setting important and include lots of evocative description of it. This doesn't throw out any of the goals of providing setting to the reader, and it ensures that every detail of setting carries weight in the story rather than being superfluous and indulgent.