Setting and Description

Greetings from the Hermit WRiter.

Setting (and Description) is one of the cornerstones of writing, what I call the SPACe Model of (1) Setting (2) Plot (3) Action (4) Character.

A story can have the best action, characters, and plot, but if the reader isn’t placed into the scene, the story will fall flat. Important. Fundamental. And like every element of the craft, requires a lot of skill to balance how much the reader needs.

One key observation: Describe only what your character would notice.

The more unique and far-flung the setting you find your character, the more you must layer the description. Is she in a burger joint? Everyone's been there. You can just tell. But the desert of Sudan? It is more important to show.

Be prepared to describe the goat herd flowing over the nearby hill, the smell and sounds, the texture of grit in the wind, the color of the huts, the straw sticking out of the mud walls, the arid feel of her garment against her flesh, the emotion of being far from home, the stillness of the empty sky, the bite of the sun, the scritch of her boots in the gravel.

You must anchor your reader in a place and mood. You don't have to explain the muzack at Mickey Dees.

A possible checklist to use as you balance your setting/description:

·         Sight (color, bright, dull…

·         Smell

·         Sound

·         Taste

·         Touch

·         Emotion (agony, annoyed, anticipation, anxiety, arousal, confusion, desire, despair, dismay, distress, distrust, dread, dismay, distress, eagerness, excitement, fear, foreboding, frustration, giddy, helpless, horror, insecurity, jittery, loss, queasy, restless, resentment, sorrow, sorry, spiteful, suspense, tormented, trepidation, uncertainty, unease, wariness, weariness, worry, yearning

·         Balance

·         Motion

·         Sense (agony, anguish, pain, ache, discomfort, relaxed, sore

·         Time (ahead, behind, concluding, late, delayed, defunct, deferred, early, eventual, final, former, haste, last, latter, new, overdue, ripe, subsequent, trailed

·         Temperature (muggy

·         Direction

·         Interpersonal (conversational, cultural, intimate, racial, intercultural, introvert, familiar, empathetic, nonverbal, innate, sexual, sensual, subconscious, collegial

·         Context