Whenever You Can Walk Your Settings

Although the internet provides myriad opportunities to virtually visit sites around the world, I still find nothing helps me understand a setting better than walking through it. Whenever you can walk your settings.

In June, my husband, kids, and I explored the coastal town of Beaufort, North Carolina, the third oldest community in the state. We’d been to the town many times before, but we’d never stopped in its cemetery. It’s so old that instead of being called a cemetery, it’s the Old Burying Ground. With the sky turning black as a storm approached, we ventured into the dim graveyard, the thick tangle of live oak branches pressing in around us, adding a ton of atmosphere.

No pictures or virtual tour could replicate what we experienced that day.

Five Benefits of Walking Your Setting

Walking slows me down. Even if I’m looking for a setting for a car chase, I still want to walk it. Walking helps me sees details I wouldn’t notice if I drove by or looked at photos. It also slows down my brain, allowing me to appreciate my surroundings.
Walking allows me to use all five senses. The photos above a can’t convey the hush of the cemetery, which contrasted with the strengthening winds, or the crackle of dead leaves underfoot, or the smooth surface of the marble headstones.
Walking allows me to absorb the atmosphere. That probably sounds artsy, but I think creative people know what I mean. Most locations give you a certain feeling. A doctor’s office might give me an uneasy feeling, and I can’t figure out why until I realize it has some similarity to an office where I had an unpleasant experience. It helps my writing if I give my setting a mood as well as a physical description. Experiencing the atmosphere of places in reality enormously aids my ability to create moods for my settings.
Walking gives me confidence when writing. Because I’ve actually visited the places I’m writing about, I can write with confidence. If someone thinks it’s unbelievable that a character can’t get cell reception to call for help in an Ohio state park, I know he’s mistaken because because I’ve been to Ohio state parks that don’t have reception.
Walking is cheap. If it’s difficult for you to travel for research, walking settings where you live or ones you visit regularly saves you both time and money. When I had to find a town outside of Ohio in which my main character Rae finished high school, I picked the coast of North Carolina because we have vacationed there.

If you write science fiction or fantasy or historical fiction, try to find some equivalent in the current, real world. If your space opera occurs on a desert planet, arrange a visit to a desert. If your historical romance takes place in Victorian London, and you live nowhere close to Great Britain, find a city that still has Victorian architecture. Or a living museum where guides dress and act like people from the period. If the princess-in-disguise from your fantasy hides out in a stable, volunteer to work in one.

For more tips on writing about settings, click here.

Do you walk your settings? How has walking inspired your writing?

August 26, 2021 6

Take Advantage of the Weather in a Setting

I was stumped. While writing A Shadow on the Snow, my YA mystery, I knew I had to describe the weather. The mystery is set in mythical, rural Marlin County, Ohio, during the winter. The weather had to be mentioned. But except for a few key scenes, when the weather added to the plot, my descriptions seemed lifeless and pointless. After wrestling with the problem, I came up with a solution on how to take advantage of the weather in a setting.

More Than Just Scenery

I wrote in my previous writing tip, “Maximize a Setting”, how an ice-and-snowstorm plays a critical role in a chase scene in my novel. But what about the weather in a scene where it doesn’t directly affect the plot. Unlike in a movie, which automatically captures whatever background is behind the actors, I had to deliberately add descriptions so readers could imagine where the characters were interacting. But descriptions as mere descriptions seemed worthless. Could I have the weather assume another role?

Setting the Mood

I decided to use the weather to set the mood for the novel. In the opening chapter, when my main character Rae is feeling good about life, the day is cold but dazzling with sunshine. As she investigates who is stalking her, the weather grows more dismal and oppressive. A breakthrough comes after the snowstorm. The weather is sunny again. Then it grows bleaker as the story proceeds to the climax, which takes place on a foggy evening.

Once I’d given the weather definite purpose, I found it much easier to write.

An author who wrote about the weather very effectively to set the mood is Melville Davisson Post. I’ve reviewed his short stories featuring the detective Uncle Abner, who solves mysteries in pre-Civil War West Virginia.

Other Ways to Use the Weather

It can remind characters of a previous event, and I can work in some backstory.
It can reflect the mood of the main character. A main character bent on revenge can travel through scenes in which the weather becomes increasingly violent.
It can reflect the relationship between characters. The course of a marriage could be charted by the weather. If a couple gets married on a stormy day, that can foreshadow trouble to come. Or if the weather was perfect on their wedding day, the couple holds on to that memory when they run into trouble.

What books have you read that to took advantage of the weather in a setting?

August 19, 2021 3

Maximize a Setting

This is a repost from 2019. I’ve made a few changes. I hope you can learn something from it whether it’s the first or second time you’ve read it.

If there was one Hollywood director who knew how to maximize a setting, it was Alfred Hitchcock.

I hadn’t realized this until I came across a quote in Halliwell’s Harvest. The author Leslie Halliwell stated that Hitchcock believed “the location must be put to work”. That’s why so many of his scenes are still remembered.

North By Northwest: The hero is pursued by enemy spies. When he finds himself on a lonely road out in the country, a crop dusting plane tries to kill him. At the end of this movie, the villain owns a house near Mount Rushmore. The hero and heroine almost fall off the famous faces, trying to escape.
Foreign Correspondent: This movie from 1940 races around Europe with the hero trying to figure out what Nazi agents are up to before WWII. While sneaking up on spies in a windmill in Holland, the hero’s sleeve gets caught in the gears, and he must free himself, silently, before his arm gets crushed.
Pyscho: Hitchcock used the Bates’s home so well that it has become the symbol in America for the kind of rundown, creepy house you don’t linger in front of if you walk past it.

Hitchcock wasn’t the only director to work a location to maximum effect. The movie Niagara from 1953. A young couple, taking a much-delayed honeymoon at the Falls, become involved with another couple, an older man married to a much younger, adulterous wife. The director had scenes shot on the boat Maid of the Mist. Two key scenes occur during the walking tour on the Falls. The Carillon Bell Tower, overlooking the Falls, is the setting for a plot point and a murder. After viewing this movie, I felt like I had traveled back in time to 1953 and was taking a vacation with the characters.

Feel the Heat

Two murder mysteries maximize their settings. I recently rewatched Murder on the Orient Express from 1974, directed by Sidney Lumet. Mr. Lumet did a superb job of making the audience feel the opulence and claustrophobia of traveling on the Express. Another murder mystery movie that uses settings brilliantly is Death on the Nile from 1978. All the outside locations were filmed in Egypt, and director John Guillermin makes the most of them. Set in the 1930’s, rich, young honeymooners climb to the top of the one of the Giza pyramids, a murder is barely thwarted in the temple at Luxor, and a key character returns at the tempe of Abu Simbel. I felt the dust and heat in every scene.

Writers don’t have a camera to paint a setting but we can still get the maximum effect by examining a setting for all its potential to add conflict and tension to our stories. In my upcoming release, A Shadow on the Snow, I have a chase scene set during a snowstorm at night. What advantages does that give me? Well, I can islolate my main character Rae because it’s late and few people are out in the rural county seat because there’s been icy rain and snow for over two hours. The ice makes surfaces slippery, so that can make it difficult for Rae to get away from her pursuer. The heavily falling snow makes it hard for her to keep track of pursuer.

What’s a memorable setting from a movie or book? Or have you written about a unique setting?

August 12, 2021 5

All Writers Engage in World-building

The more I study the craft of writing, the more I understand that all writers engage in world-building. It’s obvious that speculative fiction writers build fantasy worlds, but anytime a writer tries to make real a world the reader is unfamiliar with, she is engaged in world-building, either making the unbelievable believable or the unfamiliar familiar.

Making the Unfamiliar Familiar

Outside of speculate fiction, most writers come under the heading above, even nonfiction ones. In The Guns of August, author Barbara W. Tuchman writes about the events of the summer of 1914 that led to the beginning of World War I.

One scene stands out in my mind is The Ride of the Kings. All of European royalty turned out for the funeral of Edward VII of England in 1910. Nine kings rode with Edward’s surviving brother in the funeral procession. It was one of the last gestures of old-fashioned pageantry before the European countries turned on in each other in war. Ms. Tuchman writes this scenes so vividly that I feel like I was a bystander at the procession. To me, that’s world-building.

As a mystery writer, I find many aspects of my story come under world- building. My short story, “A Rose from the Ashes”, and my work-in-progress, A Shadow on the Snow both take place in a rural county in Ohio. For someone who grew up in a city outside of America, or even inside it, such a setting may seem as strange as a moonbase. It’s my job to describe the setting and the characters who live there in such ways to make them both relatable and unique. I want to find the common threads that all humans can relate to while also highlighting unique features of the place, such as the weather or history.

Another aspect of my stories is law enforcement. Several of my characters are deputies and one is a sheriff. I need to write so that those unfamiliar with this kind of work can live it with the characters. I’ve done a lot of research on such things as how long is shift, do rural cops ever work a shift without back up, and can deputies grow moustaches. I didn’t want to describe a character who is a deputy and give him the mannerism of smoothing his moustache if they aren’t allowed to wear one in Ohio. Little breaks from reality like that make my stories just a little less believable.

If you’re a writer, what kind of world-building do you engage in? If you’re a reader, what story has the most believable world-building?

June 25, 2020 2

Natural Light as Inspiration for Your Writing

Since I was in high school, I’ve found inspiration in how natural light plays across landscapes, whether it’s sunlight or moonlight. When the light catches my attention, I imagine what kind of a scene I could set in it. I’ve incorporated this sensitivity to natural light in Rae Riley, the main character of my short story “A Rose from the Ashes”, and my WIP, A Shadow on the Snow. Rae is an amateur photographer, so I can work in descriptions of natural light works in a way that is believable for my character.

Below are list of ways you can use natural light as inspiration for your writing.

Golden summer evening

Everyone has experienced how wonderfully relaxing a summer evening bathed in golden light is. It seems like the perfect setting for a low-key conclusion to a story. That’s the setting for the last chapter of my first novel. Since I doubt that novel will ever see the light of print, I’m hoping to find a way to recycle this setting in another story.

Bright sunrise

This kind of sunrise seems like a good setting for an upbeat ending to a story. It also makes a powerful contrast if most of you story has taken place at night, especially if the action has been harrowing for the characters. I’m a sucker for stories that take place during the course of one night. A glorious sunrise may be the best way to end it.

Cloudy sunrise

If the day doesn’t start bright, it seems to be a harbinger for a bad day. A cloudy sunrise could kick off a story, foretelling that things won’t go well for the main characters that day.

Bright, clear day

My mood almost always lifts when the humidity is so low that sky is clear of clouds and at its most brilliant blue. It seems like a day overflowing with possibilities. A great way to start an adventure. Or I can use the day as a counterpoint. My main character wants to get out into the gorgeous day and is trapped inside with work or some other obnoxious duty. My plot could be about how she schemes to escape into the beautiful day.

Weird light

Unusual weather circumstances can affect the light strangely. One spring morning when my kids were small, I woke up after my husband had already gone to work. The blinds were drawn in my bedroom, so my first view of the day was when I stepped into my living room. I saw the morning sky was yellow. My first thought: TORNDADO! Immediately, I turned on the TV and found out that severe weather was passing. I can’t remember if the storms produced tornadoes but we didn’t experience anything more than normal thunderstorms.

Unusual weather like the yellow sky calls for dramatic action. My main character could be struggling toward a goal and a storm can be an obstacle or the symbol of obstacles he must over come. Or it could be the backdrop for the ultimate clash between two strong-willed characters.

Another unusual condition of natural light is during a sunset when most of the sky is covered with clouds but there’s a break just above the horizon. When the sun reaches this clear strip of sky, the light seems to get funneled between the clouds and land, creating searing light and deep shadows.

Such harsh light seems appropriate for a climax in which the characters learns the ultimate truth about themselves or the situation they’ve been living in.

Click hear for my post on how to use moonlight on a full moon night to inspire your settings.

How would you use natural light as inspiration for your writing?

May 14, 2020 1

Category: Setting