Tag: Tips on writing settings

Inspiration for Settings in A Storm of Doubts

Inspiration for Settings in A Storm of Doubts

It’s hard for authors to evaluate their own stories. One thing I have trouble with is judging whether I’m describing a setting well enough. I want to write about my settings vividly enough for readers to think they are in the scene with the characters. Writing the settings in my latest novel was no different. One way for me to do this is to visit actual places and take photos. This information provided inspiration for settings in A Storm of Doubts.

Writing from my own back yard

I’m fortunate that the county where I live is not much different from the part of the state where I place fictional Marlin County, Ohio. So I find inspiration as soon as I walk out my door. But I have to pay attention. Last spring I took photos of wildflowers on my bike rides so I’d know what flowers were blooming when my novel takes place, which is Memorial Day to Father’s Day.

I also took a vacation to a state park in southeastern Ohio at the right time of year and discovered something I probably wouldn’t have discovered if I hadn’t hiked in that area. In early June, so much honeysuckle is in bloom that the entire woods are perfumed with a smell similar to Easter lilies.

Literary inspiration

Literary inspiration also helped me describe my settings. One of these books, one of my favorite novels, is Watership Down. Now, you might think a cozy mystery would have nothing in common with a classic of fantasy fiction. But Mr. Adams’s description of nature as his tribe of wild rabbits experience it inspired me to write about the nature my characters experience in my own version of his immersive style.

My settings were also inspired by The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, which may seem odd. HIs description of a golden evening that the Time Traveller finds in the year 892,701 is one of the best I’ve read that captures the mood of a warm, summer evening. In The Time Machine, the beauty of the evening belies the dark secret of the culture the Time Traveller discovers. But in Storm, my final scene occurs just before supper on Father’s Day, and the golden light plays an important role in setting a peaceful mood.

What books have you read that make you feel like you living in the setting?

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Analyzing the Mood of a Setting

analyzing the mood of a setting

One thing I enjoy about visiting new places is analyzing the mood of a setting. Of course, the mood I bring to a location will affect how I perceive it, but I also try to examine the “vibe” a place gives off, independent of how I’m feeling at the time.

For example, I visited a library in a small city. Now I’m predisposed to love libraries because I’ve used them since I was a child and was a children’s librarian for ten years. But I wasn’t in the building long before I felt uncomfortable and even depressed. This wasn’t a friendly library. So I tried to figure out why I felt that way. Signs were posted warning patrons about rules. The library was extra quiet. Although the staff was polite, they weren’t friendly, as if they had other things to do than wait on patrons. I have the impression that removing books from the shelves would have been frowned upon.

Once I’ve dissected the mood of a place, I can file it away for possible use in a story.

Want to try out your analysis of setting? Check out these setting prompts.

Do you analyze the mood of a setting? How do you write about it?

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Start a Story with a Setting

how to start a story with a setting

Settings are the ugly ducklings in the world of literary elements. They aren’t appreciated for how rich they can make a story. But some writers can’t begin a story without first finding the right setting. Maybe you want to start a story with a setting, but that’s as far as you’ve gotten. How can you develop characters? Concoct a plot? Find a theme? Ask yourself the questions below so you can home in on why this setting seems perfect for inspiring a story, beyond that you kinda like it.

What first attracted you to the setting?

Is it because you are very familiar with it? Knowing a setting down to its roots can make it come alive to readers. Maybe it’s the small mountain town where you grew up. Or the fishing boat you worked on for three summer in high school. Perhaps you’ve worked at a fish hatchery for ten years and know that business inside and out. Or you love to bird and love the settings you’ve visited to pursue your hobby.

Or maybe the setting captured your interest because you’d love to know more about it. I started watching Nova and Nature on PBS years ago because my oldest is a science nut. I still watch them because I find them introducing me to worlds and occupations I never new about. Several years ago, PBS showed a series on a revitalized Gorongosa Park in Mozambique. A wildlife filmmaker who grew up in neighboring African countries was the host. Through the series, I learned about him, the rangers in the park, his sister, who studies elephants, and the politics of the country, both past and present–all kinds of information stemming from a gorgeous location.

Who lives in this setting?

Once you pinpoint why you think your setting would be terrific for a story, make a list of the people you would find there. If you’re not sure, do research. Like I said above, I learned about the people who live in and around the national park, enough to spark ideas for stories set there. If you can visit your setting, talk to the people living there. While on vacation on the coast of North Carolina, my family took a pontoon boat to Cape Lookout. The captain of our boat had the strangest accent– it sounded like a cross between Australian and southern. As he spoke to other passengers, I learned that he had been raised on one of the barrier islands along the North Carolina coas, and those people have their own unique accents. I’d heard the same thing about people growing up on islands in Chesapeake Bay.

That got me to thinking: why do they have unique accents? Do people still living there retain them or is the outside world making them sound like everyone else in North Carolina? What would it be like to grow up in a place that’s isolated enough to produce its own accent?

How do people live in this setting?

Once you start getting to know the people of a setting, plots will start popping. If you want to use your hometown, maybe it’s because a corrupt mayor was arrested there when you were in junior high and you think that could kick off the plot for a mystery. Since I tend to write for teens, I might wonder what it’d be like for a high schooler to have grown up on a barrier island and feel torn between a life there and one in the larger world.

For more advice on writing about settings, click here.

How would you start a story with a setting?

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