I was set up!

I came across some great writing advice recently on Julie Elizabeth Leto’s website. She has a list of articles here, but the two that stood out for me were ‘Where Am I? The Importance of Setting to Your Romance Novel’ and ‘Ditching "The Book Of Your Heart" for "The Book Of My Voice".’

The first article, ‘Where Am I?,’ talks about the importance of setting. Now, although she talks specifically about the romance genre, it is true to any genre. Leto makes a great point that I hadn’t thought of: “Anyone who wakes up suddenly in a new place usually has only one question that must be answered first: where am I?” How true! And, looking at setting from this perspective, I realize how truly important it really is to ground a story.

Holly Lisle, in her Worldbuilding Workshop, also recommends knowing your setting well when you write a novel. Now, although she creates new worlds for her fantasy novels, she says no matter what the setting is, you need to have it mapped out. “Everyone needs a map. Even if your entire novel takes place within a single house over the course of a single day, you need to lay out the house -- the placement of windows, which side faces north, where doors, halls, and rooms lie in relation to each other. Nothing is more disconcerting than being told that sunlight is pouring through a window in a room we were previously told faced north. Or having bedrooms wandering around like sleepwalkers, on minute accessible from the kitchen and the next, only by going up stairs.”

Good point.

However, the importance of planning your setting goes further than just providing consistency. Leto says the setting is important to create the right ambiance for the story. Just like dark gloomy skies can be used as foreshadowing or to set a foreboding mood, so can the entire setting. But, it’s not just the setting that’s important, but also how you describe it. Leto says, “Setting and atmosphere must be considered nearly the same thing, since one is dependent on the other. To have setting without mood and atmosphere means a lack of emotional connection--a major no-no in romance. To have only mood and atmosphere and no concrete place invites confusion in the reader.”

Leto quotes William Noble, the author of Make That Scene: A Writer's Guide to Setting, Mood and Atmosphere, when she says, “Setting provides three crucial contributions to your story:
(1) It adds vividness to your story(2) It influences character(3) It plays a vital role in the story
If a setting you've chosen doesn't interlock this tightly with the story you're about to tell-if it's just a backdrop as changeable as stage scenery-you may not have chosen the right place for your story to occur.”

Here are some links about writing settings:
Writing Dynamic Settings
Creating a Vivid Setting
Four Ways to Bring Settings to Life
Writing Fiction: A Beginner’s Guide – part 3: setting
Creating the Perfect Setting
It's Your World: Setting Your Novel
Houses are People Too: The Structure of a Literary Device
How To Achieve Effective Setting
The Power of Place
Setting
Creating the perfect setting for writing fiction

Well there you have it. Do you think setting is important in novels? Why or why not?

Nienke
PS In my next post I will cover Leto’s other article: ‘Ditching "The Book Of Your Heart" for "The Book Of My Voice".’