“The world is wily and doesn’t want to be caught.”
-Susan Mitchell
Struggling with writing about setting?
Here are some quick and easy tips to keep in mind as you craft the world around your characters.
Keep It In Character
You’ve given your main character a unique voice all her own, born from her individual experiences. Keep that unique voice going even when she’s describing the setting. A sarcastic heroine doesn’t lose that bite just because she’s in a quiet library full of books. A morose teenager is going to describe a rainbow like it’s a funeral shroud. These quirks endear them to readers and make them feel like real people. Writing about the setting through their perspectives creates natural opportunities to build on that characterization.
Always ask yourself if the detail you are describing is something your character would notice. A runner would notice the musculature of someone she’s just meeting–a child likely wouldn’t. A workaholic would notice the seconds ticking away on a clock–a retiree likely wouldn’t.
Keep It Relevant
Ask yourself: Does the reader need to know this? The waiter’s shirt might be purple, but is that important for the reader to know? Does it add to the plot, the characterization, or the theme? Does it ground the reader? Is there something more dynamic that can accomplish any of these things?
Don’t forget the emotional state of your main character. A person’s state of mind wreaks havoc on their perceptive abilities. If your main character is distraught, he isn’t likely to remark on the flower species lining the pathway to the haunted house.
Keep It Active
Our world isn’t static and neither is your story’s. Use active voice when describing the setting. We tend to associate the use of Active vs Passive Voice with scenes laden with character movement, but the setting isn’t a picture frozen in time. It is a living, breathing place your characters move through and interact with. Make sure the narrative pace doesn’t stall out when describing it.
Keep It Brief
And speaking of narrative pace—keep your descriptions brief. We’ve all heard the cliches about fantasy writers describing every tree in the wide, wide forest. You want your readers to turn the page because they need to know what happens next, not because they want to skim over a flowery description of a sunrise. Only linger over a setting if there is a narrative purpose. It’s important to ground your readers, but don’t bury them in details. Give them what is relevant to the plot, to the character, and to the moment, but also give readers wiggle room to insert their own imagination. Readers engage with writing that let’s them project and play.
Keep It Engaged with the Senses
Characters take in the world the same way you do—with their eyes, ears, nose, skin, and tongue. When writing about the setting, engage your character’s senses. What are they seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling, or tasting?
But don’t ‘filter’ it.
Filter words like see, hear, smell, feel, taste place a barrier between the character’s experience and the reader’s engagement.
Filtered: I felt the cold wind tousle my curls as I heard a bell chime in the distance.
Unfiltered: The cold wind tousled my curls as a bell chimed in the distance.
When the character uses filter words to describe the setting, it comes off to the reader more like a newspaper report than an immersive story. You want your readers immersed in the setting. When they are immersed, they are invested. When they are invested, you’ve done your job.