Category Archives: Setting and Milieu

It’s the quiet ones you’ve got to watch out for like when the kids are suddenly quiet and that tells you there’s trouble’s afoot. It’s the same in a story. When setting is too quiet, your story is in trouble. The problem with setting as character is that setting has no real voice, at least it doesn’t participate in dialogue directly – or does it?

Setting, we are told, must do more than be a background for characters to engage in. It should determine HOW they engage, WHY they engage and REVEAL how characters see their world, themselves and others. Setting is the voiceless character who niggles, needles, exaggerates, creates, destroys, challenges, extracts and dampens. How do you write a voiceless character?

For great ideas and the basics on creating setting and world building, you can peruse our archives. But to understand how to make setting as real and alive as your other characters, here are some things to be aware of:

6) Setting is personal. To understand what is important to POV character ask him how he’d react and feel if his world was suddenly changed or destroyed. What would he miss? What would he fight for? When a person loses their home whether it’s because of weather, war, politics or even choice, there is loss and grieving. That makes setting personal. Does setting herald change or present a conflict? Is there a storm? A volcano about to erupt, a nuclear device about to explode? An impending war? Political change? A lost love? A demand to convert?

2) Setting is the voiceless, albeit dynamic, character with whom the POV interacts and relates to varying degrees. This interaction reveals both the world and the character just as any good dialogue reveals something about its participants. How will the man in a suit react if he finds himself: in the midst of a medieval battle against dragons? Hitchhiking with a suitcase in hand? With an extremely belligerent client threatening a much needed sale? Performing on stage?

Let’s take the suit analogy one step further: Setting is more than just the background fabric of your character’s experience, it is the tailored cloth, designed, sewn and fitted just for him. In the pockets of that tailoring, he carries with him the tools he needs to be his larger than life self or not – sometimes it’s the pockets which are stitched shut or the empty ones that are the most revealing.

3) The POV can only see what’s import to him so we must be able to see and understand his world through his eyes. His experiences and his reactions form his dialogue with setting. Is a hot sunny day a reason to hide indoors, play on the beach, curse the office job, time for a cold beer in the pub, a perfect day to move the troops? Is a fog depressing or an opportunity for mischief? Thus the reader learns the most about the character and his setting when the descriptions are filtered through his point of view.

4) Setting reveals what is unique an important for the POV thus allowing his voice to come through. Not every character experiences (physically or emotionally), understands or reacts to the same environment in the same way.

5) It’s more than just geography – it’s the sociology, economy, level of technology, religion, politics, societal and personal values of the POV and those he interacts with. These are areas of potential conflict. Just as importantly, setting tells us what we need to know about the POV. What does the world/setting expect from him? Saint or serf? Hero or villain? It can also include sensory inputs: sight, smell, sound, touch, taste, heat, cold, or the passage of time. Remember the suit? In some societies, clothing symbolizes status and what the POV and others wear is important.

6) Setting is active, has impact and can change throughout the story. Is it friend or foe? Is it a place to hide (friend), a fight on a cliff (foe), dystopia (foe), utopia (friend), does it impede (foe) or help (friend) the POV’s plans? How does it help or hinder a POV from achieving his story goal? If it’s too dull, blow it out of proportion to make it larger than life just like you do to achieve maximum impact with plot or character. A POV can always change the setting, or strive to. Change may be societal, political, within a community, family or locales.

Like other characters, setting can based on an archetype. Archetypes typically offer challenges, gifts and opportunities for POVs. Does the the setting in your story have archetypal traits and if so, what can you do to make it a stronger character?

The Sorcerer: a place of magic which has interesting consequences
The Magician: where we can be made to believe anything but is it real? Is the situation sustainable? What happens when the luck wears off? Is this a place of transformation with the gift of power?
The Green Man: a life force that impels growth, vitality but growth has a dark side of death and decay.
The Mentor: possesses wisdom, is a teacher and sometimes a healer. Can serve as a motivator, conscience and gives the hero a gift once he’s earned it.
The Herald: a challenge for change the herald can be a force, a thing, an event (tornado). The herald disturbs, unbalances.
The Threshold Guardian: tests the hero by providing obstacles; not always defeated but the hero learns from the experience.
The Shape Shifter: friend or foe, will the shape shifter help or hinder/betray? Crafty and charismatic, the shape shifter confuses and tests the hero.

So maybe setting isn’t such a quiet character after all. Voiceless in some ways, but it speaks its own extremely complex language. Archetype, friend or foe, setting is a dynamic environment that is as alive as any other character because it illuminates, challenges, and demands calls the POV to action.

Islandia – A Utopian Love Story

May 15, 2014

Ace Jordyn

Ace Jordyn Reading Setting and Milieu World-building 1 Comment

Masterful in its attention to detail and a very human story, Islandia is a quiet classic – quiet in that it hasn’t garnered the publicity that many classics have, but a classic because its story and writing endure. Considered utopian literature, Islandia is a pre-industrial civilization which respects women and that confronts early twentieth century colonialism. However, it’s much more than a commentary on political and economic realities in the early 1900’s, it is world building at its best – of not only the geography, social, economic and political structures, but of a society and its heart. The depth of its world building has been compared to Tolkien.

John Lang is hired as the American Consul at the behest of his uncle and other parties, with the expectation that he will promote their economic aspirations and will convince Islandia to end its isolation. Excited to reunite with an Islandian friend he made in college, Lang is still shocked to find himself in an agrarian, low-tech world. As he learns about this strange new world, he learns about himself and finds himself at odds with his mission, his values and his heart. Lang’s struggle is best summed up in a review on Goodreads by Terry:

‘Lang finds himself divided, a part of him struggling to be a good consul, loyal to his home and profession with the ulterior motive that his success at winning his country’s desires will also bring him his own personal ones, though at the cost of all that his closest Islandian friends hold dear; and so an even stronger part of himself fights against his own ‘better’ judgement and all concepts of what is realistic or pragmatic in the name of a beautiful ideal that will mean the end of his own personal hopes and dreams.’

Islandia was a world imagined by Wright since his childhood. He never shared it with anyone and he had written thousands of pages about the place and its people. Upon his untimely death, his wife taught herself to type and created a 2,000 page novel. Their daughter edited it to 1,000 pages and it was first published in 1942.

This novel is not an action adventure with a fast paced plot and some readers may find the initial story set up a little slow. Neither does it fit into the modern romance genre. It is a captivating drama which draws the reader into a world so completely that one longs to visit it. Thus, it is more than a utopian exercise on the values of the industrial society, its politics and impact on its people – it is a story about personal values and understanding one’s and another’s heart. Perhaps that’s why this novel has so quietly endured.

It is also a tribute of love to a man who so fully imagined and lived this world. Had it not been for the love and dedication of his wife and daughter, this poignant society which so richly understands itself, would never have been realized so that we too may experience it.

For all these reasons Islandia has so quietly endured and become a classic. On so many levels it is a Utopian Love Story – about falling in and out of love with one’s family, oneself, another, one’s country and with a world so different from the one we know. Islandians would tell you that there are four words to express love: amia – love of friends, alia – love of place and family land and lineage, ania – desire for marriage and commitment, and apia – sexual attraction. These are indeed, utopian concepts of the heart.

Writing Who You’re Not

April 11, 2014

mary

Character Craft & Skills Mary Pletsch The Writing Life World-building Writing Tools 1 Comment

Two aliens walked into a bar. “Greetings, Earthling,” they said to the bartender. “Take us to your leader!”

That was the point where Dar’xyl threw the book across the room. “Human authors can’t write us worth scrap!”
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While I was studying for my Master’s degree in English, I sat through several classroom arguments to the effect of, “This (male) author can’t write realistic female characters; this (female) author fetishizes gay men when she writes; this (Black) author shouldn’t write a book about Native Americans; no, wait, it’s okay when this Black author writes about Native Americans, but not when these White authors do.” I left these classes wondering if I dared ever write about anyone who came from a culture, ethnic origin, religion, sexual orientation or any background and experience different from my own.

If I only wrote characters rooted in my own personal experience, all the people in my stories would be female, white, under 40, Canadian, and of German, English or Jewish heritage. There would be no Asian people, no transgender people, no Muslim people, no elderly people, and no men. The setting would always be late-twentieth or early-twenty-first century, Planet Earth.

I wouldn’t want to write in this world. It’s got no relation to the world around me—it doesn’t feel real—and I’ve yet to think of a compelling and logical reason why it would be peopled only with characters whose experiences parallel my own. In order to write a realistic, compelling world, you’ll probably have to create at least a few characters whose experiences are rooted in backgrounds you don’t share (unless you’re writing about, for example, an isolated village in China where everyone is probably Chinese; or a colony where a plague has killed all the men; or another scenario where minimal diversity is a critical component of the setting).

On the other hand, it’s one thing to make your character a different faith, gender, age or ethnicity, but another thing to write such a person realistically. Oftentimes authors, sometimes unconsciously, fall into stereotypes when they try to write from a different point of view. Take some time to do some research and understand what experiences, attitudes, and cultural values might shape such a person’s thinking and worldview. Choose carefully what story you want to tell – is it a story best told by someone with personal experience? For example, I’m comfortable writing a story with a gay male lead, but I’m not comfortable writing a story about what it’s like to be a gay man in modern Canada.

Also understand that just because two characters come from the same religion/ethnic background/culture/etc., doesn’t mean their worldviews are going to be the same. Losing an arm, for example, will be a different experience for the rich person who buys a cutting-edge prosthetic limb than it will be for the poor thief who now has to make a living with just one hand. Being Black is going to be a different experience for the Black kid who’s the only Black person in her entire high school than it is for the Black kid who grows up surrounded by a community – and that community’s experience will differ depending on if it’s in 1990s Nova Scotia or 1960s Alabama. Being Christian can run the gamut from Mother Teresa to the Westboro Baptist Church, and so on.

The best weapon in the writer’s arsenal is the ability to imagine and empathize with another’s point of view. This was a challenge to me in a recent short story in which the main character is a religious leader, but his own belief is best described as agnostic. I was tired of – yes, a stereotype, in which every character who is a religious leader is always either highly devout, or else utterly corrupt. I wanted to create a character who wrestles with his faith, who tries to fulfill the duties of his job despite deep personal misgivings.

I’ve always been a strongly religious person, so I had to imagine: what experiences made this person an atheist in his youth? What experiences made him suspect that there might be a God after all? Why did he choose his current faith over all the others? Why is he still unsure that his God is real? Writing this character helped me imagine an experience different from any I’ve ever had myself.

This is one of the great powers of fiction: the ability to make the reader understand, empathize, and see the world through different eyes—to experience what it’s like to be someone else. Sometimes that “someone else” is a person of a different gender, ethnicity, faith, age…the list goes on. This power challenges the writer to provide a view that doesn’t simply reinforce cultural stereotypes. And even though the story might be fiction, the understanding of how that point of view feels from inside, can linger long after the story is over.

*If you’re curious – you can meet Shaman Pasharan, Sigil of the Silver Future, in the upcoming EDGE anthology Tesseracts 18: Wrestling with Gods, in a story entitled “Burnt Offerings.”

Showing through Point of View

April 10, 2014

Jace Killan

Character Craft & Skills Jace Killan POV The Writing Life World-building 1 Comment

In my early writing I struggled with Point of View. I recently reread one of the first chapters I had written where I switched point of view seven times. I improved to the point where POV wasn’t my main fault, instead it was telling the story rather than showing it.

I’ve since learned that POV can be an extremely effective tool to help show the story. Allowing our characters to experience and react to the circumstances in which we place them, helps to endear the reader, reinforce the scene, and establish conflict.

Junic sat beside his friend facing the numerous rows of bottles and tins, the best the seven galaxies had to offer. His mouth watered. He hadn’t tasted liquor since the invasion of Gareth, four years earlier.

Hopefully in the few sentences above, the reader gets a glimpse at the premise of the story based on the prompt “two aliens walked into a bar.”

In developing my main character, Junic, I assigned him a foreign sounding name to help with the suggestion that he isn’t from modern day USA. From his point of view we see that he is sitting next to a friend, and there are rows of bottles, perhaps in a cellar, maybe a bar, but then tins doesn’t quite work with that image so it adds to the foreignism of the scene.

Junic obviously knows what’s in the bottles and the scene isn’t foreign to him at all. I can use that to invite the reader to trust me as I create and show them a world.

The term seven galaxies might reinforces the alien setting, while adding an element to the world. I indicate here that there is a social structure, a system of which Junic is a part. I could let him react to that structure at some point, maybe identify his place in the caste system or have him react to authority. I can use adjectives to indicate his mood or elaborate on his thoughts. Such as the “blasted” seven galaxies or magnificent, or heathen, or doomed. Each could indicate more of the world and setting and any would give us further insight into our character.

“His mouth watered.” A human response, if Junic is human or humanlike, I really hadn’t thought that far ahead, however his response is relatable. Often with physical reactions like a tear, a yawn, a scratch of the head, and so on, a memory is provoked. The scene causes Junic’s mouth to water and he thinks of the last time he tasted what was in those bottles.

In the Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett, Mary Lennox (a proper British name) is introduced in a scene given from her point of view.

‘“Why did you come?” she said to the strange woman. “I will not let you stay. Send my Ayah to me.”’

From this short dialogue we learn a bit about Mary and her world. Adjectives should be representative of the point of view. The woman was strange to Mary, unknown. She wanted to see her Ayah. At this point I’m not sure if that is a person or a position. Either way, Mary seems to want Ayah, and by her demanding response to this woman gives the sense that Mary is or at least thinks she is in charge.

Later it reads

“There was something mysterious in the air that morning. Nothing was done in its regular order and several of the native servants seemed missing, while those whom Mary saw slunk or hurried about with ashy and scared faces. But no one would tell her anything and her Ayah did not come.”

I get the sense that tragedy has occurred, though I’m not sure yet what it is. By now in the story I can tell that I’m seeing the world from the eyes of young girl, and discovering the tragedy with her. Another adjective, “scared” sticks out to me. Children can perceive fear. She’s observing them, trying to figure out what’s going on by gauging their reactions. I gain a sense that the young girl is spoiled and depends greatly on her Ayah, that I suspect as being some sort of nanny. My opinion of Mary develops and adds to the conflict. Her attitude is reflected in the point of view, in her dialogue and in her actions.

The following is a piece of dialogue from The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins:

‘”You look beautiful,” says Prim in a hushed voice.

‘”And nothing like myself,” I say. I hug her, because I know these next few hours will be terrible for her. Her first reaping. She’s about as safe as you can get since she’s only entered once. I wouldn’t let her take out any tesserae. But she’s worried about me. That the unthinkable might happen.’

In just a few sentences I’m introduced to two characters, I gain a sense of their feelings, I am shown a glimpse into their society, and am invited into a world, foreign to me, but known to them.

Being in first person, I’m drawn to the mind and feelings of Katniss the main character. Be careful in first person to not be too revealing and telling.

Through dialogue I gather that Katniss is beautiful, but is out of her element from being prettied up. Maybe she’s a tomboy. I also sense that there is apprehension in the scene. The adjective hushed suggests a somberness to the ambiance. And a hug for comfort suggests something bad is about to happen.

I’m curious about the reaping. I know what it means in english, but have never heard it referred to as a repeated event, so it must be a part of their culture, perhaps a rite of passage. Reading this I’m not sure what tesserae is, but Katniss does. I don’t need to know what it is right this minute. In my earlier writing I would feel the need to explain a new term (tell) rather than let it be discovered as its mentioned in certain contexts and reinforced (show). I assume that the reaping is some custom of their system with negative consequences. Using these terms helps show me Katniss’ world.

Whatever story you’re reading, take note how the author uses point of view to invite you into the world, develop the setting, and endear the reader. And for some practice, try your hand at the prompt, “two aliens walk into a bar.” Feel free to share it with us in the comments.