Describing the Setting

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Describing the Setting

• Narrative Writing
• Craft Lesson
• Pg.72

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Settings

• All stories take place somewhere. Any story you
  are writing- whether fiction or nonfiction-
  happens in some particular place.

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• A story might be set at the beach

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• another might take place in a shopping mall.

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• Writers talk about this as the setting of the
  story. Often they include a description of the
  place so the reader can get a feeling for the
  storys setting.

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Book Setting Description
Marshfield Dreams The swamp I love the dank smell of the swamp and all the things that lived there mossy logs and goggle-eyed frogs, blood- suckers and eels and foul-smelling skunk cabbage.
Working Cotton In the farm fields The field fire send up gray trail to the hazy sky. The rows of cotton stretch far as I can see.
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Settings to Reveal Characters

• Imagine a movie about a young woman whose beloved
  has left her. We see her staring out a
  rain-streaked window, wiping away her tears. This
  is no accident. The director chose this
  particular setting to reinforce the womans
  emotional state.

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• Writers do the same thing. They use the setting
  to help bring alive the inner life of a character.

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• Think of the character Max, the giant in the
  book titled Freak the Mighty. Maxs is a huge
  size and is not very smart. This combination of
  things made him the center of a lot of jokes. As
  the book begins, Max spends most of his time in
  his grandparents basement, a place he calls the
  down and under. It makes sense that this dim
  hole in the ground would be the only place that
  a misfit like Max would feel comfortable. Its a
  place to hide.

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• You see the same thing in the book, What Jamie
  Saw. Jamie, his mother, and the baby leave their
  house to get away from Van, the mothers
  boyfriend. They move to a tiny silver trailer.
  (Jamie felt that he was in a box, or a
  hollowed-out bullet.) The author makes use of
  the setting outside the trailer in the same way.
  The landscape Jamie sees outside is a cold and
  frozen as the feelings inside of him.

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Settings that Shapes the Action

• We are now going to look at how the setting
  can be an integral part of the story and actually
  shape what happens.

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• In the book, Phoenix Rising, the setting has an
  enormous impact on the plot as well as on the
  characters. The novel takes place on a Vermont
  sheep farm. There has been a recent explosion at
  a nearby nuclear plant. Many of the people and
  farm animals in the area have been poisoned by
  radiation.

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• The very first scene shows Nyle Sumner, the
  main character, walking on her grandmothers
  farm. Nyle is wearing a gauze mask, and we learn
  that she has had to wear it for the past week.
  Soon Nyle and her family have to take in a boy
  who has been severely poisoned by radiation.

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When you write, think these things about your
setting.

• Where does your story take place?
• What description could you include to help a
  reader get a sense of that place?
• Does your setting hint at the feelings going on
  inside of your characters?
• Have I used details that really describes the
  place where my story happens?
• How might the setting affect what happens.