Setting Moves Characters and Story

Following NaNo Prep Week 4 theme: Build a Strong World for Your Characters, NaNo guest Liza Wolff-Francis shares her expertise on how your setting can shape your story.

An obvious part of beginning a novel is the where of the story, the place, or setting, but sometimes as writers, we don’t think of it first, preferring to jump to plot or characters. The setting helps the writer and the reader feel grounded in a story. It also helps move the story forward. 

Setting includes landscape, like what a reader sees in a place. Where is this story happening? Other factors that make up the setting include season, weather, time of day, and time in history. Is where the story takes place an urban or rural environment? What’s the main religion? What language is spoken? Under what conditions do people live? You may or may not mention all of this, but as the writer, it’s important to know these things. 

When a writer gets a sense of place onto the page at the get-go, characters can bloom and the story can be told. The setting gives the reader an understanding of who is there. Knowing not everyone has the same experience in a place also informs the reader who characters are and how they are in relation to the place. In this place, are the characters leaders? Outcasts? Rebels? Are they products of their environment? If so, how?

The setting of your novel can be a key driving factor of your characters’ behavior. Let the story first give you the idea of the setting, then show the reader ways in which characters respond to the setting. As you continue to develop the sense of place, give the reader details that may also help them understand the place and the characters. Perhaps there is a wildflower growing here that only grows in this place and a character picks it, not knowing it’s illegal to pick. What do they do then? How do they react or experience what they have done? These responses to the setting give us a lot of information about the character.

Explore your options for setting. If you have all action take place in one location, change what the reader sees, change the setting in that location, like in an apartment, move from the kitchen to the hallway to the bedroom. Is there a balcony? A pet bathroom area outside? What floor is the apartment on? Are there windows? If so, what do we see outside? Change your setting and allow your character to be in that new setting too, interacting with it, in it.

If you have one main place, try breaking down that place into several settings within it. Use the setting to your advantage and change it to move your novel forward and to get to know your characters in this place, through the place.

If you get stuck at any point, which can happen in Nanowrimo, (and is totally normal- so don’t give up) try to change the setting or location of the action to see if it pushes you in a new direction. Go ahead and move a character into a new place, even if just slightly new, and show the reader. Use place to enhance your characters. As people, we are aware of where we are and our behavior changes according to the setting we are in. The changes we make to our behavior according to different settings showcase who we are. This is true of our characters too. Write scenes to inform the characters and move through the place and story. Happy writing! Happy NaNoWriMo!

Liza Wolff-Francis is a poet and writer with an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Goddard College who served two terms as a member of the Albuquerque Poet Laureate Program’s Selection Committee and continues on the organizing committee. She wrote in Tupelo Press’ 30/30 poetry challenge in September 2020. Her writing has most recently appeared in Steam Ticket, The Raven’s Perch, SLAB, We’Moon, among others. She has a chapbook out called Language of Crossing and blogs to support mental health through writing at Writeyourbutterfly.com.

Top Photo by John Fowler on Unsplash