Your Setting Needs To Be a Character in Your Story

Too often when we write we focus exclusively on our cast of characters, and what they're doing. However, we sometimes forget that for the story to really stick in the minds of the audience, it needs to have a setting. And not just any setting, but a vibrant setting that feels like it's part of the unfolding drama the audience is watching. Because without a strong setting, a story is like a sandwich without bread; messy, and unappealing.

Where is this place? And why is our story unfolding here?

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Where The Hell is This Story Happening?

To illustrate this week's point, I want to tell a story about something I was asked to edit as a freelancer many years ago. I won't mention the title of the work, nor the name of the client (and it's entirely possible it was never even published), but I feel that one of the major mistakes this author made drives home this point.

The plot of this book was not at all uncommon. We had a kid from the suburbs who was on the cusp of turning 18, and hoping to flee an abusive situation. He ran away to the big city, and while he was there wound up on the streets. He met an older man with a penchant for taking care of strays, and the two of them formed a relationship.

We all know how this story goes.

There were a lot of things wrong with the nuts and bolts of this story when I got it, but one that I drew a big, red circle around was that it was never made clear what city our suburban teen was running away to, or what part of the country (there were enough earmarks to trig that this was America) he had grown up in. Even accounting for the fact that there was a truly cold winter in later chapters, that didn't narrow anything down. This still could have been New York, Chicago, Boston, Minneapolis, Seattle, or even L.A. if it was a particularly bad year for the weather.

But every, single one of the cities I mentioned (to say nothing of places like London, Paris, Belfast, etc.) would have their own personalities, history, architecture, and setup to inform the story. Everything from the layout of the city, to what kinds of public transportation exist, the sorts of social services one can find, neighborhood cultures, and just the way people talk will be radically different from one place to another. And, for this particular example, the suburbs of these cities also have their own histories, personalities, etc. that should be a part of the character's makeup, to say nothing of the story itself.

Now, including those elements would have fixed one problem with this project, but it would have been a sizable, and obvious one. Because it's not enough to just say there are cars on the street, or tall buildings around you... that's a light sketch. Your audience needs you to paint the picture for them so they can really get immersed in this tale you're trying to tell.

And this goes double if you're story is set in a fantastical realm, or in the sci-fi future... because in those situations you can't even draw on the assumption that your audience may have visited a place like where you're story is set, or at least seen one on TV.

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That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

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Age Needs To Be More Than Just a Number For Your Characters

Fiction is full of characters whose appearance belies their age. From vampires and aliens, to elves and mutants, there are a dozen tropes surrounding characters who are somewhere between long-lived and immortal. However, this is one of those areas where the urge to tell often overtakes the urge to show... and you really get way more out of these reveals if you show them to your audience rather than just tossing a number at them.

There's a reason this have been on my mind again, of late, for those who are wondering.

Doing It Poorly...

Giving examples is one of the best ways I've found to make solid points about techniques to use in writing, but I figured we'd get the most out of these examples by starting with the bad ones. And while there are plenty of potential examples out there, the one that bubbles to the surface in my mind is Twilight. I'm not even going to put an affiliate link for that book, that's how negatively I feel about the series, and the imprint it left behind on pop culture.

That's a whole separate blog post.

For this example, I'm going to use the film rather than the text. Simply put, the revelation of the vampire characters' ages tends to be done as matter-of-fact exposition rather than revealed through actions, speech, style, etc. We never have a moment where Edward has oddly dated speech or slang, or where he inadvertently reveals something telling (even if was a simple, "I learned to drive stick shift," cutting himself off before revealing he's older than automatic transitions, to say nothing of modern cars). In much the same way that the signs for him being a strange, inhuman creature are all blatantly just handed to the audience, we just get told his age instead of drawing out the suspense and letting us work for it. As such, it just slides right off of us without impact.

There are other vampire movies that do this (most whose names I can't remember, as they were only shown on Saturday afternoons by hosts with specific, spooky schticks), but we also see it in the original Dungeons and Dragons film. While a slapstick romp that's alternatively fun and cringe-worthy, there's a throwaway line in it where our comedy sidekick is trying to put the moves on an elven woman. Her curt response is to just toss her age at him (something absurd, I think it was in the 800s), and then to move on with her scene.

The issue is that in these examples, being told how old these characters are has no bearing on how we perceive them. It isn't reflected in meaningful ways, and there's no weight behind it. It's no different than being told someone is 26 or 40... we can mentally accept the age, but it doesn't affect the characters or the story in any way that re-contextualizes them.

Doing It Well...

From the other end of the spectrum, when a character's longevity is revealed over time, or in meaningful ways, it can be like a punch to the gut to the audience. It can make us feel for them, and at the same time add so much weight to the story, and their interactions in it, that the fact becomes impossible to ignore.

You probably know where this one is going.

If you've seen the extended edition of The Two Towers, then you already know the scene I'm talking about. However, in case you haven't seen it, for a swath of the film the young blonde Eowyn has been trying to catch our ranger's eye. One thing she does is make him some soup while they're on the trail; she's not much of a cook, but she tried. Then she brings up something funny her uncle said. He remembers Aragorn from when he was a boy, and said the ranger rode to war to war with Thengel, Eowyn's grandfather. Rather than laughing about how the king must be mistaken, Aragorn nods, and says he's surprised Theoden remembers, since he was only a small boy at the time.

We watch as Eowyn re-evaluates what she knows of Aragorn in that moment, going from playful, to surprised, to horrifically awestruck every time she guesses a higher number. Realizing in a way that is real for her, and thus real for the audience, that Aragorn's blood has made him long-lived, and that he has seen and done things far beyond the scope of a mortal's years.

It's not just the revelation that Aragorn is actually 87 when he looks like a rugged mid-30s, but Eowyn's reaction that drives it home. It casts all the skills he's displayed in a different light, and makes us look at him with a fresh perspective. It makes us realize that, for all his nobility, passion, and strength, that he is in a lot of ways an outsider to other people. That those who were afraid of the man called Strider might have had good reason to feel the way they did after all.

There are other instances of similar reveals really adding a lot to how characters are perceived. Wolverine, for example, played on this for years as we steadily realized he was far older than any living mutant on the heroes' side of things. Sometimes it was subtle, with mentions of certain bits of history that he was present for, or showing us skills he'd learned that he'd never showed off before. Other times it was blatant, with flashbacks in the 60s, World War II, and other eras where Logan looked the same as he always has. And in the Netflix adaptation of the Witcher, we see that Geralt is the stoic, grunting, easily annoyed curmudgeon many of us think our grandparents are... and that the mutations that make him so good at what he does might be responsible for his long life. Possibly feeding into the legends that Witchers have no feelings... because on a long enough timeline, everyone you knew or cared about will die, and you'll be left as their children, and even their grandchildren, grow old all around you.

Give Your Years Some Weight

If you're going to have characters whose age defies their appearance (or if it's something people just can't tell when they look at them in the case of strange or alien characters), don't just write a number on it. Writing a number tells us nothing, and gives us no value; it's just a fact.

Make us feel this character's age in big ways, and small ones. Show us the parts of them that never changed, and the little things that make them unique. Give us a glimpse into their inner lives, and show us a piece of their past that can put who they are and what they're doing into context. It's harder, yes, but you'll get a lot more oomph out of it, and it can make a character into an audience favorite if you do it just right.

Also, for more on this topic I'd suggest checking out the 4 Tips For Making Long-Lived Characters FEEL Old over on my sister blog Improved Initiative!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife!

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!