Settings & worlds · Tip 36 of 82 · 4 min read
Setting the Scene: Where Is Your Story?
Pick a few sharp details so your reader can step right into the place where your story happens.
Close your eyes and imagine a beach. Now a haunted house. Now a busy bus station. Each one popped into your head straight away, didn't it? That's the power of a setting. When you tell your reader where they are, their imagination starts building it for them.
Choose details, not everything
You don't need to describe every chair, cup and cloud. Pick two or three details that make this place different from every other place like it. Your reader will fill in the rest.
Okay 😐
The kitchen had a table, four chairs, a fridge, a cooker, a sink, a window and some cupboards.
Wow! 🤩
Gran's kitchen always smelled of toast. The fridge was so covered in postcards you could hardly see it was white, and the clock above the cooker had been ten minutes fast for as long as anyone could remember.
The first one is a list anyone could write. The second one could only be Gran's kitchen.
Start wide, then zoom in
Think like a film camera. Start with a quick wide view so the reader knows roughly where they are, then zoom in on one small, interesting thing.
The market filled the whole square, a tangle of striped awnings and shouting stallholders. At the very end, squashed between the fish stall and the flower stall, was a tiny table selling nothing but keys.
See it through your character's eyes
The same place looks different depending on who is looking. A dark wood might feel cosy to a fox and terrifying to a lost child. Let your character's feelings colour what they notice.
The new classroom was far too bright. Thirty desks stared at Leo, and every single one already seemed to belong to somebody else.