Setting Sets the Mood

 

Terry here, answering our question of the week: Creating mood through setting is important in crime fiction. Give an example from a book that have inspired or moved you? Also, please share an evocative paragraph from your own work and tell us how you came to write it. 

 Setting is more than just place. It’s nice to know a few details about immediate surroundings. Is the action taking place inside or out. If it’s in a room someone is in—are they sitting on a chair or on the floor; is there furniture? Are they alone or with people? Are there windows? What is outside? And if they are outdoors, what is in their immediate area? 

 In a larger sense, setting is also geography, weather, and time. Every element of the story will hinge on when it’s set—the way people dress, the way they talk, their mannerisms, their customs, their government, their beliefs. Geographical setting in the world is also vital. A book set in Japan is going to have a very different feel from one set in Australia. One set in Africa will be different from one in London.

And more immediate geographical setting matters come into play—mountain life is different from life in desert country; life on a beach is different from life in a city condominium. In the mountains your protagonist may be struggling to chase a killer in a snowstorm (Walt Longmire, anyone?). In the city, you face traffic and crowded conditions. In a desert you have to contend with drought and water deprivation. And maybe loneliness. On the beach, you may be subject to hurricanes. If you are at sea, you could have rough seas or utter stillness.

These geographical settings influence personal perspectives. For example, people who live out on a ranch with few neighbors have to depend more on themselves. That will reflect in the kind of people they are-more independent, maybe more worn-down from the rigors of trying to run the ranch. People who live in a community will have different issues—loud neighbors and petty quarrels. 

 One of the questions I get asked is, “Could your books be set anywhere else?” I set my Samuel Craddock series in small-town Texas. As one reviewer put it, in my books, “You can feel the Texas wind blow and the dirt dust up beneath your feet…” Another mentions, “Shames wonderfully evokes small-town Texas life…”

But according to my emails, the books could be set in small towns in other states as well. Maybe even in other countries? It’s more about the small-town ambiance than the broader environment. As another reviewer puts it, “Shames outshines most writers of mysteries with her …understanding of small town dynamics.” In other words, in any small town you have the same petty quarrels among citizens, you have gossip, suspicion of outsiders, worries about the financial viability of the town, and jockeying for power in the political and policing life of town. And even murder. At least in a mystery you do. 

 No matter where and when you set your book, there’s going to be weather. And seasons of the year. One of the best book titles I ever heard was Julia Spencer-Flemings In The Bleak Midwinter. With that title alone, you know you’re going to plunged into dark, cold days.

We were asked to give an example of setting that inspired or moved us and I can think of no better book than Timothy Hallinan’s The Hot Country. I go back to this book and again for its strong sense of place. 

Here’s the opening paragraph: 

 “The dusty braid of Christmas lights in the tiny window has been there for decades and has been plugged in all year round. The original bulbs are long burned out, but not even the occasional, irregular replacements, glowing in faded red and green, can compete with the prisms of light and color created by the big beads of rain on the outside of the glass.” 

 Wow. I don’t know about you, but I’m standing at the door of some dingy, worn-out place and feeling the pull of defeat. 

 I have trouble with writing setting and usually have to go back and fill in descriptions after I have done a first draft. Sometimes I laugh and say, “Where is he? Is he standing in the air?” And when I do fill in descriptions, they always enhance the scene. 

 Here are a few samples from my own work. 

 “Reinhardt is driving faster than he ought to. I watch houses slip by. In this bleak time a few weeks after Christmas, it’s hard to believe there will ever be green in the landscape again. Everything is gray and brown—the grass dead from nights of hard freeze, the post oaks and pecans bare of all except curled brown leaves.” Dead Broke in Jarrett Creek 

 Here’s another: 

 “The rainstorm is over. I had hoped it would bring cooler air, but all it has done is make the air muggy. Hailey and Wendy complain that their hair will be frizzy tomorrow. I file that under things I didn’t know anybody had to worry about.” Murder at the Jubilee Rally 

 Anybody who has been in a rainstorm in the heat knows this itchy, unsatisfied feeling. 

 No matter how you describe the time, the place, the geography or the weather, “setting” is the backdrop for challenges presented in daily lives at home, with neighbors, or in a community. And in Jarrett Creek, the small town where I set my books the petty quarrels can be…well, judge for yourself: 

 “Late afternoon we have a recurring problem to deal with. Pigs have gotten into Mrs. Bedichek’s vegetable garden, so I have to go help the owner of the pigs, Sandy Morton, round them up. When (Sandy) retired, for some reason he decided to take up raising pigs. The problem is that the pigs seem to be cleverer than Sandy…they find ways to get out and raise havoc, either getting on the road and stopping local traffic, or invading neighbors’ yards.” Guilt Strikes at Granger’s Store 

You’re not going to find that at the beach or in a city. And I’ll cite one more passage from one of my books. This can be set nowhere but Texas: 

 “I walk back to the pond where Nonie’s body was found. Most people around here call a pond a tank, from when all these small bodies of water used to be for watering cattle. The word pond conjures up an image from a storybook—a shallow pool with lily pads and nicely kept-up banks and cute little animals playing in the grass. This small body of water is surrounded by weeds most of the way around. There’s an old stump on the far shore next to a big sycamore tree whose branches hang out several feet over the water. Water moccasins like to lie in shady areas under trees like that one, or even in the low branches. There must not be in any in this tank, or they would likely have latched onto Nonie’s body.” The Necessary Murder of Nonie Blake