All Important Setting

 

Terry here with our question of the week- How important is setting in your books? Do you write settings that you’ve never visited, and how do you go about this, if so? Give an example or two of setting in your own work and say how these scenes enhance the plot or create mood. 

 I’m not sure even character is more important than setting. But by setting I don’t mean just location. I mean the weather, the physical elements of the scene, the atmosphere, and the response of the characters to all those things. Here’s a scene from An Unsettling Crime for Samuel Craddock:

“To my right the fenced-in property is strewn with equipment and leavings from the abandoned railroad tie plant that kept this town thriving when the railroads were big. Ties dark with creosote preservative lie scattered among knee-deep weeds. A few old railroad cars lie rusting alongside the fence. On the other side shacks are lined up close to one another. Most people who live here can’t afford paint, so the houses are whitewashed and weathered. They’re small, but mostly kept up, although a few lean as if they are tired of the effort to stay upright. Many have late season flowers blooming in the yards—zinnias and climbing roses. Several people are standing out on their porches, eyes trained in the direction of the woods toward the smoke.” 

 When you read this, if you aren’t thinking “bleak” and “poor people” then I haven’t done my job. I meant to invoke the smell of creosote—it’s pungent and unpleasant. I meant to imply that the town is no longer thriving. The word “abandoned” is deliberate. The railroad abandoned the town. No matter how poor they are, these people keep up their property, and here and there is a bright spot—flowers. 

But now there’s trouble. People are on their porches watching smoke rise through the trees.  Samuel Craddock is taking all this in as he speeds toward the fire. A terrible thing has happened, and this description is meant to enhance the sense of dread.

Jarrett Creek, the setting for my Samuel Craddock series, is based on the small town where my grandparents lived. The smell of creosote lingered in the air, especially on hot days. The town has many such areas as I described above, where the houses are kept up, but many are unpainted or listing to one side. In my Craddock books, I draw on my visceral memories of this town. In every book, I try to bring it to life. People write to tell me it could easily be their town. Does this mean I have been too generic in descriptions? I don’t think so. I think being specific triggers people’s memories. Even if they aren’t exactly the same, they are similar enough to create a strong sense of place. 

 But I also write about places I’ve never actually been. In my second Jessie Madison book, I write about a US FBI Search and Rescue Team diving off the coast of Lipari, an island north of Sicily in the Aeolian Islands.

“It was stunning. A rugged hill rose to the northeast with a citadel looking down on the town. There was a beach off to the west side of the port. …the sheer face of a cliff rose up, spanning this side of the island. It was beautiful and forbidding.” 

I’ve actually been to the Aeolian Islands. I’ve sailed around them and hiked up to the volcano. But I’ve never been diving there, because I’m not a diver. It scares me to death. So I wanted a site that was scary. 

 When I researched the actual site I chose, my search yielded sparse information. The site was deemed “extremely difficult and extremely hard to find.” The more research I did, the more I had the suspicion that no one wanted beginners or even intermediate divers to find the site, because it was dangerous. What a great spot to set my thriller! But it also meant I had to invent aspects of the site. I did so by reading about others sites in the area and extrapolating. I also spoke with some expert divers who told me what “difficult” and “dangerous” might mean. 

 So yes, I do use real places, but part of being a fiction writer is, well, the fiction part. Including using settings the way I want them to work—to enhance the action and to serve as a backdrop for the story. 

 I will leave you with one small, perfect illustration of the use of setting:

 “If you have never been outside a city at night when there is no moon, than you don’t know darkness. Without street lamps and neon and all the ambient glow in any town or city, night can be impenetrably black. Even a million stars won’t illuminate a path through the forest.” 

 This is what makes William Kent Krueger so readable. He knows how to use setting! In this passage from Sulfur Springs, you don’t need to be told that the character is entering “darkness”—both literally and figuratively. That’s how setting should be used.