Let's Bring Your Fiction Settings to Life

Creative Settings Challenge, Exercise 1, Immediate Settings

Hello and Welcome to the First Fiction Writing Salon Challenge!

First, a little recap from the last post about this challenge and some housekeeping.

Every Wednesday over the next four weeks, from March 6 - March 27, a new exercise will be released along with an essay from me that will encourage you to use your imagination to craft a creative, memorable sense of place in your novels and short stories. If you want more background about the challenge and how it will unfold you can read previous posts about it here and here. 

The latest exercise is always featured online and delivered through email. If you’re not a subscriber and would like to have the exercises delivered to your inbox each week you can subscribe by hitting the button below. The exercises will also be stored in the archive after they’re released. So it’s never too late to jump in and start writing and sharing.

This first exercise is open to everyone including free subscribers. Future exercises will be available only to paid subscribers.

Now Let’s Dive In!

Setting is the place where events in your story take place. The best setting descriptions convey mood, time period, and more. Your job as the writer is to bring your settings to life so that readers can imagine themselves in the world of your characters. That’s what this four-week challenge is all about.

We will explore three types of settings during this challenge–

1. Immediate settings - the immediate area where a scene takes place, such as a room, a house, or a city street.

2. Environmental settings - the larger geographical area in which a scene or story takes place such as a town, a state, a country. Or even outer space.

3. Temporal setting - the time period during which the story takes place. Examples are the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, the modern era, or an imagined time in the distant future.

This week the challenge will cover immediate settings. To help get you started, following is an immediate setting description from the opening pages of a novel titled Our Gen (Amistad | HarperCollins), by award winning author and University of Pennsylvania Creative Writing program faculty member Diane McKinney- Whetstone.

The cottages at the Gen pushed up from the earth like new life coming, with their one-floor open-concept designs, and skylights where the ceiling should be, and walls of windows the better to view the trees through. The trees were everything. None of those pale green saplings typical of new housing complexes here. Here the builders set down mature specimens, still fine, though, with voluptuous curvy trunks and jazzy tilts like swagger leans earned by bending, but not breaking, during the storms. The trees gave the development a timeless feel, as if they’d always been here and always would be. And timelessness suited the Gen’s target market, who thought themselves like trees: heirlooms still looking good; still sporting their own curves and swagger; still budding and unfurling and rocking steady, supported by massive roots that they hoped would hide their pasts, their secrets. . . .

The author is introducing readers to a fifty-five plus active adult community. And as you may have guessed from the intro above, the lives of these seniors are still full of activity, love, and secrets. They may play pinochle during the day but at night they dance to James Brown. The author does a superb job of setting the tone for the rest of the novel. 

Now It’s Your Turn

Take a look at the photographs below and choose one of them. Use your imagination to craft an immediate setting description of no more than 150 words based on the photo of your choice. No characters need to be present in the scene just yet. Characters will be introduced to your settings in a future exercise. Although it might help to have one or more characters in mind in the background as you write the immediate setting description.

by flotsom at DepositPhotos

by PixelsAway at DepositPhotos

It might also help to briefly imagine a larger story for the setting. You don’t need to go into great detail for the story for now, just come up with the broad outlines such as: a rural setting in the South or Midwest in which the family has to flee into their underground shelter as a violent tornado or hurricane approaches (for the top image). Then focus on describing the mood or atmosphere for the setting you chose. Also focus on what is different or special about your setting. Every house is surrounded by shrubbery and trees. Every town has streets, buildings, and sidewalks. What makes the setting in your story special?  Don’t forget that you have five senses to work with: sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch.

McKinney-Whetstone didn’t just tell us there were tall buildings surrounded by mature trees. Instead, she gives us trees with “voluptuous curvy trunks” that have been “earned by bending, but not breaking, during the storms.” The author is not only describing the immediate surroundings but also providing readers with a hint of the inhabitants they’re about to meet. 

To Summarize the Exercise–

1. Craft an immediate setting description based on one of the photos above.

2. Keep your description under 150 words.

3. Share it with the rest of us for feedback.

4. Feel free to provide considerate, constructive comments on the shared work of others.

When you’re done, if you want feedback, I encourage you to share what you’ve written in the comment section. That way others can benefit from my comments as well as the comments of other challenge participants. 

Don’t expect your writing to be perfect but do look for it to improve if you participate. That’s why we’re here—to learn and grow as writers. 

I’m really looking forward to reading your setting descriptions. If you have questions I’m happy to answer. Just post them in the comments or respond via email. And please, share this newsletter/post with anyone you think might like to join the challenge.

Exercise 2 can be found here.