Setting is one of the most useful tools we
have as writers, and yet in romance novels it is often underused. I suspect it’s because so many books and
articles about writing warn us against long descriptions of the setting. Perhaps novelists sometimes overreact, and
veer away from writing about setting at all.
When I read a novel that doesn’t say much
about the setting, I feel kind of lost.
I want vivid pictures in my head when I read, and it’s a bit hard to
conjure them up when the characters are wandering around in some
barely-mentioned location.
If we’re careful about how we use setting,
we can transport our readers to the world inside our stories without slowing
the pacing down. Here are a few tips to
do just that:
Think
about how your characters see the setting, and describe it through their eyes.
How characters respond to a setting can
tell the reader a lot about them. In my
new book, Convincing the Rancher, the
heroine, Tess, is completely uncomfortable in the mountains and doesn’t want to
be there. So when I described the
setting, it was negative, at least for the first few chapters of the book.
§
The high desert air nipped her skin with icy teeth.
§
Tess glanced back out the window, at the vast mountains filling the
horizon, and the enormous empty sky graying in the dusk. She shivered.
§
These jagged hills… looked like teeth, Tess decided. Teeth from some
strange monster with bad oral hygiene.
But later on, as Tess starts to appreciate
the wilderness, her reaction to it mirrors these changes.
§
The skeletal hills were lit golden in the afternoon light, their
cracks and crevices in deep contrasting shadows. That was kind of pretty. Rocks jutted through the thin soil like
abstract sculptures, and she liked modern art.
Use
descriptive sentences, but keep them short and within the character’s POV.
Large blocks of description will slow the pacing. Revise descriptions down to their most
interesting parts and have the character think about them during conversations,
or quickly, within a larger scene.
§
When the hero, Slaid, asks Tess
what she thinks of the landscape:
Across the valley were hills, dry, stark and tumbling on, one after
another. They were so barren that she
could see every detail of the land’s contours.
It was like being able to look through someone’s skin and see their
bones.
Replace
dialogue tags with description.
§
“It’s beautiful.” Beautiful in a rugged, formidable way that made
Tess want to jump in her car and race home.
§
She took a long, deliberate look at the crowd growing around the
stage. “I guess well just have to see.”
§
“I’ve been here once.” She could swear the peaks of the Sierra
Nevada were glaring at her.
Use
setting as a way to inspire character self-discovery.
Being in a new setting can have a powerful
effect on our thinking, bringing back memories or inspiring insight. Take advantage of this in your stories.
§
When Tess and Slaid go riding
together, she asks if they’re on grazing land.
“Nope… These are the native plants. Tough as nails.”
Tess looked at the shrubs with new respect. They were tough, and prickly looking too. She could appreciate any creature that
survived under tough conditions. Like
she had. Ugh. Benson must have
introspection in the air. She found
herself constantly thinking about parts of her life that she had no interest in
revisiting.
§
When Slaid takes Tess to the
ghost town of Bodie, the setting is a catalyst for her.
Tess sat where she could see the town, so still under the bright
midday sun. The dry heat felt good beating all around her, baking her muscles
just enough to relax them. The hissing
wind, the dull thumping of Slaid opening and closing the truck doors all lulled
her, making her a little sleepy.
She studied the abandoned buildings, still littered with the
remnants of long-ago lives. People had
been born and lived and loved and died here, and now there was nothing but the
wind whispering through the buildings.
This place was a reminder that time passed quickly; lives were lived in
the blink of an eye. Tess suddenly felt
a sense of urgency – that she needed to be braver, more alive than she had ever
been.
Setting can bring so much depth to a
story. My hope is that this post gives
you ideas for how to incorporate more of it into your book, without slowing the
pacing down. If you have any other ideas
for how to enrich stories with setting, please share them in the comments. And thank you for joining me today on Writers
and Authors!
Claire McEwen
lives by the ocean in Northern California with
her family and a scruffy, mischievous terrier.
When not dreaming up new stories, she can be found digging in her garden
with a lot of enthusiasm but, unfortunately, no green thumb. She loves discovering flea-market treasures,
walking on the beach, dancing, traveling and reading, of course! Convincing the Rancher is her third book for
Harlequin Superromance.
Website: http://www.clairemcewen.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CMcEwen.writer
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ClaireMcEwen1
GIVEAWAY
