The questions I’m always asking are: does the chosen setting add to how I’m experiencing the story? Can it be developed or improved?

The world, the time period, their location, their home, their clothes, and the objects your characters interact with. Much more than backgrounds and flat spaces for the dialogue, conflict, and plot to exist in.

Level 1: World – This is likely Earth in most contemporary settings, or space, or a fantasy land you’ve created. A country, a city, or more of a static place within which your characters exist. Generally, in the editing I do, there aren’t huge changes to this top level.

Level 2: Community. Both the world and the community being higher levels means the character will have varying degrees of less or more influence on their surroundings, but their surroundings might have great effects on them—due to the aforementioned variations from country, to city, to town, to village, to restaurants and bars that surround them. A friend’s apartment might be a sanctuary that turns bad, or a school might be a place of fear but becomes a location of hope and inspiration, or the big-box store remains the same but the character learns about friendship and kindness within its four big ol’ walls.

Level 3: Personal space. Bedroom, cupboard, or safe space. They mark it as their own. And only select and certain people, or nobody, is allowed to enter. Messy, clean, or everything hidden away when someone comes to call—alongside character clothes—help to round out what we know about your MC as we get to know them. Do they have Elton John, Cher, and Troye Sivan posters up on the walls, or are candles burning to set a more ambient vibe? A whole lot can be learned and shared by the small and assorted details we decide to include. And the “personal-personal” space: what’s hidden in the locked drawer, what document is tucked away in those books, or if we dug in the bin, what might we find? Layers and levels—and a technique I love called Zoom In, Zoom Out—is a great way to add depth and dimension to any scene. Great, they have an iPhone; this might show a certain level of wealth or status, but all those tiny cracks and the shattered back hint at a careless side too.

Level 4: Internal space. “Our minds and our thoughts are where we really live.” I love this analysis. And it’s one of my favourite parts of fiction (compared to movies or TV shows): we gain intimate access to all the thoughts, regrets, bitchy comments, reflective sadness, and lusty longings that are coursing through our MC’s head on a page-by-page basis. Secrets, fears, memories, and beliefs (false or otherwise).

Feeling stressed? Conflict is our plot maker in most stories, and setting can influence and provide plenty of background (and influence) for creating stress to really let your characters show who they are. A busy airport, overstretched hospital, or long queues at the bank can all provide stressful moments for characters. Playing with light, shadow, darkness, and the weather can all provide a reflective or antithetical background to shape or sharpen your character’s mood and their inner feelings. What’s worse than feeling crappy than walking into a bustling birthday party where everyone is having a whale of a time, your MC has received some bad news and then walks outside to get soaked in a rainstorm, and they have no umbrella, and then a van drives past and chucks a puddle over them. (Sorry, MC).

Build Better Settings by Eileen Cook and Crystal Hunt is a great book and well worth a read!
https://creativeacademyforwriters.com/resources/

Image by kordula vahle from Pixabay