Setting

The setting in not just where your story is happening. Story influences how the conflict will happen and how they will solve it. Even before reading the story, the setting you choose will allow the reader to make assumptions.  Setting describes what kind of characters you have, a messy household with wailing children, scattered toys and unwashed dishes talks of a frazzled or absentee parents.

Setting aids in the complications you can throw at your main characters. If your character is a Hindu and you set him up in India, oh well nothing there we’ll all assume that this is his comfort zone on the other hand place him in a remote village inside Congo and you’ve got yourself a conflict without even putting your pen to paper. If the whole world is your character’s oyster he can hide from the big guns pursuing him however, if he is however too broke to live his little town Middle Brook you increase the tension because there’s a strong possibility he could be caught.

Every story has generally two types of setting i.e.

1. Physical Setting (geography and time)
2. Social Setting (culture, socio-economics, politics)

 Every story has a general and specific setting. The general setting refers to information such as the time period, the larger environment e.g. politics of the day, economics. The specific setting on the other hand details the story and character’s place in it. It will need a lot of research and imagination (most of which you may not even end up using).

Usually writers will go into long drawn out explanations of how the place looks before they’ve even introduced the character. Soon readers have to wind their way through a maze of clichés, unnecessary adjectives and eye-rolling adverbs. Big Mistake! If you want any reader to take interest in the setting let your character experience it. Let them see it, feel it, taste it, smell it and hear it. Let it inspire emotions or long forgotten memories.  Make it come alive.