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   Reprinted from the "Storytellers Unplugged" series

The Art of Crafting a Setting
    Carole Lanham - 9/2/2012

  As a general rule, I’m not a fan of inventory lists that tell me every stick of
  furniture in a room. If it fits the narrative style and flows naturally enough, it can certainly do the trick,
  but a setting that performs one job and one job only is loafing. A good setting is only just barely
  identifiable as setting. Done the way I like it, the reader gets a whole lot more than a picture of what
  a place looks like.

  There are many brilliant examples out there that are far better than any settings I’ve written myself
  but I’m going to use a for instance that comes from one of my own short stories (called Yellow House),
  because I know exactly what I was trying to achieve when I wrote it:

  Bells climbed out of bed, stood on her tiptoes, and ran her fingers through Pippa’s paper snowflakes,
  the lot of which covered the attic ceiling like a lace cloud.

  “Careful of Goldilocks,” Pippa said. Pippa’s snowflakes were an artistic wonder, each one
  meticulously cut to tell a story. Her latest creation was spread on the blue rug beneath the portal
  window amid little pips of paper and was to be the rose-vine-tangled bed of Sleeping Beauty. Highly
  complicated.

  Now, hopefully, if I’ve done the job right, the snowflakes, the blue rug, the portal window, and the
  mess on the floor help to paint a picture of the bedroom in my story. But I want those snowflakes
  to do more. I want them to create a sense of whimsy and magic without having to come straight
  out and call the attic magical. I want to flood the room with a certain mood and establish a voice
  for the story too. And I’ve another job in mind for those snowflakes, while I’m at it. When making
  a paper snowflake, one forms a design by cutting holes in the bigger picture. I’m hoping Pippa’s
  snowflakes will support the characterization to follow, tipping off readers early on to the fact that
  she is a girl who knows how to look for a picture in the missing parts of something. Finally, the
  goal is always to tell a story in an interesting way. Whether I’ve succeeded or not in this instance,
  that really is Job 1, isn’t it?

  Outside of mentioning (in separate passages throughout the course of the story), a vanity table
  with a rat peeking out from under the faded skirt, a bedpost wearing a pair of wool stockings like
  a winter hat, and five quilted beds belonging to the quintuplets who live in the attic bedroom,
  those snowflakes hanging from the ceiling make up the bulk of my setting in terms of description.
  But have I made you see it? Have I made you feel it? That is the question.

  Like a theatrical production, writers use props to tell their story. In a play, props blend together
  on stage to create an overall appearance. Some props get used for specific things. A pair of
  sewing scissors on a table in Dial M for Murder becomes a weapon of self-defense. Until the
  scissors are plunged into the body of an intruder, its presence is subtle and barely noticeable.
  It’s natural for the scissors to be on the table because they’re in a room where they appear to
  belong, and the woman who lives in the room is someone who sews. To point out the scissors
  or draw attention to them too early would ruin the mystery, yet there they sit, offering a sense
  of normalcy and hominess to the scene that helps to make the crime, when it comes, all the
  more startling.

  Suppose the woman of the house had walked on stage at the beginning of the show and said
  to the other characters, “Here is my green sofa, my television set, and my sewing basket with
  scissors…” This would not only be awkward, but also a little telling. A writer, of course,
  doesn’t have the luxury of letting their audience see everything instantly and indiscriminately
  when the curtain parts and the lights come up, but their job is nonetheless the same. To add
  a pair of scissors to a setting, a writer must reveal it organically by having their protagonist do
  something like bump into a dress dummy while crossing the room, thus introducing the idea
  that someone in the house sews.

  If it seems like I’m confusing the items that make up setting, that’s only because I think
  setting should be jumbled up with everything else. It’s more fun and makes for more
  interesting reading. As a writer, I’m constantly working to improve my ability to be a good
  storyteller and setting that doesn’t help to tell a story is a waste of words. I’m sure I don’t
  always get it right but I definitely recognize an exceptional setting when I read a good book.
  Usually, it does not jump out at me and wave a flag and say HERE I AM! AREN’T I SWELL?
  Rather, I find it in the rusty squeak of a bent weathervane on the roof of a dying man who
  never found what he was looking for in life. I smell it in the embroidered pillowcase of a
  departed wife who washed her hair with rosewater. I see it glinting on a table in a dark
  room that features a curtain with a man hiding behind it.

  Oh boy! I just love me a good setting. I wish you much fun writing yours.