Setting as a Character

Last week we talked about setting as a description of place, or of items, which should give the reader a way to immerse themselves in the world you are creating. I mentioned in passing that setting can be a character in itself. We'll explore this aspect of setting this week.

This idea may seem odd at first thought. No, I'm not encouraging historical fiction writers to abandon reality and have the trees start talking to Mazo Daoyi. Instead, setting can be a character in many ways. We'll cover two this week.

Setting as Antagonist

Setting can be the only antagonist in some stories, and be a very good one.

Farley Mowat's Never Cry Wolf is an example of this: there isn't another human being for many miles during most of the book. And yet it remains interesting because Mowat does good work playing the main character off against a sometimes brutal adversary called the land and the weather.

Such a story is called a man-against-nature story. Though most stories are not so strongly in this form, almost all stories include some element of this tension between the environment and the characters.

Setting as Mood-Creator

Though many stories rely on character interaction to set the mood, setting can play an irreplaceable role in this. The power of setting is due to the fact that we have all experienced "the world" in some form or another every day, and so readers have strong reactions and impressions stored up which they bring to a story, and which can be pulled out with the right words.

An author named Jim Heynen used this more subtle approach in a short story collection called The One-Room Schoolhouse. Here is a quote:

The boy whose job was to check the level of the big cattle drinking tank found a dead possum floating in it. The dead possum had a big red apple wedged in its wide-open mouth. It looked like somebody with a big mouth who had been bobbing for apples.

The boy wanted to yell for the others to come see, but knew they wouldn't believe him or, even if they did, wouldn't be in the mood. One of them would probably say something like, A dead possum with an apple in its mouth? Why don't you ask him to share?

Isn't this something? he said to the cows. Isn't this something?

Some nodded, then stepped past him to drink.
A couple of things to note in this excerpt.

First, the environment is setting a mood for the action that follows this scene. The dead animal with a mouth full of apple leaves an impression that simply can't be created using regular character interactions.

Second, Heynen gives us this setting a little piece at a time. He could have written this scene:

The big cattle drinking tank stood waiting for the boy who came to check the water level. Cattle wandered slowly nearby. An apple tree stood off to one side, covered in large apples. A dead possum floated in the tank with its wide-open mouth clamped around a big red apple.

The boy came and looked in the tank. When he noticed the possum, he wanted to yell for the others to come see... (etc)
Note, though, how flat and lifeless this sort of presentation is in comparison to the previous example.

And finally, note how Heynen uses the interaction with the unnamed and characterless cows in opposition to the imaginary reaction with "the others" to create a feeling of distance and rejection.

ASSIGNMENT: Due a minute after midnight (00:01) GMT on Wednesday, 28 May 2008

Length: two one-half to one page writings

1. Write about a character on a sidewalk who has just learned that he or she has cancer and has a month to live. Describe the character and her/his actions, street traffic, trees, birds, other people, the sun, shadows... anything so that the reader feels a sense of gloom and resignation. Do not explicitly write down the character's thoughts.

2. Write about exactly the same character on exactly the same sidewalk, except the he or she has just been given a quarter million [insert your local currency] from a friend who has become rich and wanted to share. Describe the details of the scene, including the character and the setting as above, but write so that the reader feels a sense of buoyant optimism. Again, do not write down the character's thoughts.

Good luck. Thanks to everyone who's participating. And sorry for the last posting.