More on Setting

Editor Dave has inspired me to reread Donald Maass' Writing the Breakout Novel. This is quite good and I recommend it if you haven't read it. I may blog a bit about it, starting with setting. Setting is particularly important in speculative fiction, because basically anything goes! A couple things Maass said about setting struck me as interesting: For a setting to feel broadly representative, it must be highly specific. And ...the breakout novel ...creates its own complete, detailed, logical, and unique world. A little later, Place presented from an objective or omniscient point of view runs the risk of feeling like boring description... Try evoking the description the way it is experience by a character.

I strongly agree that settings need to be specific, but I disagree that they are or should be "broadly representative". I think we need settings to be specific so we, the readers, can put ourselves there. That's part of the goal with fiction, right? To experience being someone else. So, instead of going to 'the store', your character should go to the Truhr family's bodega down on 39th Street, where they have pictures of their five kids taped on the old-fashioned cash register. etc. etc. Okay, that's silly, but you get the idea.

I really liked the second quote above. Omniscient description does often feel boring, but when you filter it through 1st-person or 3rd-person characters, it gets interesting. For example, is it ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit outside, or are rivulets of sweat sluicing down Tamara's back, making her want to rip off her wool-blend interview suit? And does she go into the bodega for a frosty beverage... Now I'm rambling. :) But, I think you get the idea.

So, keep sending Electric Spec your setting-laden stories.