An article on setting with an emphasis on Description

an article on setting with an emphasis on Description

In writing the Description in your stories, of places as well as of persons, draw on as many senses as you can. Everybody knows the commonplace observation of the power of smells to recall places and scenes and people and all kinds of associations. For example, at this moment, what does the smell of fresh lumber recall to you, or the smell of fresh-cut hay, or the smell of burning leaves? If these or other like words can stir in you a rich and thronging mass of associations, they will do the same for your reader if you put them in a story. . . . The best advice—in the case of Description, is to avoid still life as much as you can.

. . . . where a painter would lay the emphasis on the color and outlines you can lay it on the things that move and flash. —J. H. GARDINER, Forms of Prose Literature.

The setting of a story may be described as the visible stage-scene, the atmosphere, and even the enveloping mood in which the actors play their parts— the surroundings of place, and tone, in which their lives, for the period of the story, are set. Let the setting be vague and general, and the story fails to produce a sense of reality, but let the setting be dearly, vividly, and exactly set forth, and the story-people are furnished with a convincing background against which their actions take on a naturalness that makes the whole story a thing of life.

So, generally speaking, the function of the setting is to enhance the "values" of the story; it is "Description in the service of narrative, " Description deftly applied not to what the characters feel and do, but to what they see around them, for a man is as really set in the framework of his era, his country, his town, his home, his occupations, and his associates, as a picture is set in its frame and larger surroundings.

But setting is more than merely physical—it is the spirit of the time and place; it takes us into the surroundings and causes us to breathe their very air. The setting of the French Revolution was much wider than the visible France—it was the whole mood and tone of that turbulently awakening era, and no story set in that time would be convincing that pictured the one without somehow suggesting the other.

One potent means of producing the conviction of reality in setting is to awaken in the reader a response in his senses. The portrayal of the physical environment must appeal to the physical senses: a sea story must bring to us the smell of the sea, the sound of the waves, the sight of the tossing white crests—the feeling of it all, as Loti does in "An Iceland Fisherman;" while in a shoe-shop story the writer may let us hear the hum of the machines, see the mechanical movements of the stitchers, and feel the weariness of the long, long day.

Likewise, where the environment touches more on the psychical, we must have the mood flung over us like a mantle The glamour of a touch of mystery, the creepiness of ghosts, the loneliness of a great solitude, as well as such moods as mental unrest, disappointment, expectancy, or joy, must be vicariously experienced by us through the medium of this subtle thing, the setting.

Ordinarily, as has been said, the setting is merely

tributary to the story, like the setting of a jewel, the scenery of the stage, the background of a picture. But sometimes the setting is the dominant note, it influences the actions of the characters and is the compelling force in shaping their lives—just as environment often is in real life. Thus, in "The Fall of the House of Usher" 1the setting dominates, and plot and characterization are subordinate. In "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" 2the climax actually results from the setting, and in "The Solitude"8the setting is fundamental to the plot.

Yet this is not to say that the story exists for the setting even when it exists on account of the setting—the story must ever be the big element in fiction. And just here many writers—particularly beginners—err. A taste for writing naturally leads one to Description, and facility in Description craves expression; from this it is an easy step to writing a story so as to air a series of fine phrases. It is a deadly literary fault. A story worth telling will be like a good picture, it will warrant a good frame, but to put a miserable daub in an ornate frame will only bring the painter to ridicule, and a rich stage setting will not atone for dull lines in the mouths of the actors.

This brings up the important question of proportion. Do not overweight your story by too much setting. The question of what is the happy "just enough" will, of course, be decided by tact and experience, and is well worth your utmost care. A good story may be spoiled by too much attention to atmosphere and local color, yet when the story is inextricably interwoven with the setting, and by it is actually made possible, much attention must be given to its faithful portrayal. In "The Dub" the whole story depends upon the pictures of the football field and the training quarters. To cut them down materially would be to mar the story.

The choice of a setting grows out of the story. Such a theme as that of "The Dub" naturally implies its setting, and the surroundings form the dominant element in the story. The writer takes us immediately not only into college life, but into the life of one particular college— the traditional rival of Yale—and into one intensive phase of college life, the football team, both on the "gridiron" and in the training house. To this strongly defined setting both characterization and plot are subordinate.

In choosing a setting for your story, stick to what you know. Do not guess at the nature of a Klondike landscape when your farthest north has been the upper tier of counties in Ohio. To be sure, a very fair knowledge of settings may be gotten at second hand, but be certain that your authorities are trustworthy, and spare no pains to verify minor points—otherwise you may unwittingly add to the gayety of those who read.

A setting may serve as a contrast to the action of the story or it may be in perfect harmony with it. Consider carefully which method will better serve your purpose.

Finally, be specific, and do not scatter your setting over a large extent of space or a long duration of time. The tendency of the good short-story is to focus interest—to focus it on one central incident, one small group of characters, one period of time, and one dominating place. All that tends to divergence is weakness, all that tends to convergence is good.