11. Set Up Your Settings Like They Deserve, Like Disher

- October 13-

“I don’t want to be a product of my environment…”
-Frank Costello, The Departed

The characters of The Departed are all products of their environment, both in terms of their criminality, as well as the literary setting of the story. They couldn’t exist on the screen or script without their backgrounds.

As crime writer Garry Disher put it for authors:

“From my years of teaching creative writing, I know that new writers take the setting for granted, as simply a place to set the action, but setting is a vital element in fiction writing and deserves serious treatment.”

It’s a given to create an outline and list your characters. For characters it’s also easy to go deeper and fill them out with age, endearing traits, flaws, and more. We may spend time filling out their persona even down to the intricacies of their eyes, just so we can write a cheesy line about how they reflect the stars later. In getting lost in their eyes it’s easy to forget all about painting the picture of the stars above.

In the lead up to NaNoWriMo, go beyond your lead characters and set up your 5 key settings. Even if you won’t be overdoing it talking about stubbed out cigarettes, half crushed beer cans, and a stack of unopened bills, where your characters are will affect how they speak, act, and think. When you’re building the setting, Google a few key pictures that you can later recall when writing. Have these reference images ready in your mind, or even close at hand just like the props at the front of an art class. List out the key adjectives that describe the place.

Give the settings the serious treatment that they deserve. You could go beyond Google and find a few areas in your neighborhood that reflect the places you’ll be writing. Your references to how they feel don’t have to just be visual or oral. Explore the sounds and rhythms of your setting, maybe the whistle of the wind through nearby buildings or trees, or some of the songs in the air…

P.S. We’ll be listing our settings with pictures and more in the responses below as we complete them.

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Why are we writing these?
We’re novice writers excited for NaNoWriMo. We’re excited to write our first novels in our first writing app, an app that challenges us to let go and write. We knew we needed more than an app though, so are studying the pros first!