Plumb the Emotional Depth of Your Setting
By Kathryn Craft | May 6, 2016 |
photo adapted / Horia Varlan
Many writers say that while they’re drafting, they see their story unspool in their minds like a movie. Unless that film is scratch-n-sniff, this suggests the setting will be rooted only in the visual: see the sky, see the pond, see the sheep. To counter this, and further engage the reader, we learn to write with all the senses: the cerulean sky, the decaying scent of the pond, the coarse coats of the sheep.
But you can do even more.
Today I want to look at how you can revise so the details you sprinkle in—that sky, that pond, and those sheep—can contribute to the emotional world of your story. Consider this excerpt, found on page two of Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior:
Whoever was in charge of weather had put a recall on blue and nailed up this mess of dirty white sky like a lousy drywall job. The pasture pond seemed to reflect more light off its surface than the sky itself had to offer. The sheep huddled close around its shine as if they too had given up on the sun and settled for second best.
These setting details not only ground the story with a sense of place, but reinforce the emotional state of her protagonist, who is coming to grips with the slow death of her marriage.
Kingsolver demonstrates mad setting skills throughout this novel. The Appalachian mountain on which Dellarobia and her family lives plays a central role as scientists arrive in this backwater town to study the way climate change has altered the migration of monarch butterflies, which are wintering over in Tennessee instead of continuing, as always, to Mexico.
Setting should be meaningful in every story, one could argue, but the way this story ties ecological to domestic change offers up so many passages worthy of study that it’s hard, looking back through, to choose one to analyze for this post. I’ll trust my original instinct and share these potent lines from p. 49 that I underlined my first time through.
Dellarobia couldn’t remember a sadder looking November.[1] The trees had lost their leaves early in the unrelenting rain.[2] After a brief fling with coloration they dropped their tresses in clumps like a chemo patient losing her hair.[3] A few maroon bouquets of blackberry leaves still hung on, but the blue asters had gone to white fluff and the world seemed drained.[4] The leafless pear trees in Hester’s yard had lately started trying to bloom again, bizarrely, little pimply outbursts of blossom breaking out on the faces of the trees.[5] Summer’s heat had never really arrived, nor the cold in its turn, and everything living now seemed to yearn for sun with the anguish of the unloved.[6] The world of sensible seasons had come undone.[7]
- Great use of point-of-view here, since sad Dellarobia is the one perceiving this.
- “Early”—change is here. “Unrelenting”—pressures are not likely to let up.
- “Brief fling”—exactly what Dellarobia sets out to have as she heads up the hill at the opening of the book, but her lover doesn’t show and she finds the monarchs instead. I love the foreshadowing here, as the great fear is that the monarchs, which we later learn hang from trees in clumps, will not make it through a winter this far north. Also, Dellarobia’s hair is “flame-colored”—just like the monarchs.
- This is all about the setting—and the state of her marriage. Dellarobia is trying to hold on, but it is draining her. The brief coloration in the third sentence also refers to her marriage, which has now gone to white fluff.
- The comparison to an adolescent personalizes the fact that this opportunistic November blooming will fail. Especially poignant since Dellarobia has two small children, and she worries what will happen to them if big change comes to the mountain and her marriage. It also foreshadows the question of whether change could still be possible for her irascible mother-in-law Hester, who is older. Is it ever too late?
- Nothing is as expected. A lovely way of deepening the desire for warmth and comfort.
- This personification of the seasons suggests big stakes: the world has come undone, and because Dellarobia was the one to note it—and despite her lack of formal education—she must do something about it. Her investment in problems both environmental and domestic will cause her complications in the story to come.
I hope you’ll agree: that’s one helluva paragraph. Think, for a moment, about the ratio here: I just wrung 281 words of meaning from Kingsolver’s 124 words—words all about setting. That’s pretty good storytelling bang for your publisher’s buck.
Could the author have simply described the temperature and rain and bare branches using colors, textures, and smells? Sure. That would have been enough to engage the reader. But Kingsolver’s emotional language has achieved so much more. She has tied her character’s deep desire and fears to the setting, creating a world that will support the premise of her story in a myriad of subtle ways—and in doing so, she will create a story world that is memorable.
Is every sentence of setting description in your novel packed with this much meaning? If not, what could you do about that? If you want to give this technique a shot, feel free to share some before-and-after sentences from your own work in the comments.
[coffee]
Kathryn Craft (she/her) is the author of two novels from Sourcebooks, The Art of Falling and The Far End of Happy. Her forthcoming book, Crafting Story Movement: Techniques to Engage Readers and Drive Your Novel Forward, draws from decades of experience as both a story consultant and a movement specialist/dance critic. Learn more on Kathryn’s website.
I love this method of combining emotion with description. In the opening scene of my middle grade historical, my character is walking along the winter beach in Norfolk. He begins by saying that the sea smells like dead things. It was a perfect opening statement to describe his mood and also foreshadowed things to come.
Thanks for the post!
Thanks for the comment Ron, and for stepping up to the plate with an example! I like the moodiness suggested by the sea smelling of dead things. “Things” is a pretty non-specific word to use in your novel’s most precious real estate, though, even if it is exactly the sort of language a middle grade reader would use. This means that “dead” has to carry the emotional weight here, and unfortunately you have no clue what the reader would attach to it. In the world of story you can’t assume anything, even the fact that death is universally reviled or feared. In many instances death is a relief. In fact, that would be an intriguing stance at the opening of a story…
Excellent, Kathryn, couldn’t agree more. Description, even richly done with the five senses, is an obsolete tool.
What has replaced it is experiential description: How a place looks, sounds, smells, tastes and feels *to a POV character*. Not the same thing. How observers color and filter the world reflects their mood (as in Kingsolver), their biases and who they are.
What I’d add to your excellent post is that the world of the protagonist isn’t just the physical, tangible world around them but many other things as well: relationships, religion, social strata, music, and even climate change (as in Kingsolver).
Everything, tangible and intangible, is subject to the distortions of the POV character. There’s no such thing as accurate description, only accurate depiction of impaired–or should we say enhanced?–sight.
That’s what makes a fictional world rich and real. Love this post.
“Experiential description.” I love the name you gave that. In other words, REALLY tight POV, everything filtered through the character’s perception.
I can’t help but to notice how film (with its inherent limitations of observing a character instead of fully occupying the space inside its head — “Being John Malkovitch” is the exception) drives the increasing intimacy of POV in literature. It’s the place books can go that film cannot. We’ve come a long way from the naturalism of Theodore Dreiser and Henry James.
That’s a great observation, Stacey, about the move toward more intimate POV in fiction given its seemingly necessary absence in film. (There are, in fact, cinematic techniques to render intimate subjectivity, but that’s a digression we needn’t indulge here). Your point is valid — I’ve heard editors discuss how much they prefer first person to third for exactly this reason: intimacy.
P.S. Let’s give James his due, however. The death of the omniscient narrator can largely be credited to James’s insistence on anchoring the narrative in a character’s unique perspective.
DULY NOTED. Thank you for telling me that. I obviously need to eavesdrop on more editors’ meetings! It’s all one big cult of personality, isn’t it? The more personality in the narrative, the more “voice” attributed to the writing.
Thanks Don! “An obsolete tool”—wow, a bold statement! But one I clearly sensed, since Kingsolver’s words stuck out as so amazingly effective.
I also love this: “Everything, tangible and intangible, is subject to the distortions of the POV character.” This is something I’ve been appreciating more and more in discussing my novels with book clubs. It takes a special reader to realize that what the characters say is deeply filtered, and it is up to the reader to piece together the whole.
My character set in THE ART OF FALLING is so orchestrated around disordered thinking about body image that I didn’t have one character on whom we could rely for an accurate description of my first-person narrator. A favorite book club question is, “What do you think she really looks like?” I have unearthed new possible interpretations of numerous events in my novels from these discussions!
That sounds like a fascinating (and possibly poignant) read.
A brilliant article, Kathryn. THANK YOU. You beautifully articulated something that makes good writing great. This is something I plan on sharing with other writers I know who will appreciate it as much as I do.
Thanks Stacey! We work so hard on our novels, and then it’s so hard to gain representation, and then it’s so hard to get published (or if self-publishing, so hard to learn all of the tasks needed to produce a quality book)—and then it’s still so hard to get noticed. If we’re already going to such effort to put our story into the world, why not go all the way, and make our stories the best they can be? That’s the notion behind this series—to explore aspects of craft with examples from those who do it well.
Love this, Kathryn. And Don’s “Everything, tangible and intangible, is subject to the distortions of the POV character.” I think that makes such a difference for how much I “feel” a book I’m reading. A great reminder to comb my own pages and do the same. Also, this is why we need to know our POV characters so well before we even start writing (or at least once we start that first revision)–otherwise we wouldn’t know quite how to write those descriptions.
Yes Erin I agree. I’d go so far as to say that taking a few months to journal in your character’s voices, so you can gain a full understanding of who they are and how they can contribute to the story, could save you years of rewriting aggravation! Deep perspective is difficult to retrofit. Thanks for reading!
Great examples. And it dovetails nicely with Don speaking about emotions. I’m revising a couple of PBs and paying close attention to these kinds of details.
May the close attention you pay to such details reap many rewards, Vijaya!
I am in a slow re-write of a novel with a setting that could benefit from more emotional depth. Many thanks for this invaluable post.
You’re welcome, Roland. Kingsolver’s FLIGHT BEHAVIOR is chock full of such examples!
I’m working on a memoir that covers healing from abuse, and searching for healing in all the wrong places. Currently in the story (told in first person) I’m studying a type of voodoo with a teacher who wants us to translate a Bible passage into Hawaiian Huna terms (I am a Christian now, but this was part of my journey to getting there). I was at this point of time anti-God, believing He was the great abandoner. Had been confirmed and tossed Bible in a box with other possessions. Here’s what I first wrote – I find the Bible Diane gave me for confirmation. Haven’t opened it since then.
New form: When I get home I dig out the Bible Diane gave me at confirmation, unzip the cover, and take a whiff of new book smell. The pages are stuck together at their gilt edges. I search the table of contents to find where the book of John is.
One of the challenges of memoir is laying bare our emotions—but this is also why readers are drawn to the form. Good for you, Heather, for writing this. I urge you to reach even farther.
What beyond “new book smell” had you hoped to find when you cracked the cover? Was it a bigger mystery, and so the “new book smell” was a disappointment? Or, to you, does “new book smell” suggest hope, or safety, or escape because of your past experiences with books? (I love the idea of escape because the bible will call you to truth, not escape.) I love that the pages were stuck together at their gilt edges, which could suggest that you felt the bible held answers for only a richer class of supplicant. What significance might your need to search the TOC for John have? With yet a little more work, I hope you can now see that each of these three sentences could heighten this emotional moment when you turn to the bible for answers.
Thank you for these suggestions!!! This is what I’m learning now, how to add details that say more than the concept.
Thank you for this close reading of Kingsolver’s paragraph. You’ve encouraged me when revising to look not just at the whole chunk of description, but at individual words and phrases and how they enhance the story.
Yes, Barbara, that’s it. Words are currency in the publishing world. Spend them wisely, and to maximum effect!
I think this is the primary reason movies, based on novels I’ve read, often feel like a lesser version of the story. To achieve results like Kingsolver obviously takes a great deal of skill and observation which requires practice, and more practice. A worthy pursuit for those of us who want to create a rich experience for our readers.
Thank you for a terrific analysis, Kathyrn.
“Experiential description,” Don, added to the post-its on my wall.
Catherine I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked who I would cast in the film versions of my novels. My answer is always: “That’s why God made casting directors.” I suppose if I wanted my story to be a movie I would have written a screenplay. I would have watched more movies these past few decades instead of reading and thinking deeply about novels.
Would I refuse a movie option? No, I’m not stupid, although words I once heard Ann Patchett speak do come to mind: “The best thing is to sell the option and hope they keep renewing it. Then you have the extra income without having to suffer the disappointment of what they did with your story.” Without a doubt, the written word is my medium, and I love to highlight everything exceptional about it.
Kathryn, Thank you for the brilliant examples from Kingsolver. Reading becomes a true immersion experience when we get to view the world thru the filter of someone else’s tangled emotions. I’m also fascinated by how your Book club discussions are opening up new doors in your novels. Thanks for a wonderful post, to be revisited often!
Thanks Susan, I agree—empathizing with other perspectives makes us better human beings and can be delightfully entertaining. It can also be tremendously affirming when we realize our deepest truths are so eloquently evoked. We feel less alone.
Love this post, Kathryn, on one of my favorite story craft topics. I count myself among those that must experience the setting with, and through, my characters to get a solid bead on a tale. I used to say I had to know where the protagonist started and where they ended, physically and emotionally, in order to find the story. But I’ve come to understand I also need a solid lead on where they stand (and sit and sleep and work … and run to hide).
It wasn’t until after my first novel, which in retrospect grew out of a distinct time and place, that I realized how essential setting was to my own writing. Now, in addition to character journals, I maintain a separate file of settings, noting images, impressions of locations, and at times even sketches (which in my case aren’t pretty).
The same goes with those books I love to read. While I enjoy many stories, only those that instill a world that lingers after the final page leave a truly lasting impression. For me, it is the essential ingredient that binds story elements together, no matter how skillfully crafted the separate aspects may be.
Thanks for giving the topic its due, and with such excellent examples. Just lovely!
Hi John! I love the notion of where someone runs to hide—great writing prompt, and it just inspired a line for my WIP, so I thank you for that!
I have to agree, an evocative setting is a score for me as well. The WIP I referred to is set at a time of trauma for my particular setting, and almost two decades ago I witnessed the aftermath of this kind of trauma there. I recently dug through a cupboard full of *ahem* extremely disorganized photos and found three packs of pictures I took at that time. Before I even came up with a character name or desire, I looked through the photos and let the setting tell me its story. It was a new approach for me but generated a lot of great material.
Love this insight from you, Kingsolver and Don on setting and experiential writing! In this passage below, I used the weather to convey how Midnight, an 11-year-old boy, perceives his Daddy and their relationship.
A strong wind whipped around them. When the other men staggered and turned their heads from its force, Daddy stood up to it like a warrior. Feet set apart. Mouth frozen in a scowl. Like the Mountain from Game of Thrones. He grabbed Midnight by his jacket sleeve and jerked him close to his body, a shield from the blowing snow. His coat smelled of gasoline and sauerkraut, kind of like a fart, but Midnight buried his cheek deeper in the space between Daddy’s arm and rib cage.
Oh Nancy I love this! To characterize through response to setting is also great fun. For those who read this comment: any reaction on the use of the Game of Thrones reference?
If pop culture is inexorably tied to this novel—like it’s been this kid’s lifeline or something—then fine. I have a few objections to it though.
1. If referring to the TV show: it makes it seem like a novel is lesser than a TV show. To pull a reference from a movie (okay, ironically): no one sits my novel in a corner.
2. If referring to the novel, it seems like you are handing off to George R. R. Martin the image you just conveyed so beautifully through your own skills. As if it couldn’t stand without being bolstered by an image of his (which it can, because I have never read or watched a word from this series).
3. You risk alienating readers who do not know Martin, who might say, “Oh, I suppose this book is only for them.”
4. You risk unflattering comparison from those in the know (Oh, she’s no Martin.)
As you might guess, I’m in the third camp. As you might see, the line was a distraction for me, because I am talking about it and not the beautiful line just before it, where I already felt his father rising a a fearsome protector.
Other thoughts, anyone? How did you feel about this GoT reference?
Kathryn, thanks for your feedback! I agree that the scene is just as powerful without the Game of Thrones reference. And no, that show is not pivotal in the book. Midnight is a physics buff, actually. I do reference Neil deGrasse Tyson.
The GoT reference didn’t jolt me as I got the instant reference visual. I loved how the writer describes the father as well. In time, though, the reference meaning may fade away and would date the work and that might be my reasoning for not using it.
I love the emotion of this post, Kathryn. It’s a keeper.
But as one with a background of film I have to respectfully disagree with the statement that unspooling a film in one’s head leaves one only with a visual for lack of a scratch and sniff.
Great filmmakers like great writers project so much more than visual. The play of light across a face, the depth of golden liquid spilling into a glass, the harsh crack of gunpowder across a field of barbed wire, I could go on and on….
In fact I would argue that film and writing are not that different. Both when done masterfully propel the viewer into a world beyond the limitations of their technical medium.
Invoking emotions in the beholder who then adds the smells, the sights beyond the page or frame, the understanding as from their own individual perspective, I believe, no matter what the medium, is what the heart of art is all about.
I love this comment, Bernadette, and I thank you for it. I have experienced in great films the way you can almost smell the gunpowder, for instance—I know that’s possible. I fear that the work of the writers who I’ve heard say this seem to be referring to standing behind a camera and watching the movie unspool, which often results in a detached over-reliance on the visual, and employs only a fraction of what deep perspective has to offer. That’s certainly different than the immersive experience that watching a finished film can offer. I appreciate your passionate defense of this alternate storytelling form!
Thanks, Kathryn. I think we both agree, but we are coming at it from different … er… angles.
I make a film in my head every time I write. I am different aspects of myself, director, lighting engineer, make up artist, set designer, actor all rolled into one, and used as needed to create my story on the page. That’s what writing a film in my head means to me.
What filmmaking entails requires that and more.
Perspective is everything! And I appreciate yours.
Great post, Kathryn–thanks!
I haven’t read anything by Barbara Kingsolver in years–a couple of her later books felt too heavy-handed in the issues she took up, so I lost interest. But your post reminds me of why I started reading her books in the first place: Some of her passages are simply marvelous.
Rebecca I thought FLIGHT BEHAVIOR, tied as it was to the impending change in the protagonist’s life, dealt with the climate change issue really well. No soapboxing, but rather peeling back layers to take a look at the problem from many perspectives. I recommend it!
Ooh, I LOVE stuff like this, Kathryn!
What wonderful examples of how the way we describe things can become a powerful way to reveal a character’s emotions and thought processes.
THIS is the stuff that separates great writing from merely capable writing. Thanks so much for posting this.
Of course you love it Keith—you’ve got mad skills! And I’m so grateful to all the authors who share them with us.
Aw, thanks – but I still think I suck at description.
This is a GREAT lesson for me as I try to raise my game.
Hi, Kathryn:
A lovely post and a great example. One often hears “setting is character” but I’ve never seen it articulated so clearly or demonstrated so capably as here. I’m saving this.
Thanks David! I felt the same way while reading her novel. And if there is an environmentalist stance here, it emerges from the subtle underpinning of setting—that the world around us is a living, breathing entity that grieves when we grieve, and suffers when we mess with it. I adore setting rich stories and she gives us much to ponder!
I too needed this post, Kathryn. Thanks for opening my eyes to another way to work with setting and to think about how it reflects the character–his or her relation to the setting–or how emotional and mental states can rapidly change and like the advent of a summer storm alter the character’s perception of the setting. A home that held comfort and solace can become a place of pain–and how the character interacts with that very place can reflect that change.
Great post and insightful as always.
Beth you are so right—a setting can have a story arc of its own, or a relationship arc with a character or a set of characters. Great things to check for when editing. Thanks for stopping by!
Excellent post and one I will refer to in the future. Had hoped that I would write a dynamite scene using your suggestions yesterday–but so far, not forthcoming. When I do, I’ll post it here. Thanks!
I love this post so much Kathryn, and the conversation it has inspired! Donald Maass’s comment about POV resonated with me deeply. What a great reminder. It’s one of the things that fascinated me about your novel, The Art of Falling, how every detail was filtered through the distorted lens of your protagonist, and all done so deftly. Great post and great writing, as usual. So very glad to know you on and offline!
I think David Corbett nailed it though a few comments leading up to his suggest the same thing: that setting truly is character. I would venture to add, as a result, that the deeper we come to know our characters, the easier it will be to create setting, as it simply becomes a rich manifestation of the senses that reflects the character’s inner world. Like Rebecca, too, I haven’t read anything by Kingsolver in years but my sister just gave me a copy of The Poisonwood Bible, so it might be time to return.