Creating the perfect setting for your novel is not as hard as you might think if you take the time to consider who is going to be living in it. The characters, action, and ultimately solution to your novel will determine the perfect setting for any novel. With some consideration to these important things, your setting will often create itself.
The first thing to do in creating the perfect setting is to ask yourself about your characters. Are they Southern folk, or Northerners? Do they live in a mobile home or a multimillion dollar estate? Are they going to be moving to a different pay class? What is their culture? All of these questions can effect setting and you need to consider them all and more.
If your character is being considered, the setting often will be obvious. Once you have the general idea of your setting, such as geographical range and type, then it is all about creating the details. This is where the creativity side comes in.
If you know your characters live on a farm, you need to paint a picture of that farm that anybody will be able to see. Not everyone has been on a farm, and you have to consider this when you are creating the setting. You must consider each of the five senses when telling about the setting. Sight, touch, hearing, smell, and yes even taste must be brought to life for the reader.
Once you paint that picture of your setting, then you have to allow it to evolve with the character. If you change locations and settings as you almost always do, you must then update the reader about the new location. The hardest part of writing a novel is doing this without it feeling forced or contrived. Do it through actions when possible, rather than through overly descriptive prose. Try to bring in the setting details through what the character is doing.
Setting is one of the easier things to create when writing a novel if for no other reason than half the creating is already done when you get to it. You already have the characters, and so you have a framework to build the setting around.
If you spend some time considering the players in your book, then the setting will come about naturally. And natural writing is the best type of writing when it comes to fiction.
Once you have the setting started, and you have fleshed out the details for the reader, then you need to make certain that you keep the reader in the middle of the setting clearly. Many times the writer will be changing settings without informing the reader of the switch. This leads to a ton of confusion and causes the book to lose it’s form. Take the time to consider location and setting before you even start a paragraph. Ask yourself if anything is changing in that area during this chapter, page, or even paragraph. If it is, then you need to account for the change.
If you stick to these basic rules, then creating the perfect setting for your book will be rather easy for you. Just remember to let the characters and action determine the setting in the beginning, and to always keep the reader up to date when changes occur.
