Note From KMW: Mood will influence every moment of your story. It will create (and be created by) your story’s tone. It will determine the nuances of your story’s narrative voice. And it will help create both pacing and foreshadowing, by guiding readers to experience and anticipate what you want them to. Naturally, this only works when […]
July 24, 2017 by 62 Comments Story Settings16 Ways to Make Your Setting a Character in Its Own Right
Writers hear it all the time: you must make your setting a character in its own right. But golly boy howdy, what does that even mean? It means: the setting is supposed to come to life—to be rich, vibrant, catalytic. It means: the details of the places in your story are supposed to leap off the […]
June 23, 2017 by 39 Comments Story Settings4 Reasons You Should Outline Your Settings
When you think of all the important story elements you need to outline, setting may not be at the top of your list. It might not even be on your list. But it should be. Setting provides the foundation for every other important element in your story—starting with plot, character, and theme, and progressing right on down […]
March 24, 2017 by 54 Comments Story SettingsFind Out When It’s a Good Idea to Use a Made-Up Setting
Too often, writers take the old adage “write what you know” to mean they should never do anything so rash as to, you know, make stuff up. At the very least, shouldn’t you adhere to reality whenever a corresponding reality exists, as, for example, when it comes to the choice between a real-life setting and […]
July 6, 2016 by 29 Comments Story Settings4 Ways to Choose the Right Story Setting
Most writers don’t have too much trouble when it comes to how to choose the right story setting for their books. Middle Earth; Maycomb, Alabama; Hogwarts—it’s often fairly obvious which locations will serve the needs of the story; then it’s just as matter of picking the best one. But what about the rest of the settings? […]
January 4, 2016 by 47 Comments Story SettingsMost Common Mistakes Series, Pt. 47: Ineffective Setting Descriptions
You can’t write a good setting without a good description. That’s the way it rolls. In written literature, what is setting if not description? How do you convey it without description of some sort? For something so relatively intuitive, setting descriptions can end up being surprisingly tricky to detail effectively. For one thing, you have […]
August 14, 2015 by 42 Comments Story SettingsLearn How NOT to Waste Your Story Setting’s Full Potential
This week’s video talks about how Dennis Lehane’s Shutter Island benefited from a full and imaginative use of its story setting—and how you can add the same value to your own book. Video Transcript: Story setting should never be a throwaway decision. Your setting is going to influence every page you write. Not only does […]
July 29, 2015 by 13 Comments Story Settings2 Ways to Make the Most of Your Story’s Climactic Setting
This week’s video points out some little-known considerations about creating an awesome and perfectly planned climactic setting for your story. Video Transcript: If we think of a story as sort of like a funnel, then the climax is the very tip of that funnel. In short, there’s not much room down there. Whatever is going […]
March 6, 2015 by 21 Comments Story Settings3 Must-Know Ways for Creating Meaningful Settings in Your Novel
Sad but true, setting in novels is mostly ignored. It’s as if writers feel they must sacrifice attention to setting on the altar of getting the story moving, but nothing could be further from the truth. The settings in your novel serve a number of very powerful functions in your scenes, and that’s why setting is an […]
February 8, 2015 by 26 Comments Story SettingsThe 5 Secrets of Choosing the Right Setting for Your Story’s Climax
When you plan your story’s climax, the first thing to come to mind might not be the setting. Too often, the climactic setting is an afterthought. The action, after all, is what’s most important–not where it takes place. But setting can make or break any scene in your story, and this is nowhere more true than […]
