Writing Tips - Story Plot

Jan Fields, ICL web editor, has published in many and varied children’s and family magazines including Boys’ Quest, Highlights For Children, Shining Star, Crayola Kids, Ladybug, Single-Parent Family and Charisma-Life.  Though she began her career writing for adults exclusively, she was soon lured into the challenging world of children's writing. Jan has taught adult and children’s writing for over twenty years. In addition to this busy schedule, Jan is the editor of Kid Magazine Writer e-magazine. She is a member of the SCBWI and a repeat speaker at local SCBWI conferences. Her articles about writing have been published both in print and online markets such as Keystrokes, Byline, Children’s Writer, and Children’s Book Insider. She also wrote a middle grade fantasy novel for the Creative Girls Club line by DRG Publishing. In her spare time, she sleeps.

"STORY AND SETTING"

by Jan Fields

One of the most common marks of a beginning writer is the “talking heads” story. In this type of piece, you have dialogue (usually between two characters) but no sense of place. The reader cannot picture the characters fully because he doesn’t know where they are having this conversation – at the kitchen table? Walking together down a dusty road in the South? Squirming to find a comfortable position in airline seats? Without setting, dialogue doesn’t seem totally real.

Setting should be carefully chosen for your fiction. A story told on the beach in California will not be interchangeable with the same basic plot set on the streets of London. Setting is more than background noise. For some stories, setting is almost a character by itself since it can affect every area of the story. Your protagonist’s surroundings will influence his attitudes and responses to conflict. Setting includes geography [in what part of the world is the story located?] season [a summer story is very different from the winter story in children’s magazines] and housing [apartment? Mansion? Boarding school?].

BUILDING GOOD SETTING

Some writers draw elaborate floor plans and maps to help them write consistently about their setting. The more vividly you visualize your setting, the better you can weave it throughout your story and the more it can support your plot. If you have only a sketchy understanding of the particulars of the environment your book is set in, you will find yourself tacking on setting details rather than letting them come through naturally.

Setting can also come from places you have been. One worthwhile exercise is to build “setting notes” whenever you visit someplace new. In a small notebook, note any unusual details of the setting that surprise you. Pay particular attention to sensory details – what does the place smell like? What sounds do you hear? Is the temperature surprising? Record textures and small “markers.”

For example: a setting note for a small grocery in my North Carolina home town would note that many of the shoppers wore overalls and work boots and carried a sharp smell of sweat. Pools of shadow marked areas where the florescent lights had burned out. Cardboard cartons were used to display much of the produce. The floor tiles were sticky in the juice aisle, suggesting an unsuccessful clean up. The cooler for the milk buzzed crankily.

If I were to place two characters in that grocery store, small details I had noted would help to make the scene real for the reader – and the setting itself could affect how the characters react while they talk.

THE USE OF SETTING

Setting can be used to reflect or contrast with the mood of your story. A somber story may be set in winter to reflect the mood or set in summer to contrast with the situation of the protagonist. Using setting to contrast with the mood can heighten your protagonist’s sense of aloneness.

Setting is revealed in sensory detail as a part of the action of the story. If your story were set in a dog kennel, what sensory details would be part of the story? Certainly the sound would, and should, intrude into your story – conversation would be difficult over the noise and even thinking would seem hard. Smell would certainly be likely to affect the characters; therefore it should be a part of your detail. And the dogs themselves would make themselves known. No kid could spend time in a kennel and not notice individual dogs. If you tell the reader that a story is taking place in a kennel, but then don’t give any details – your characters will seem distant and flat because readers expect people to be influenced by where they are.

How much setting is revealed can be affected by the personality of your characters. If your main character were a totally hyperactive 8-year-old, she would not spend a lot of time pondering the sky or the faint scent of trillium on the breeze. If you include details like that, they will seem jarring. Instead the character is going to notice the things that move, that interact specifically with her. Let the choice of setting details support the reader’s understanding of your characters.

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