| Your novel needs a setting. The setting must be | | | | has set its own record for fast rejections. |
| strong and suitable for your story. However, it | | | | Setting should be like good wallpaper. It enhances |
| must not overwhelm the story. Sprinkle it in as | | | | the story, fits perfectly and does not overwhelm |
| you go. Do not write travelogues. If you do | | | | the people in the room. If your setting does not |
| research, as hard as it might be, don't use it all in | | | | come naturally out of your story, then you may |
| the book. I have a manuscript set in France just | | | | have a problem. How people are and what they |
| before the Revolution. It's a great heap of a | | | | do varies according to their surroundings. I am |
| manuscript with pages and pages and pages of all | | | | writing this mystery novel set on Prince Edward |
| the fascinating things I found in researching what | | | | Island. I tried writing it set in a city but it didn't |
| they ate and drank and wore and said and did. My | | | | work because the whole point of the novel is the |
| punishment for not being discerning in choosing | | | | insular, isolated, cloying aspect of small town |
| what bits to use is that I have to go back and | | | | village life. It also helps that I grew up there and |
| rewrite it, slashing out pages of description. Sigh! | | | | know the Island from tip to tip and know the |
| Wisdom holds that we should write what we | | | | way people are there. |
| know. This is especially true in choosing your | | | | The setting of a novel can have nearly as much |
| setting. Blockbuster novels tend to be set in | | | | impact on the story as the main character. |
| places like New York. I have never been to New | | | | Consider Stephen King's The Shining and that |
| York so if I were to set a story there, I'd have | | | | great big old isolated hotel. Or the setting can be |
| to rely on what other writers have said about | | | | any where or everywhere. Mary Higgins Clark's |
| New York. I believe this would make my story | | | | books tend to have non-specific settings, or so it |
| weaker because part of it would be filtered | | | | seems to me. They could be set in New England |
| through another writer's view of the big city. | | | | or just outside Winnipeg. Both work and work |
| So did I write a novel set in Paris? Well, I wanted | | | | very well. Setting also covers more than |
| to. And it's historical so no one knows for absolute | | | | geography. When in time is the novel set? What's |
| certain what the air smelled like or how life felt | | | | the weather like. What special problems, if any, |
| then so any writer writing about it would have to | | | | does the setting cause the hero? |
| rely on research. Still, it took me nearly a year | | | | Exercise - Setting |
| just to do the in depth research on daily life in the | | | | 1. Where is your novel set? |
| 1780s. (Now you know why I wanted to use that | | | | 2. Is the setting important to the novel? |
| research.) And I may point out, that darned novel | | | | 3. If not, why are you using that setting. |