Setting

Compiled by Nadine Miller (1995)

The setting of a novel or story literally "sets" the time and place of the action and in so doing, creates the flavor and the mood, even helps define the characters.

A typical conflict between the hero and heroine of a romance novel is the inability to trust. Yet three stories with this same conflict will be entirely different if set in a ranch in contemporary Texas, a townhouse in Regency England, or a castle in Medieval France. The sights, sounds, tastes and smells unique to each time and place create word pictures that draw the reader into that particular story.

Weathered posts and strings of rusty barbed wire marching across as desolate stretch of sage brush.

The fog-muffled rattle of carriage wheels over ancient cobblestone streets.

Pungent odors of roasting meat and bitter ale, unwashed bodies and rushes drying before a blazing fire.

An imaginative setting can be deeply romantic or so fraught with terror, it sends shivers down the reader's spine. Never static, the constantly changing elements of light and shadow, sound and scent are the brushes the author uses to paint the backdrop for whatever action is on stage at the moment.

While the external plot and the internal conflicts or the main characters may be the bread and meat of the story, the setting is the spice which tempts the eye and tantalizes the taste buds.