Writing Setting as Character

What’s good, y’all? Today, I want to talk about something in writing that it feels like many authors overlook - setting as character. 

We all know how important setting is to a story. I mean, it’s where our story takes place, so we know it’s critical. 

But Eudora Welty once said, “Every story would be another story, and unrecognizable if it took up its characters and plot and happened somewhere else… Fiction depends for its life on place. In other words, if you could set your story anywhere else, you haven’t given your story a strong enough sense of place.”

And that’s something that I believe is spot on. 

Using your setting as a character can add tremendous amounts of weight to your work. By making the setting feel like a character, it adds another whole world for you to play with in your writing. 

If you think about Yoknapatawpha County from Faulkner, Stephen King’s Maine, Ernest Hemingway’s Florida Keys, Flannery O’Connor’s South, or even Gotham in the Batman franchise, setting can hold a ton of weight for you. 

Here are some things to consider with your setting: 

• Mood 

• History 

• Conflict 

• Foreshadowing through setting 

• Change and Transformation 

• Symbols in the city 

Those are just a few of the concepts you can bring in with your setting. For example, Charleston, SC played a huge role in the American Revolution and the Civil War. There’s tons of history here. It held one of the largest slave ports in the world for many years. The are a myriad of social, political and economic factors in Charleston’s history that an author can use if a book is set here. 

This place is also considered haunted, so ghosts come into play as well. 

You can think of weather as an added element. Winter is a time when it’s cold and people stay inside more. It’s a time of death before rebirth. Spring is a season of renewal. Fall a season of change. 

Rain, snow, flooding, storms, etc. all add potential elements to your story. 

Rivers, for example, are a symbol of transition. So are doorways and staircases. If you have a character experiencing a transition, then placing them near one of these elements only adds another layer to your work. 

You can also use your descriptions of setting to set the tone and mood of a work. If a place is harsh, cold and cruel, well, then you’re in a good place for a character who has to overcome. If the place is hot, heat is stifling and a symbol for anger or violence or passion. Forests are a place off mystery and renewal. A desert is a symbol of alienation. Gardens invoke paradise, and the list goes on and on. 

There are so many different elements you can use to add layers to your story when you understand your setting. 

What I believe is that an author must understand, research and completely comprehend the settings of their stories. This will give them the knowledge base to build that setting into a character in itself. That’s another character to add conflict, tension and stakes to your story. 

Happy Writing, y’all!