Tips on Scene Setting: 7 Ways to Establish Setting
A novel is essentially a collection of scenes that each push the story along. While one bad scene won’t make or break a story, it can make interest wane. And if one scene has a problem, it’s likely that your other scenes do, too. One of the most important parts about a scene is the setting. Establishing your setting can set your scene up to make a bigger impact by making readers feel like they’re experiencing events alongside your protagonist.
So how do we set the scene?
Avoid White Room Syndrome
White room syndrome is a common mistake made by newer writers. For a list of more mistakes new writers make, check out my blog, 10 Common Mistakes Made by New Writers.
White room syndrome is where the setting isn’t established, so the readers are left to just to imagine the characters standing in a plain white room. You can avoid this by describing where the characters are. Consider the very first scene of your book, beginning with the opening page. A clear setting should be established through description of the room (or outdoor area) your character is in. Which brings us to sensory details.
Use Sensory Details
Physical description of a setting is a great starting point, but on its own, it’s shallow. Readers may be able to envision the setting, but don’t feel as if they’re there alongside the main character.
Sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound are all important aspects of a setting. When your protagonist walks into her mom’s kitchen, maybe she can feel the warmth of the oven and smell the freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies Mom just pulled out.
You can also use these to give a different image: a dirty, filthy alleyway that smells like sewage and the taste of bile at the back of your throat.
Establish Time Period
One common mistake I see from new writers is not establishing a time period. Is it modern? Do we have iPhones? Or are we back in the 90’s? Make sure readers know exactly when your book (and the specific scene) is happening.
Show Through the Eyes of Your POV Character
If you’ve never been to New York before, you’re going to probably describe it a lot differently than someone who’s lived there their entire life. The same should apply to your character. Whoever your POV (point of view) character is telling the story, will likely have an opinion on what they’re seeing.
Take into account whether or not they’re seeing this setting for the first time and what their impressions are.
Establish Emotion
Tying into the last point, try to establish the tone or emotion related to the setting. Say the setting is your main character’s childhood home and they’re walking through it for the first time in a decade. Maybe they feel nostalgic and melancholy. They might notice a chip in the countertop where they dropped a knife when they were ten, and their mom comforted them afterwards. Or there’s a stain in the carpet on the stairs from an incident no one talks about.
Make Characters Interact with Their Surroundings
Part of White Room Syndrome is that the characters usually just… stand there. Sometimes they’ll roll their eyes or cross their arms, but it’s rare that people won’t interact with their surroundings even when they’re in conversation. Consider your character’s relationship with the setting and have them interact with it in a way that makes sense and grounds your reader.
Have Conflict
Scenes need conflict. It can be something as small as your character having a silent rivalry with the cashier, who always takes too long to scan their items out of spite. Tension keeps us engaged and makes us want to keep reading to see the resolution. Will something funny happen between our main character and the petty cashier? Whose fault is it, really, that they don’t get along? We can learn a lot through conflict.