Sheehy English 9

Writing about setting is understandably difficult for many students (that’s why I require only 250 words for this article), but it’s an essential element to stories and it’s important for you as an intelligent reader to stop and evaluate it thoroughly.

How, though? How do you talk about setting for so long when usually all you have to do is answer the question, “What is the setting?” in four or fewer sentences? One way to talk about setting is to talk about every little tidbit of the setting, and that’s why your groups worked together to list everything you know about the setting in your book. On those pages, I already explained two strategies for extending your thinking:

1. Consider any changes in the setting and what happens in particular places.
2. Also consider how your book would be different if it took place somewhere else.

Those are two of my favorite strategies, and while you do that, don’t forget that setting is more than physical location – it’s also the time, including the time in history. So if I think about The Odyssey, I might consider what happens when the setting changes. For one thing, each time the setting changes, there seems to be a new obstacle for Odysseus to overcome. And if the book had taken place somewhere else – say, for example, the USA during the 1990’s – then Odysseus wouldn’t have been in a culture that cared about the gods and goddesses.

Other strategies for thinking about setting:

• How do the characters feel about the places (and situations the places are responsible for creating) in the story?
• Does the setting play a major role, or is it more of a background element?
• How does the author describe the setting? (In long descriptive passages? In short blips that let you know where and when things are happening?)
• Is the setting clear? If it is unclear, is it unclear for a particular reason?
• What kinds of attitudes do the characters possess as a result of the setting? (For example, if the book is set in Alabama in the 1940’s, chances are the white people would possess significantly racist attitudes towards black people.)

Those questions are not intended as a checklist, but as a help to get you thinking about setting. 250 words is a lot more than the four sentences you’d like to write, but you are very capable of doing it. If you get stuck, please reopen the conversation with your group’s members to see if, together, you can generate more thinking and insight about setting.

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Image Attribution:

Original image: ‘Grand Street: Texting‘ by: Mo Riza

Original image: ‘The Land of Ghosts‘ by: Peter Bowers

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