THE ICE PICK

Setting, by Jack M. Bickham. Cincinnati : Writer’s Digest Books, 1993. (The Elements of Fiction Writing series) ISBN 0-89879-635-0. $14.95.

Especially important in SF/H/F stories, "setting is a topic seldom discussed at length in writers’ workshops or addressed in any detail in texts for creators of fiction." It is not merely the physical backdrop, but the historical and cultural background including the mood of the place and time, and the attitudes and even the language of the characters involved.

Bickham begins by discussing the use of the five senses in creating sharp realism in your story, and how important accuracy is in convincing your reader. He also emphasizes accuracy when he talks about the pitfalls of making up a town or other place without knowing the factual background that makes that place believable. There must be "an internal factual consistency" in both the background and your characters’ responses to it even in fantasy and science fiction.

One thing he recommends, which is very helpful to beginners, is to keep files of interesting clippings, personal research notes, pictures, and so forth. Most of us who have been writing any length of time do this automatically because we’ve found that you never know when something may be useful. He includes more details about organizing (and gathering) this information in his final chapter. I would have preferred these items closer together, but the excellent index links them for you.

Bickham includes a chapter on the needs of specialized settings in romances, suspense stories, historicals (much of which applies to fantasy, as well), and science fiction.

The next seven chapters contain practical techniques on how to create and use setting in your story, in advancing your plot, in characterization and viewpoint, in adding ideas, depth, and meaning to your story, and in creating mood.

Bickham ends the book with substantial exercises to help the beginner and with an appendix on research sources and techniques. And then he includes "Nancy Berland’s Setting Research Form." Berland is a romance writer, and the form is for a real-life place you might visit and want to use as a setting. But I found it a fascinating tool to use in creating an imaginary place, and it quickly became my favorite part of the book.

As Bickham says, "Even if you’re writing a science fiction tale of an alien universe, you’ll have to know the prevailing attitudes there, and you’ll have to invent a history that would credibly create those attitudes."

{Published in SF & Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, Nov. 2000.}

THE ICE PICK

Make That Scene: a Writer’s Guide to Setting, Mood and Atmosphere, by William Noble. Middlebury, Vt.: Eriksson, 1988. ISBN 0-8397-5708-5. $17.95.

One of the first questions readers ask is "Where am I?"

This book shows how to create the physical setting to develop a sense of place, a background, against which your story will play, and how to develop the mood within that setting.

Noble explains how setting can be used to add vividness, develop a plot, establish or influence a character, build tension, or act as a major character itself. He shows how to use details, time, dialogue, and action to establish setting.

He specifically addresses stories where you cannot "write what you know," namely those set in the future and those in the past. Too often, he says, writers load their scenes with description to achieve authenticity, when two or three telling details might be all that is needed. "The important details, no matter what kind of story we write, involve specific colors, shapes and textures."

He explains that to choose the most telling details, you can imagine yourself there and see what two or three things strike you the most. Or you can remember a similar experience in your life. If you are writing about a first date, for example, ask what things stick in your mind about your own first date.

"Atmosphere (or mood) is what the reader feels as the effect of the setting settles. It is the writer’s way of injecting life into the stiff details of the locale."

It is generally not good to have the setting and the atmosphere match--an argument in the midst of a thunderstorm, for example--but Noble explains when you can do that and when it is better avoided.

He says that what you see, hear, smell, feel, and taste make the difference between the "one dimensional" and the "imaginative scene." Describing scenes, clothes, and a different way of life is not enough. "To take us alive into another period of time, the senses must be invoked. . . . History, the future, other worlds, other mindsets, it doesn’t matter. The senses make it all come alive."

Noble shows how you can influence mood and atmosphere not only by the five senses, but by physical description, point of view, change of pace, tone, the music of your words themselves, and even the nostalgia your characters express.

There is also a section on the special mood requirements of genres, like horror.

The index is excellent and there is a great bibliography for further exploration.

I highly recommend this book.

{Published in GPIC, the Oklahoma Science Fiction Writers Newsletter, July 1999. Reprinted in SF & Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, Sept. 2000.}