Setting The Scene

Story SettingsHow to improve your writing!

You can start your story by thinking about the setting.

Where does your story take place?

What time of day is it?

What is the weather like?

Is it inside Or outside?

Manipulatethe reader with the setting.

Use place as well as the weather, time of day and season, to create a setting. After all, a walk along a lane on a summery afternoon creates one atmosphere but the same lane on a dark wintry night would feel very different.

Use detail to bring the setting alive - base this on sense impressions.

• What can be seen, heard, smelt, touched and tasted?

• If the reader is to enter your world, s/he needs to be able to

• see it• hear it• touch it• taste it• smell it

Base settings on places that you know - plus some invented detail.

• Think of places where you have been.

• Close your eyes and look at all the details around you. What can you see?

• Now use your imagination to change the place. Add some interesting details.

• Do you want details to make your setting seem:

• dangerous?• frightening?• fun?• safe?• peaceful?• strange/imaginary?

Use the setting to create atmosphere

• For instance, you might use a frightening place such as an empty house - or you can take a very ordinary place and make it seem scary by making it seem unusual, dark and cold.

Remember:•Do not get

bogged down in too

much description or you will lose the

pace of the narrative.

Use real or invented names to bring places alive

• Names help to make your setting more real and more believable.

• ‘A boy walked down a street’ shows us nothing, but ‘Lugs O’Neill limped down Butcher’s Row’ starts to catch our imagination.

Once you have built the setting you can bring in the characters.

Who is there and why?Have fun creating your story

setting!