how important is setting the setting, anyway?

starting a story, breaking the cool white of the blank page with your black scribblings is a moment of enormous potential; potential, and pressure. i have been thwarted many times. to be honest, i'm somewhat thwarted right now, as i blog to delay returning to my story-in-progress. even with the magic of computers and word processors, there's something about that first crack in the eggshell, that first dip into the smooth water, that makes us draw and hold our breath for a second. well, me at least. i know i'm about to sully that perfection with my fallible attempt at setting my scene. with each character typed onto the page, the potential for greatness ebbs away. sad, isn't it? as much as we strive for greatness, we know that most of the time we settle for competent, or well-told. or truly awful, on a bad day.

so, why setting? what's so important about it? even if we begin our story smack in the middle of some hair-pulling adventure, a moment of such adrenaline and terror we forget to swallow as we gobble up the words, we still have to get a clue about where the story is, and when it is. even if all we receive is the essential clues, we have to have a hint of a world in which to plant our thirsty imagination. readers don't mind filling in a few holes, but they need that weedy framework upon which to work.

so, setting. how to go about it. i'll start a story without the foggiest idea of what's gonna happen. i may have a specific scene in my head--wild-haired gypsy in a circus tent, werewolf cowgirl by a desert campfire, sri lankan fisherman staring at his feet on the beach--and just follow from there, seeing where the characters take me. but i don't think we can begin a story without having a clue about where and when it happens. can you remember a successful story in which this is true? seriously--because i'm always up for learning a new skill.

but, how to know what to include and what to leave out?

for me, i try to see the scene through my character's eyes. what's important to them? what would they notice? is their emotional state affecting how they perceive the world around them? i've read stories in which the author describes with loving--and sometimes skillful--detail everything in a scene down to the stitching on the curtains. curtain stitching may be vital to the telling of the story, but i'm not sure i'm interested in reading a story where the characters find stitches in fabric an essential part of life.

but, take the ornate bowl of fresh fruit on the table, just in from the front hall. the dewy skin on the apple, the fragile pear with its wooden stem still intact, the banana just beginning to brown at the tip. if our character's a street urchin, brought inside a fine mansion for the sake of delivering a mysterious message, you can bet he's gonna notice that fruit bowl. he might be cramming fruit down his trousers as we speak, not thinking ahead about how to explain to the head butler the suspicious bulges around his thighs. the urchin might like a fine coat made from well-stitched curtain, but consider the hierarchy of needs--he'll be looking for food first. and the odds against him making off with a curtain? not so good. fruit in the trousers? pretty good, actually. it's doubtful the butler's gonna reach down the boy's filthy pants legs for a smudged apple.

okay, i've beaten this one to death, i think. no, wait.

the only other bit of technique i could offer on this is: less is more. if i have to choose between moving my story along and spending time fluttering my eyelashes over a setting description, i'm going for the action. if you can impart a tone, a feel for the place along with a few well-chosen details, that will give the reader enough to work with. they'll get it--they're not dumb. you can always add more detail in a later scene, if you feel you need to. and if your character never needs to return to this specific setting, it may not warrant a full description, anyway.

okay, i think that's it. what suggestions do you have on setting a scene? tricks? techniques? lessons learned? favorite scene descriptions? please let me know.

here's a fun and informative article delving a little deeper--okay, a lot deeper--into what i've been saying: http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/description.shtml enjoy!