20 Questions to Enrich Your Setting

Your scene's full of dialogue and action but something's missing.  Try to picture where it takes place in your mind.  If you imagine anything like the set of a Beckett play it won't look much richer to your reader.  Beckett's intention was to create sparse, desolate environments.  Most of us intend to create richer settings for our scenes.

Here are 20 questions to help embellish a setting:

1. Does the reader know where and when a scene takes place?
2. What man-made elements (if any) make up your setting?
3. What natural elements (if any) make up your setting?
4. What is the most prominent color?
5. What design or aesthetic principles are visible?
6. What non-speaking characters (like passersby) in the scene; what do they look like?
7. What do those other characters look like to the P.O.V. character?  (Shorter, taller, fatter, thinner, etc).
8. What objects (such as books, records or photographs) can one of the characters peruse? (What do they add to the scene?)
9. What electronics (such as a TV or radio) can be switched on? (What station will be on?)
10. What smells are in the air? (Pleasant, foul, natural, man-made, etc).
11. What sounds can be heard? (Harsh, soft, brick-like silence, water, wind, etc).
12. What can be touched and felt?
13. What is the nearest object that can be picked up?
14. What is the most dangerous object nearby? (If a character went nuts what could be used as a lethal weapon?)
    
15. What kind of weather does the sky suggest? 
16. What effect does the current temperature have on the characters and the setting?
17. What imperfections are visible? (No matter how well-kept the setting something must be imperfect).
18. What evidence of people not present in the scene are around?
19. How easy would it be for someone to spy on the scene?
20. How permanent is the setting? (Can you imagine how it will be destroyed?)

Many of these questions share an interest in how vulnerable the setting is or how vulnerable it makes the characters. Great scenes take place where they do for a reason; the setting plays a role in the story.  If a setting seems bland, it might be because that scene should take place somewhere else. 

This is the fourth 20 Questions post in as many weeks.  You might be interested in the previous three:

• Week One: Questions for Your Test Readers
• Week Two: Questions for Your Characters
• Week Three: Questions for Your Plot

 

Paulo Campos wrote his first novel in high school but didn't return to fiction until well into graduate school.  He's since written three novels and a collection of short fiction.  One of the novels and the collection seem good enough to shop for publication and are being revised.  He was a recipient of Glimmer Train's "Best Start" competition in November 2009.  His first published piece of short fiction will appear in the June 2010 issue of THEMA. 

He lives in New York with his wife and two suspect cats.