Award-Winning Author Ellen Jackson

Imagine that your eye is a camera and that your job as a writer is to record what you "see" happening in your story. The computer screen or piece of paper is the theater where the story is played out. Your job as the writer is to depict a series of scenes that reveals the progression of the plot and helps the reader feel involved and interested.

You must convince your reader that he or she is really there inside the theater, watching the story take place. The setting is the backdrop against which the action happens. Just as a good playwright specifically chooses scenery and props, your story becomes more convincing if it's anchored in specifics.

Assessing where and when

Before you begin writing, ask yourself the following questions to make your story more real for you:

Where is this story happening?
In what country or town does the story take place?
When is the story happening?
What physical objects, plants and animals are present?
How will these objects give your reader additional information about the characters or plot?
Answering these questions helps you visualize your story. You also get a sense of what's crucial to your story, and what isn't. Certain details may not form in your mind as readily as others—and maybe they don't need to.

After you look at the big picture, begin to think about the specifics of time and place in your first scene. For example, the weather sometimes can set the mood of the story. Begin by asking yourself basic questions about the weather:


Is the weather an important element of this particular story?
Does the story take place in a tropical climate or a cold climate?
What time of year is it?
Making your setting believable

Take time to research your setting. If your story takes place in another country, find pictures of that country and talk to immigrants and others who can tell you about the daily life of its inhabitants. Look at travel guides and read books written by people who have lived in that country.

You can also use the Internet to contact people living in a specific place and ask them questions. When I was writing It's Back To School We Go, I used the Internet to correspond with teachers and children in many parts of the world, including Kazakhstan and Australia. Seemingly unimportant details can make a huge difference for making your story believable. If the details are logical and correct, your story becomes instantly real for your reader.

Of course, you may not be able to research facts about some places. If your story is a fantasy, you need to convince your reader that the imaginary world you've created could actually exist. Here is how Mary Hahn in The Wanderers Below describes her main character's first encounter with a fantastic, subterranean world:

She landed flat on her back, on damp ground. Around her spun a murky place which reeked of mold and rot, and of burning embers, and of something tangy she could not identify. She rubbed her eyes and they began to tear.

Note that the author involves several of the character's senses to convey a feeling of transition and show that Annah, the main character, has fallen into a slightly obscure, alien world.

Choosing the right mood

A story's setting creates an atmosphere and tone that helps frame the action, while also adding depth to the characters. And the setting allows you to add this depth without spelling out a lot of unnecessary details. For example, consider how dull the previous excerpt would sound if the author had written it as follows:

Annah landed on her back. She saw she was in a dark, damp place. She rubbed her eyes, which were tearing as though she had allergies.

This version certainly lacks the gracefulness and sensual feel of the original. And worse, the original's intriguing sense of mystery and suspense is nowhere to be found.

In some cases, you may not need to describe the setting in detail, but you must always keep it in mind. In my picture book Scatterbrain Sam, the story takes place in a small Southern town in the 1920s or 1930s. These facts are never directly stated, but details in the story and detailed illustrations reveal the setting: Sam sleeps in his "Sunday britches" and uses outdated expressions, such as "humdinger," while his girlfriend, Maizie Mae, flies a vintage airplane.

If you have a tiny bit of the artist in you (and even if you don't!), try drawing a map of your story environment and trace your characters' movements as the story progresses. This simple "exercise" can help you internalize your characters' world. In other words, you can see that world in terms of color, space, and distance between places—just as your characters would see their world. Remember, the more real this fictional world feels to you, the more convincing it will be for your readers.