I've been working on setting in my stories, trying to bring this Griffith Observatory to a tangible existence (though it differs in our LABN world than it does in reality). Still, I don't feel I've succeeded. Not yet.
Right now I'm watching a good movie, Minority Report. This is a wonderful example of how setting is inextricable from character and plot. Spielberg couldn't have told this story in 1980 California. He couldn't have told it in 1990 New York. He couldn't have told it in 2010 Japan. His distant, crime-infested version of Washington D.C. gave birth to John Anderton.
If you haven't seen it, or if you've seen it and passed, watch it again. The setting inundates our protagonist, not only flavoring the mileu but creating virtually all plot complications.
When I sit down to write a post, I'm generally so lost in a forest of plot points and characterizations that I neglect setting. When one's time and place grow up through the soil and violate him through his boots and feet, when he can't take another step without ripping the threads out of the Earth, that character is fortunate enough to be a component of tight writing.
I say this now, as I usualy do, as self-medication. But I think it's a remedy that might interest anyone looking to stabilize their writing. The questions that we might ask ourselves:
* What would Oliver's story be if he was a pig farmer in Iowa? Would he have lost his wife to a cult? If so, why didn't I just make him a pig farmer? Why an astronomer?
* What would have become of Kyle Ashton if his setting (his father) hadn't eventually turned him into a hitchhiking demon? I think his early years living too comfortably was a nice origin for the now thrill-seeking Kaoshian. That one detail made it sensible to me. Had Kyle grown up on the streets, he wouldn't have responded quite the same to the adrenaline rush of staking a vamp.
* Heather's choice of a random vampire killing Tash was a subtle choice of setting. A nondescript alley was the perfect place to plant a surprise for us the readers. Such places breed haphazard events. Heather did not choose a glamorous locale on purpose.
Minority Report just ended. I am feeling satisfied. Setting lead to the birth of Cruise's character, and his character fell into the plot, and the plot relied on the setting. They are each one and the same.
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