The session entitled Sweltering Settings and Suspense featured Hallie Ephron, John Hart, and Hank Phillippi Ryan.
All three of them touted the importance setting has for a story. Hank says she has a Sticky Note on her computer that says Be There! As a reminder for her to write as if she’s in the room. She says to play a video in your mind.
Use the senses. Deep memories are tied to scent.
You can tie so many other elements—smell, shadow, pacing, for example—with setting.
Setting creates an internal landscape as well as the external landscape.
Since Hallie writes often about families, the home is often her setting. She used problems with the house—neglected and needed a coat of paint and the floorboards needed a good sanding, for example—so the setting actually showcased what was wrong with the marriage.
Remember to put the camera in the narrator’s head.
Setting and Suspense
Turn the setting on its ear: What if your home isn’t safe?
What if something is not quite right but you don’t know what?
If two of your characters view the setting in a different way, that creates conflict.
Hallie gave the example of how Hitchcock created suspense by “putting the lightbulb in the milk” in the filming of Suspicion so it glowed as Cary Grant walked up the stairs. Hitchcock wanted everyone to focus on that glass of milk. Was it poison? Or just a nourishing glass of milk?
According to Hank, you know you’ve got a good idea if you drop it in a pond, like a stone, and it forms ripples that fan out over the water. Each ripple is another facet of the idea. If you drop it in the pond and it sinks, forget it!
Use little details to show things about people. John mentioned a character in The Great Gatsby who was described as having “cufflinks made of human teeth.”
You can also use cultural references to enhance the setting—chain restaurants, hairstyles, clothes, music, TV shows.
Add beauty to balance the evil or the ugly.
What about story endings? Hank never knows the ending when she starts a book or story. She likes to be surprised. Hallie always knows the ending, but she’s often wrong. Per Hank, you don’t know what you think until you write.
Suggested books that do setting very well:
Pat Conroy’s Price of Tides
Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities
Lisa Jewel’s The Night She Disappeared