Writing Fiction: Big Dreams, Tall Ambitions, Session 9
TAILORING YOUR TEACHING
If your students have difficulty picturing the setting of their stories . . . send them back to their
character development work. If you were to observe the setting of my life, you would see
evidence of the kind of person I am. You would see pictures of the people I love, books strewn
about the living room, dishes left unwashed far too long. My home gives clues about my
personal idiosyncrasies. Anne Lamott writes that “every room is a little showcase of its
occupants’ values and personalities” (Bird by Bird, p. 74), and so it is for our fictional
characters. You might tell your students, “When writers imagine the places where characters
live, we must first remember what we know about our characters.” Tell your students to recall
their characters’ interests, important relationships, and background. Then, encourage them to
imagine ways to reveal these aspects of the main character through setting.
If your students develop settings that feel arbitrary . . . teach them that writers choose
settings carefully to add meaning or power to our stories. You can point to many examples in
books in which the setting mirrors the internal life of a character. One example is in the story
“Spaghetti” by Cynthia Rylant, from Every Living Thing. In the beginning of the story, the main
character, Gabriel, feels like a loner as he sits “on the stoop of a tall building of crumbling
bricks and rotting wood” (p. 31). By the end of the story, Gabriel no longer feels lonely and the
description of setting—”a room and a bed of his own in the tall building” (p. 33)—reflects the
internal shift that has occurred in him.
Writers also often use the weather to create drama or interest in their stories. Some writers,
like Kate DiCamillo in Because of Winn-Dixie, might write a scene that takes place in a violent
storm to reflect the turmoil or pain that a character is experiencing. I could also imagine a writer
choosing to use the weather as a foil for the character’s personality, so that a scene might take
place on a clear, sunny day, but no matter how warmly the sun shines, how harmoniously the
birds chirp, it cannot lift a sense of gloom or sadness from the character’s mood.
As adult readers and writers, we know that writers can use setting to add symbolism,
metaphor, mood, and drama to our stories. Once students begin to realize what a powerful tool
this is, they will make choices about setting as deliberately and carefully as they do about
character and plot.
If students have worked through this unit already in previous years . . . you might teach
writers that descriptions of the setting can be crafted to reflect or reveal the character’s mood or
situation. For example, if a character is feeling disheartened because her crush has rejected her,
the school dance decorations will look different. In that case, the writer might write: “The huge
overhead lights glared in her eyes, making her squint. The shiny wooden gym floor felt blinding.
The bright balloons and swirling streamers all swayed with the music as if to say, ‘Everyone is
dancing but you!’” But, on the other hand, if the character’s crush has given her some attention,
the same gym will look different. In that case, the writer might write: “The overhead lights
glowed like sunshine on the shiny gym floor. The balloons and streamers seemed to be winking
at her and saying as they swayed, ‘Come dance with us!’”
If your students’ stories are overwhelmed by the inclusion of background information…
you could show them other ways writers have of giving information without overwhelming their
writing – and their readers. For example, writers often have a character do some action that
reveals a fact we’d like readers to know. Instead of writing,
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Mimi’s grandfather lived in Missouri. Mimi lived far away from him in New
York. Mimi missed her grandfather terribly because she so rarely saw him.
You could show this:
Each afternoon Mimi would run home from school, grab the mail off the
kitchen counter and thumb through it, her heart racing. When she found an
envelope with ‘Missouri’ written in the upper left hand corner, she would
tear off to her bedroom, the letter in her hand. Letters from Grandpa were
so rare, so welcome!
You could tell children that sometimes we show things more quickly than we could tell
them. We might have a character look at an object and tear up, recalling the person who gave it
to him. Or we could show a child playing in the sandbox to indicate that the character is young,
or have another character walk slowly with a cane, to show that she’s old. There are many ways
to provide background information without coming out and telling it. Encourage children to find
ways to lighten their fiction by having their characters’ thoughts and actions revealed in a detail
rather than extensive background information.
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