Where am I?!

Hi. See, if any of you read the last chapter, I promised that i would write about settings here. Anddddd well, if you also remember, I said that I actually have no damn idea how to write setting. BUT! I did research (a list of what I used will be at the bottom), and I'm hoping that's enough to make you stay :c because ilu ok. I'll try my best to convey what I can, and give a few suggestions on how to write it (as I usually do) but I cannot tell you how to incorporate it into a story, because I rarely do it. You may proceede to punch me in the face.

So as we all know, a setting is the time and location of which your narrative/story is taking place, and it can pretty much be anywhere. Space, your room, your school, under the desk, in your ear. Anywhere you please, but keep in mind; a setting can reveal alot about a character and can go hand in hand with the plot.

Physical setting

Well, this is quite self-explanatory. What is physically around your character(s).

When thinking about the phyical setting though, you also need to keep the time period in mind, or really time in general. What season is it? Month? Day? Year? What about where they live? What continent do they occupy? If you plan on going on about seasons though, I would suggest that maybe you should do some reasearch about the weather in the country your character is in if you don't already know. 

When writing about the physical setting, think of it as though you're painting a picture. What is to be highlighted, to be catched by the reader's eye? What is not needed? Use words to help your reader see what you're seeing. 

A winter wonderland, all the thick and thin trees and covered in snow and Gina can't help but giggle. It's as though it's the first time she's seen snow in years, and she can't help herself to make tracks in the unmarked snow, almost loosing herself in the process. The white snow blinds her, but she doesn't care as she falls face first into it, imprinting herself on the snow, now littered with her foot prints and mischeif.

Actually, that wasn't that detailed, or good for that matter. But as I suggested in the previous chapter, what you should try to get an image and use it as a reference. 

I've seen a few ff that had pictures after every other paragraph, and it annoyed me qutie a bit because it was a horrible picture book. A horrible picture book because the pictures used were not meant for the story, and there weren't anything illustrated in the picture for the story. I wouldn't mind seeing a ff picture book, but only if the pictures where actually meant for the story.

Anyway, as I was saying. I honestly find it a little distracting when necessary pictures are added into the story. You're (most likely) not writing a picture book (but hey, if you are then good on you send me a link plz because iw ould like to read a picture book) and it ruins the imagine in the reader's mind. It also means that you should practice a little more with writing if you need to reply on pictures in order to show what your words are trying to say. 

Find a picture on google (or whatever floats your boat) and use that image as a reference. Don't put it into your story, but if you really don't want to/just can't make an image out of your head then use a real picture as reference.

Here; I found on off google: Let's make an example together. By together, I sort of just mean me.

alot bigger than I thought, but hey I got it right from the site...of google. Original link: http://vanrajpalace.com/upload/suite.jpg

Anyway, moving on. Let's list what we see:

• a carpet
• a bed with stripped sheets/pillow cases
• there's something on the bed, I have no clue what it is becaise I can't see
• There is a balcony/patio?
• A window
• Glass door to patio and the window both show the outdoors, which looks like it has a preeeeetty nice scenary.
• Overall, the colour scheme seems very neutral, alot of beige and very soft
• wardrobe in corner
• small room
• lamps
• queen size bed
• an ottoman at the bottom of bed

Now, let's try to put this into context. I'll make a few adjustments just because I can for the fact that reader's aren't actually suppose to know that I used this image.

The moment Hyorin pushes the door open, she's practically slammed against the door frame. Bora giggles as she jumps onto the bed, ruining the neatness of the silky white fabric. Hyorin grunts in disapproval as she rubs her foreheard. "Aish, Unnie!" She almost screams at the other. "I know you're excited, but calm yourself down a little, alright?" The leader frowns as she pulls her luggage through the door and onto the soft beige carpet of the small room.

"I can't help it!" Bora only laughs as she quickly gets up from the bed, running over to the window by the large wardrobe, glacing out with her wide cirous eyes before over to the sliding glass door to the patio and shoves it open before running out. "Look at this, Hyorin. Isn't it beautiful? And all this fresh air. I'm glad we took this vacation, oh god,"

Hyorin doesn't pay attention though, as she seats herself on the ottoman infront of the bed, pushing her suitcase underneath her before noticing the envolope just a few inches away from her foot. Blinking, she reaches down to grab it. Bora must've knocked it down when was on the bed. Pursing her lips slightly, she gets up to call Dasom and Soyou into the room.

That's the best I can do. Seriously. I tried my best to incorporate everything that I listed. So why not give this a try? I personally think this is a pretty good way to practice. Due to the reason that I don't care too much about setting, I don't really do this often. That, and I'm too lazy to find pictures, but it's really good practice.

As I said in the introduction, there is quite a bit more to setting than just the physical property. Remember that joke we all have? Where the teacher says that the blue curtains represent the character's sadness and how they can't go on and we're all just sitting here like it just means the curtain's blue. What if the blue curtains did mean that???? I'm just kidding, I wouldn't actually know because I don't analyse anything

but the physical setting can symbolise alot. Go read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Colours symbolise alot in the story. Like, the colour gold, eventually fades into the colour yellow. This story sort of pretty much revolves around the American dream, so that really says alot.

Non-physical setting

I don't really know how else to name it, so I sort of stole it from the site. Okay.

So non-physical setting, pretty much refers to the environment your character is in. Like Society, their family, culture, religion, you know. All that stuff. the setting can also shape a character, and this is pretty much a main contribution. 

Yeah, I don't really have much else to write about this, especially since I write an essay for physical settings. I'll give you an example though, and hope that you understand it well enough.

Read A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen. In the story (it's a play, actually), it is about a woman named Nora, who commits forgery in order to save her husband. However, she keeps it as a secret because she doesn't want to ruin the pride of her husband. This was written in the 1950's. So, in other words it's like the woman should stay at home and take care of the children, while the man should be the breadwinner and all that. In the text, Nora is rather a bit childish and it's rather obvious that her intelligence has been surpressed due to the fact that her husband wishes her to act a certain way. 

So it's like the time period of society's expectation and her husbands expectations molded her to be the person she was, and that is pretty much non-physical setting. To be 120% honest, I never read the play. It was suppose to be for an english assignment, but haaaaaaaaaa. But read it. i heard it was good, and sounds pretty interesting.

Mood, Atmosphere and Genre

Setting also helps with the three that I just named above.

For example, if you were trying to write a sad scene, perhaps you could incorperate the weather into it. Make it rain. I'm not saying setting is what makes the mood, but rather can help. Say, an active amusement park during the day can be made as something with a light hearty atmosphere with a happy mood. However, if you change it into an old abandoned amusement park of the night, then you could easily change the genre to something horror and with a dark atmosphere.

Compare between a school in the day, where students are filing in and out, compared to a school at night where no one is there at all. It can get pretty eerie at night. 

So if you're trying to set a mood or atmosphere, think of the setting

Anyway, I'm going to conclude this. Actually this went alot better than expected, but there may be some errors because i am tired and I just finished an exam then I spent 3 hours typing this out. I hope this helps a bit. I find settings one of those things that I do without realizing how important it actually is.

Links used for reference:

http://hrsbstaff.ednet.ns.ca/engramja/elements.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setting_(narrative)

http://bogglesworldesl.com/setting.htm

http://serc.sogang.ac.kr/erc/Literature/Setting.htm

http://aliscot.com/ensenanza/1302/setting.htm