Setting Your Characters Up

By Natalie Walters, Author of Living Lies

If you’re a reader or writer, then you probably know the importance of setting. Where the story takes place can have a direct impact on the character’s journey. It can become the character’s enemy: Titanic, Deep Water Horizon, Twister. It can force the character to change: Sweet Home Alabama, Made in Manhattan. Or, it can become the character’s ally: Die Hard, the Nakatomi Plaze became John McClane’s ally as he wreaked havoc on the terrorists and Willy Wonka used the Chocolate Factory to help him find a child of noble character.

Settings have the power to become a character. And they should. When I began writing Living Lies, I didn’t really have a setting in mind until we moved to the coastal Georgia area near Savannah and I began to imagine how I could use my new surroundings as an antagonist.

In Living Lies, I have a character, Miguel Roa, who is a Vietnam veteran and lives among the dense Live Oaks along the river. Unstable after his return home from war, he becomes a recluse and has blackouts that force him to relive the terror of his past. Talking with my uncles (three of them served in Vietnam) and watching documentaries, it was easy to imagine how the swampy marshland, tucked deep beneath the gnarly limbs of giant Live Oaks layered in long boughs of Spanish moss, might bring back the memories of a land not so different. And so,I used it. I used the setting to haunt my character back into his past.

Here are three questions to consider regarding your current project:

1. How does my setting affect my plot?

2. Am I describing my setting enough my readers get a good feeling of place?

3. Where can I use my setting to increase tensions in my story?

As writers, we have a fabulous opportunity to create a setting that can challenge, terrorize, define, or manipulate characters. We can deepen the experience readers have in our books by helping them visualize and experience the setting through description and deep point of view.

In Living Lies, this meant being able to describe Savannah and the Live Oaks—visually but also experientially. I had to describe the giant, mossy trees and convey their earthy scent. I had to capture the essence of a small town in the south and use it to the advantage of the plot.

I urge you to consider how setting plays into the books you read, the movies you watch, and even in your own life! The next time you’re walking through the decrepit hallways of an old prison (I’ve done this twice), or hunkering down with your family as tear gas and bullets fill the air  around you (true story), or canceling your sister’s bachelorette party due to warnings of an impending tsunami (true again), take notes on how you can use your setting to immerse your characters and your readers into a story they’ll never forget. 

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Natalie Walters is a military wife of 22 years and currently resides in Hawaii with her soldier husband and their three kids. She writes full-time and has been published in Proverbs 31 magazine and has blogged for Guideposts online. In addition to balancing life as a military spouse, mom, and writer, she loves connecting on social media, sharing her love of books, cooking, and traveling. Natalie comes from a long line of military and law enforcement veterans and is passionate about supporting them through volunteer work, races, and writing stories that affirm no one is defined by their past.

Isn't It Ironic?

by Gary Fearon, Creative Director, Southern Writers Magazine


When George Bailey decides to drown himself in It's a Wonderful Life, he ends up saving someone else from drowning instead.  Over the course of the story, George realizes his life isn't worthless after all, but rather has had positive impact on everyone around him.  Irony such as this adds a touch of magic to fiction; a poetic twist of fate that makes it bigger than life.

In truth, life itself is full of ironies, so we identify with this fictional device. Ever since Greek tragedies, storytellers have sought to heighten the drama by pitting characters and situations against themselves.

There's enough irony in Titanic to sink a ship. The rich girl doesn't want her rich suitor; she loves the poor immigrant boy. Many on board were looking to start a new life, only to have no future at all. There were too few lifeboats available because something like this was never going to happen, much less on the maiden voyage.

In The Wizard of Oz, everyone puts their hope in a wizard who isn't a wizard at all. Dorothy, who runs away from home, only wants to go back home.  Her traveling companions long for a brain, a heart, and courage, when it turns out they had them all along.

More recently, The Fault in Our Stars features a character who likes to keep a cigarette in his mouth but never lights up, in metaphorical defiance against the cancer causer. 

There is irony in a flawed protagonist.  All super heroes and detectives have at least one serious Achilles heel.  To makes matters worse, costumed crusaders from Spiderman to Zorro can't reveal their secret identity to the people they love most, and are often blamed for something they didn't do.
 
Contrast is a particularly popular form of irony.  A messy roommate drives neatnik Felix Unger to distraction in Neil Simon's The Odd Couple.  Even Sesame Street's Bert and Ernie were a pint-sized pair of opposites.  From The King and I to My Fair Lady to Downton Abbey, there is fascination in seeing different cultures and classes clash.

How many romances start out with the two lovers despising each other?  (Besides all of them?)  Indeed, we wouldn't be quite as interested if it was love at first sight and remained smooth sailing through the tunnel of love.

Similarity can be just as ironic as contrast.  We see it in a child who takes on the negative characteristics of a parent, or a sidekick who comes to the rescue by using a skill the hero taught them.

The very jokes we tell make us laugh through irony.  We are surprised by the punchline because we were expecting something else.  Why did the duck cross the road?  Because it was the chicken's day off.

Irony comes in many different forms, and creates interest instantly. We can give a story more layers and more complexity with the simple addition of this very easy device.  How ironic is that?