A Chat About Setting

Last night, I hosted our first OneFour Kidlit twitter chat. It was so much fun, and thank you to everyone who showed up! The topic of the evening was setting, and in the course of the hour, there were some brilliant gems of advice that went zooming past in the twitter stream.

So I thought it’d be nice to grab a few of those tweets that I felt were particularly insightful.

.@OneFourKidLit For me, setting is the physical manifestation of the themes I want to explore in the book. #OneFour

— Natalie C Parker (@nataliecparker) January 27, 2014

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.@OneFourKidLit And for informing character. So much of how we behave and what we believe can be informed by where we are. #OneFour

— annie cardi (@anniecardi) January 27, 2014

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Don't you think setting informs voice, too? I know the things my MC notices, references are different than another. #onefour

— Jaye Robin Brown (@JayeRobinBrown) January 27, 2014

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@OneFourKidLit Setting's the world, of course, and characters + plot are the life. Otherwise it's just a painting, not a movie #onefour

— Simon P. Clark (@sipclark) January 27, 2014

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@_KathrynRose_ The ability to take an ordinary setting and make it extraordinary is the essence of great writing. #onefour

— Martina Boone (@MartinaABoone) January 27, 2014

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Writers create setting whether they are real places or not. The NYC of my protag is necessarily different from the NYC of yours. #OneFour

— Natalie C Parker (@nataliecparker) January 27, 2014

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@Herreracus Maybe the more important part? Setting only comes alive through interaction with it? #OneFour

— Heidi Schulz (@HeidiSchulz) January 27, 2014

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Good point. You don't have to rely on descriptions. Dialogue can do the job perfectly as well. @lkblackburne @robin_talley #OneFour

— Christina Farley (@ChristinaFarley) January 27, 2014

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@TracyHolczer @OneFourKidLit Not necessarily "love," but what about have a strong connection to? What about curious, or despise? #OneFour

— Kathryn Rose (@_KathrynRose_) January 27, 2014

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I don't think you have to love a setting to write it well, but I do think there has to be an emotional connection to it. #OneFour

— Kathryn Rose (@_KathrynRose_) January 27, 2014

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@Rockets2Writing Or a small town can make a dreamer feel confined 😉 #onefour

— Jaye Robin Brown (@JayeRobinBrown) January 27, 2014

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Fantasy worldbuilding has a huge effect on plot and reader expectation. I fixed a plot twist by changing my worldbuilding. #onefour

— Livia Blackburne (@lkblackburne) January 27, 2014

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@anniecardi I believe the technical term for my technique was "making it up as you go along" #OneFour

— Livia Blackburne (@lkblackburne) January 27, 2014

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I'm the kind of writer who likes to walk through everything. If my girl runs through the woods, you bet I'm doing it, too. #OneFour

— Tess Sharpe (@sharpegirl) January 27, 2014

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I'm with Tolkien on setting: you create a Secondary World wherein the rules, however different from ours, possess an inner logic. #OneFour

— Joshua David Bellin (@TheYAGuy) January 27, 2014

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Setting isn't always a fixed point. When the POV is 1st person, setting can be more a reflection of character than of place. #OneFour

— Natalie C Parker (@nataliecparker) January 27, 2014

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For me, setting has to be firmly rooted in reality. Even if it's not mentioned in-text, I know the exact location of every scene. #onefour

— Emily Lloyd-Jones (@em_llojo) January 27, 2014

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In good books, the setting actually becomes a character in the book that the other characters interact with. #OneFour @OneFourKidLit

— Christina Farley (@ChristinaFarley) January 27, 2014

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There you have it. For more pearls of wisdom, please check out the #OneFour hashtag.

And join us next month on Sunday, February 23 at 8PM EST for our next twitter chat, where the topic will be Love in Kidlit (platonic and romantic).

Have a great Monday! ♥