Reflections on Good Writing and Good Writers ~ The Importance of Setting in Fiction and Nonfiction

Many writers are inspired by characters and plot when they write fiction
or by a passion to inform, educate, or persuade when they write nonfiction.

As a writer I often find my way into a fiction or nonfiction piece through setting.

The first time I remember writing as a child was in third grade,
and my piece included a map of our village’s waterfront.
I don’t remember what I wrote, but I remember the map I drew with its marked

lighthouse, wharf, holes in the basaltic cliffs, and a creek spilling over a waterfall.

The Waterfall Along the Beach

Margaretsville, Nova Scotia, Canada

July 25, 2018

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

I do remember that my brother Roy and I spent many hours scouring
any hollows or “caves” in the basalt along the beach looking for pirates’ treasure.
We had heard of the infamous pirate Blackbeard 
and the Oak Island treasure on Nova Scotia’s South Shore, 
so why couldn’t there be pirates burying treasure on the Fundy Shore in Margaretsville?
I think my story was likely about pirates and treasure.

To this day my storytelling, whether fiction or nonfiction, is heavily influenced by setting.

Blackbeard the Pirate

Photo by Thomas Quine ~ Flickr ~ License

Setting is the time and place a story unfolds, and it is not merely background scenery.

It influences a character's choices and actions, shapes the atmosphere, supports the theme,

and often creates a symbolic framework, deepening meaning.

Throughout my life I have felt a deep connection to landscapes I am immersed in,

from the austere subarctic taiga, to the carved sandstones of the Colorado Plateau,

to the volcanic islands of French Polynesia.

I would argue that our personal settings impact our choices and actions in life,

and I often reflect this reality in my writing.

Fiction writers have been using setting in their writing throughout history.

One of the earliest known literary works, the Epic of Gilgamesh (circa 2100 BCE),

places its heroic characters in specific landscapes including

the ancient Sumerian city-state of Uruk 

located in the the Fertile Crescent of southern Mesopotamia 

and in a Cedar Wood forest likely in the Anti-Lebanon Mountains of Syria.

The epic poem explores the "themes of civilization, heroism,

and the search for immortality against the lens of its setting." Whitlark*

Tablet V of the Epic of Gilgamesh

Dr. Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin ~ Wikimedia ~ License

Setting is crucial as a framework in such literary classics as Homer's Odyssey,

Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Shakespeare's MacBeth, Defoe's Robinson Crusoe,

and Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.

In novels like Brontë's Wuthering Heights, Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby,

Morrison's Beloved, Prolux's The Shipping News, and Weir's The Martian

the stories are inseparable from their settings,

and the settings are why the stories matter. 

Without a strong setting, the emotional and thematic weight of stories is diminished.

Source

In nonfiction setting is an important element when the location and time

are critical for context and for shaping the meaning of real life experiences.

This occurs especially in such nonfiction genres as

 memoir, travelogue, historical narratives, nature and environmental writing, 

journalism, science writing, and essays.

Setting is fundamental to memorable nonfiction like Halliburton's The Flying Carpet,

Frank's The Diary of Anne Frank, Abbey's Desert Solitaire,

Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard, and the Weinersmiths' A City on Mars.

Without the settings in these nonfiction stories, there would be no stories.

Delicate Arch

Source

In my fiction and nonfiction writing, setting has played an integral part,

especially in my northern memoir, my current WIP.

The rhythms of the rugged and remote Hudson Bay Lowlands

sculpt the lives of the people who live there,

and I am working hard to capture the impact of the landscape on its people.

Roy and I, No Longer Hunting for Pirate Treasure

Less than two years later, we had become voyagers.

Lansdowne House, Ontario, Canada 

Spring 1961

© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue  All Rights Reserved

 

For thousands of years, setting has been a powerful tool in a writer's tool box.

Setting grounds readers in a believable place and time.

It increases emotion and reveals truths about characters or real people

and their experiences,

how they live, struggle, and transform.

It gives stories their depth, resonance, impact, and longevity.

What are your thoughts on setting?

Is it an important element in your fiction or nonfiction?

I have shared memorable fiction and nonfiction examples

of stories featuring settings that I have loved.

Please add to my examples in the comments.

Happy creating!

Till next time ~ Fundy Blue

Notes:  

1.  For the record, Blackbeard likely never visited Nova Scotia, and the origin of the Oak Island treasure is uncertain.

2.  Source*:  The Gilgamesh Epic: Analysis of Setting by James Whitlark.  2022.  EBSCO Knowledge Advantage.