Chapter Eighteen
The Time and Setting Column
The time and setting are two essential plot elements used in scene to help ground the reader in the here and now of the story.
By referencing the date—which can be the time of day, the week, the month, the year, or even the season—you help the reader settle into the now of the front story. Positioning your story in time allows the reader to detach from his real time, his immediate thoughts, and all the different directions he may be pulled in his real life to enter a different time—the time of the story.
Settings, in turn, fulfill a multitude of functions. One powerful purpose of the setting is to give the reader a sense of where she is and how life functions there when she is buried in the pages of the book. Settings are the center of the story. They invite the reader to let go of her own personal dramas and responsibilities, to calm her fears and worries, and to step into the place where the story action is occurring. Once the reader is firmly grounded in the setting, she is then able to move with confidence and certainty in whatever direction the story flows.
Be sure to ground your readers in the “where” and “when” of the scene. The last thing you want is for your reader to awaken from the dream you have so carefully crafted because he is disoriented or confused.
Relax. Creativity and inspiration never come from pushing.
Case Study: The Sea-Wolf
The following excerpt shows how one novelist integrates time and setting seamlessly into what’s happening in the story.
The classic The Sea-Wolf by Jack London opens in circumstantial summary.
I scarcely know where to begin, though I sometimes facetiously place the cause of it all to Charley Furuseth’s credit. He kept a summer cottage in Mill Valley, under the shadow of Mount Tamalpais, and never occupied it except when he loafed through the winter months and read Nietzsche and Schopenhauer to rest his brain. When summer came on, he elected to sweat out a hot and dusty existence in the city and to toil incessantly. Had it not been my custom to run up to see him every Saturday afternoon and to stop over till Monday morning, this particular January Monday morning would not have found me afloat on San Francisco Bay.
Many works of literary fiction begin with a description in summary of the story’s ordinary world to give the reader a feel of the time. We know The Sea-Wolf begins in summary, because in the passage the character is not taking us through the action moment by moment. He is telling us, or describing, the general circumstances during this period: how things were, the sorts of things that usually or frequently happened, and what put him in his current situation.
Therefore, on the Scene Tracker we mark in Column 1 “SU” for Summary. Feel free to note in the Time and Setting column that the summary tells that it is January on a Monday morning. Don’t add anymore than that, because we do not track summary information on the Scene Tracker. We only track the scenes.
| Scene Tracker: The Sea-Wolf by Jack London | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scene (SC) or Summary (SU) | Time and Setting | Character Emotional Development | Goal | Dramatic Action | Conflict | Change in Emotion | Thematic Details |
| Ch. 1, SU | |||||||
London begins the fourth paragraph of chapter one as follows.
A red-faced man, slamming the cabin door behind him and stumping out on the deck, interrupted my reflections, though I made a mental note of the topic for use in a projected essay which I had thought of calling “The Necessity for Freedom: A Plea for the Artist.” The red-faced man shot a glance up at the pilot-house, gazed around at the fog, stumped across the deck and back (he evidently had artificial legs), and stood still by my side, legs wide apart, and with an expression of keen enjoyment on his face. I was not wrong when I decided that his days had been spent on the sea.
Now we can begin tracking because we have come to the beginning of an actual scene. The first scene of chapter one continues for almost seven pages. We know it is a scene because the action is being played out moment by moment. For this case study, because the date indicated in the summary passage still applies, we add it to the “Ch. 1, SC 1” row.
| Scene Tracker: The Sea-Wolf by Jack London | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scene (SC) or Summary (SU) | Time and Setting | Character Emotional Development | Goal | Dramatic Action | Conflict | Change in Emotion | Thematic Details |
| Ch. 1, SU | |||||||
| Ch. 1, SC 1 | Jan. Mon. A.M. | ||||||
Case Study: All the Pretty Horses
In the paragraph following the opening passage, McCarthy writes in All the Pretty Horses: “… a thin gray reef beginning along the eastern rim of the world …” Thus all we know about the timing is that the scene takes place just before dawn.
| Scene Tracker: All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scene (SC) or Summary (SU) | Time and Setting | Character Emotional Development | Goal | Dramatic Action | Conflict | Change in Emotion | Thematic Details |
| Ch. 1, SC 1 | Just before dawn | ||||||
Tracking Your Story
With your Scene Tracker in front of you, refer back to your manuscript. Fill in the Time and Setting Column with when your story begins—the season, year, and/or time of day. Include any real-life historical events and political issues that occur during this time and have an affect on your plot.
Even if your story does not directly involve true historical events, one way to add more depth to your story is to include at least one major and one minor historical event, as well as a trivial event. This will provide you with a perspective of what is happening in the setting, country, and world during the time period in which you are writing. Historical events, especially the major ones, can provide useful information with which to thicken the plot.
For example, the historical novel I am currently writing begins in February 1968, a time of cataclysmic upheaval in the United States, a time in history when the great divide of class and culture no longer kept people separated, however different they might be. For the purpose of my Scene Tracker, I abbreviate this historical period as “Great Divide” and add it under the date. Following that is a more specific historical event: the first United Farm Workers Benefit held at Fillmore West in San Francisco, which I abbreviate as “UFW.”
| Scene Tracker: Parallel Lives by Martha Alderson | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scene (SC) or Summary (SU) | Time and Setting | Character Emotional Development | Goal | Dramatic Action | Conflict | Change in Emotion | Thematic Details |
| Ch. 1, SC 1 | Feb. 1968 Great Divide UFW | ||||||
Instead of waiting for inspiration to hit, show up to write and plot at the same time every day. Inspiration will follow.
If you would like to continue tracking your scenes, move now to chapter nineteen. If you wish to read more about the benefits of research, continue to the end of this chapter.
Researching Time Periods and Settings
Research is critical for historical fiction writers, but I contend that it is crucial for all other genres as well. You (and your readers) benefit from thoroughly researching the time period and setting in which you are writing. Even if you are writing about a time in which you lived, be it in memoir or fiction form, you cannot rely on memory alone.
Stories that tell the truth are firmly grounded in research.
If you find yourself lapsing into the use of clichés or, worse, perpetuating the generalizations, prejudices, and oversimplifications we complacently assume every day, delve deeper into the world of your story through research to reveal the truth. If you find yourself stopped by writer’s block, plumb the world of your story through research and the block will often dissolve.
Research must be woven in artfully.
If your research involves too many details, then indicate where to find the files in which the relevant facts and details are located. Be as clear and specific as you can about the information, both on the notes and in the actual files. The creation of a novel can take months and years, and there is nothing as frustrating as coming across an incomplete scribble that makes no sense when you need to access an important detail or fact.
Whenever possible, write your research on sticky notes and organize your findings on your Scene Tracker.
A word of caution: The use of research is as dicey as the use of flashback. Every bit of fascinating information you uncover does not belong in the book unless it contributes to the overall plot, be it the action plotline, the character plotline, or the thematic plotline.