It’s Friday again! Doughnuts all around, methinks!

Over the past few weeks we’ve been discussing the cracks that have a tendency to show up in our manuscripts when we reach the mid-way point of our first draft. We’ve looked at ways to address problems with our characters and our plot, and today, we’re going to finish up by focusing on how we can address problems with our setting.

As a refresher, here are the previous links in this mini-series:

Story Middles: Finding Cracks in Your Masterpiece

Story Middles: Fixing Character Problems

Story Middles: Fixing Plot Problems

When we first started this series, we talked about diagnosing our problems. If you’ve determined that you have some cracks in your setting, here are  some thoughts and possible solutions.

Not enough setting

This is a very common problem, especially in first drafts. As you’re considering this problem, remember that your primary goal right now is to get to the end of this draft. You may not need to fill in those missing descriptions just now, but if your setting is painted so lightly that you can’t move forward without filling it out, then by all means!

When you’re filling out your setting, make sure you consider all five of our senses. If we’re not careful, we can default into one-dimensional setting development. We become adept at showing the sights of this fictional world, but unveiling little else.

To transport your reader into the pages of your book, they need to know not only what your world looks like, but what it sounds like. What smells fill the homes and the streets? What does the air taste like? And under your characters’ fingertips, what do the corners of this world feel like?

Maybe you haven’t thought enough about what kind of setting will show off your plot in the best light. This is a good time to put your draft aside and make use of all the lists Jill Williamson has laid out for you in her book Storyworld First.

Too much setting

If you’re a wordy drafter, by the time you reach the middle of your story, you may have so many set pieces and locations floating about it’s impossible to keep track of them all.

I don’t know that I would do much with this just yet, although giving yourself permission to ignore some of the settings you’ve created may be what you need to get to the end. Once the draft is completed, you’ll have a better idea of which locations can stay and which need to go.

In many ways, we can look at setting just as we look at character. Each set piece or location must serve a purpose. If you find that certain places are not helping you tell this story, you have some decisions to make.

Perhaps you need to retool those settings. Consider what it is you can add or erase from your story world that will move your story along. What is it about a location that is feeling cumbersome or like dead weight as you struggle to move forward?

It could be as simple as combining locations. Just as we combine characters, we may realize that two separate locations serve a similar purpose. Instead of slowing the pace of your story by moving your characters around, you may be able to weave these places together to form a more significant chunk of your world.

Or maybe it’s time to cut out a location or set-piece altogether. A word of caution here, don’t delete anything entirely. If you feel like the description is in the way, simply cut and paste it into another document and save it. We change our minds a lot as we write a book. The work you did on that bit of setting may come in handy later.

One-dimensional reactions to your world

Your setting exists to serve both your plot and your characters, and to help you, the author, show off the weight of the decisions your characters are making as they move through the story.

If every character responds to the setting in identical ways, the story will feel very flat and not at all genuine. Even in the simplest of ways, your setting can highlight the differences in your characters.

For example, I love fall. The color and the changing weather. Pumpkin-spiced everything and the leaves that trickle down like pixie dust.

My husband, on the other hand, despises fall. He doesn’t care for pumpkins and can’t for the life of him figure out why anyone would make a dessert out of a squash. When the leaves fall from the trees, all he can see is the mess it will be to clean up, the damage it will do to the lawn.

Our reactions to autumn say a lot about who we are as individuals and about how we handle change. They also clue people in on our relationship dynamics and our roles around the house.

It’s my husband who feels the burden of keeping the outside picked up and orderly. I’m able to admire the changing of the leaves without any awareness of the work they’ll be, and he can’t see past the work to admire the beauty.

These are weighty things to discover about people, and we didn’t have to dig too hard to find them. When you vary your characters’ responses to their world, you’ll give them more depth, and your setting will suddenly have more purpose.

But it’s not just your setting and your characters that will benefit. By giving each of your characters genuine feelings and a history with the world around them, you’ll give yourself room in the plot to examine things like relationship dynamics, politics, people groups, backstory, and religious preferences. By allowing your characters contrasting opinions about their setting, you are giving yourself the gift of conflict. And if anything moves a story forward, it’s that.

Tell me, how is your setting taking shape? Have you noticed any cracks in its development? How do you plan to fix them?