3 Steps to Developing Your Novel’s Setting
Award-winning author Christopher Golden shares his 3 steps to creating the immersive and cinematic settings he’s known for!
The setting of a novel can be a cornerstone on which the entire story is built. So how do you decide what setting to choose?
How much information about the setting should you include? How can you even get that information?
And what if your setting requires unrealistic components for your story to work? Finally, at the end of the day, who do you have to convince with your setting?
These are hard questions for writers. We sometimes spend a lot of time figuring out plot, characterization, and even theme. But if our setting isn’t on point, our stories can fall flat.
In his novels, Christopher Golden creates immensely accurate and cinematic settings. When asked about how he creates those settings he shared his mindset and some parts of his process that will be beneficial to writers of all kinds!
If you’ve never read one of his novels, I urge you to at least pick one up and read some of the settings.
They’re so phenomenally fleshed out that (though it’s a bit of a cliche) you will feel like you’re there. And he’s got an especially difficult job because he has to describe places he’s never been!
“…my novel Ararat is set in Turkey. And it was published in Turkey and it did pretty well there. And I did two interviews with journalists from the two biggest newspapers in Turkey and both of them from reading the book assumed I had spent time in Turkey…and you’d be shocked at how little research created that illusion.” — Christopher Golden
Okay so how do you create a setting so vivid you can convince the locals you’ve been there?
If you want to create realistic settings regardless of where your novel is actually set, here are Christopher Golden’s 3 rules for planning your setting so your readers can feel immersed in your story.
First, Golden shared why researching setting is so important. When writing a historically set novel, he hadn’t done his research prior to starting. This is what he said:
“I was writing this book with zero knowledge of the Berlin wall and what the security was like and what it took to cross and all of that. And I realized that I was just being a total jackass, and this was in the days really before there was as much information as there currently is on the internet. So I stopped working on the book for like a week and a half and I went to the library and I got like half a dozen books and I just read and read.” — Christopher Golden
So clearly writers need to do some kind of research right? It doesn’t’ matter if you’ve been to this place or not, you’re going to want to study it in order to bring it to life.
1. Don’t do too much research
Do we have to spend a whole week and a half in the library? Maybe you have kids. You’ve got a job. You’re busy.
When asked how much research he did, his answer was surprising:
“I don’t want to do too much research. There’s a there’s a writer that I grew up reading who shall remain nameless, whose books. I absolutely love. But you could always tell [00:01:00] that she did so much research and fell in love so much with the things that she discovered that she felt like she had to include everything.” — Christopher Golden
Turns out, it’s not really about how much research you do. It’s about the quality, which I guess makes sense.
So avoid doing too much research. Or, at least, don’t let this phase paralyze you. Don’t fall in love with what you discovered. Get what you need and get to the writing.
According to Golden, readers don’t need to hear every bit of information you have. Be judicious about what you share. This might take some editing to get right but try to avoid boring readers with too much setting information.
2. Compartmentalize your research
According to Golden, he’s able to compartmentalize his research by chunking experiences. For his novel Ararat, set on a mountain in Turkey, this is how he described his research:
“I did speak to a mountain guide who guided groups up up Ararat. I did talk to other climbers about altitude sickness and things like that. I did speak to archeologists about, you know, various things having to do with archeology and what would happen at a dig. But when it came to the actual research into Turkey and what it would be like to be there, I only really needed to know: if you were going here, where would you fly into? What is the terrain like? …where would you stay if you were going to climb Ararat? Where would you stay? What’s the nearest town? What’s it like to get from there to the mountain?” — Christopher Golden
Then he added:
“And for me…I’m a westerner. The characters I was talking about were Westerners. So finding accounts by Westerners about their experience going in this case, you know?” — Christopher Golden
Okay so based on this we can see how Golden is working to build a specific experience with his writing.
It’s not about knowing everything about the entire country of Turkey. He just needs to know the specific experience he wants his characters to have.
And part of that is understanding perspective. So think about the experience your character needs to have.
I’m currently working on a story set in New York City. That can be overwhelming to research. After hearing Golden talk about his research process, I only researched the areas I wanted my character to be in.
There’s a different level of research that goes into a story about a person visiting a place than there is for a person who lives in that environment.
So instead of feeling like he needed to talk to an archeologist who’s also climbed mountains and has been to Turkey, he just combined the experiences of different people.
Remember, this works just as well if you watch interviews on youtube or read accounts in books.
3. Who do you have to convince?
For our last tip, listen to what he says about who he has to convince with his research.
When doing research for a shark novel, he reached out to shark experts. This is how he said the conversation went:
“Can you tell me the most realistic way for me to do this and they would go, well, that would never happen. And I would say, no, no, no, no, no…I need it to happen. And I don’t need you, expert on this, to believe me. But I need everybody else to believe me.” — Christopher Golden
So breathe a sigh of relief. You don’t have to convince the experts. You just have to be convincing enough.
My wife is in the medical field, so when we watch movies and someone does a procedure that is useless or done wrong or doesn’t exist, she’s quick to point it out. But for me, I’m in the story.
And that’s what Golden is talking about here. Sure, an expert might know it’s not possible or maybe it’s even extremely unlikely. It doesn’t matter. You just need to be as close to realistic as possible to convince the largest number of readers.
Remember, not every one of your readers is going to be a shark expert!
Bonus Tip
“And also I try to do enough [research] that I never come off as being disrespectful to the people who live in the region that I’m writing.” — Christopher Golden
Remember to be respectful of the people and places you’re researching. There’s a reason Ararat did so well in Turkey. The readers there felt respected by their portrayal in the book. It came off as genuine and real.
So regardless of your setting, Golden reminds you that you have potential readers who can have a positive experience reading your book!
Conclusion
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So my question to you is, How do you research the settings of your stories? Leave a comment below! and be sure to subscribe because we have new videos going up all the time. You won’t want to miss them!
