What is Story Setting? Why is the setting of a story important? As a storyteller, it’s your job to create an immersive experience to engage your audience so that they can feel like part of the same world as your characters.
Let’s take a look at the fundamentals of Story Setting and explore how it can be used as a powerful storytelling tool. We’ll even use the original Jurassic Park movie as a case study for using story setting effectively.
- What Is Story Setting?
- What Is the Purpose of Story Setting?
- Why Is the Setting of a Story Important?
- What Are the Fundamentals of Story Setting?
- How Jurassic Park Used Setting for Storytelling
- Stories Need Setting to Feel Real and Lived In
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What Is Story Setting?
At a minimum, the setting of your story is the time and location where your story takes place. It should always be viewed as much more than a static backdrop. When used to full effect, the setting provides context for the story, shapes the mood of the narrative and has an impact on the development of your plot and characters, even influencing dialogue and action.
What Is the Purpose of Story Setting?
In every instance, a setting should:
- Add meaning to your story
- Bring together the elements of your story
- Help your audience visualise your story
- Improve the flow of your story
- Provide context for your story
- Shape the mood of your story
- Influence the characters in your story
Why Is the Setting of a Story Important?
Story Setting is important because it provides your audience with context on the time, place, and environment in which the story takes place. Plot events need somewhere to happen and your characters need somewhere to exist.
Setting will also help you establish the mood and tone of your story and establish the relationships your characters have with their environment. It can be used to reflect the themes of your story and as a metaphor to symbolise the inner states of your characters. It’s also useful for creating a sense of realism, helping your audience suspend their disbelief and become fully immersed in the world you’ve created.
What Are the Fundamentals of Story Setting?
The fundamentals of Story Setting can be condensed into five categories, some of which have more specific subcategories:
Geographic Location.
Whether it’s a real or imaginary world your story takes place in, it’ll need a geographic location. This broad category encompasses mappable areas such as countries, regions, cities, towns, villages, neighbourhoods, streets, etc.
Geographic location covers both natural and man-made geography, and as well as topography it should also include climate information.
Natural Geography.
This subcategory is the topographic element of your Story Setting, referring to the natural physical features of your story setting – landforms, water, ecosystems and on a more macro level, the flora and fauna of your world.
Whatever the natural geography of your story setting is, you can use it to influence your story – a great example of natural geography permeating a story is Mount Doom in JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.
Man-Made Geography.
Your audience will likely be searching for proof of life and evidence of civilisation in the world of your story and man-made geography is an easy way to provide it.
This can be translated in several ways; you could show the creative prowess of humankind and their influence on geography through landmarks and monuments, great cities and towns. Alternatively, you could show the destructive nature of humankind with ruins, battlefields, deforestation and so on.
Whichever angle you take, the idea is to add some believability to your world by showing your viewers the evidence of the life that existed long before your story began.
Unless you’re writing a world origin story, in which case, maybe just stick with natural geography…
Physical Location.
The physical location of your story is the immediate surroundings of your characters and gives the audience context of their direct environment.
Environment.
Often used interchangeably, we can separate environment from geographic location by using it in application to the circumstances or conditions of the setting that have a formative influence on your character’s actions and development.
Physical Environment.
The physical environment of your story can be thought of as the natural world of your story – where characters are affected by the forces of nature including any weather conditions and natural disasters.
Climate.
Climate can be a powerful element of Story Setting because just like in the real world, it can influence people and events and even the culture of a location.
Atmosphere.
Many things in the environment can influence the atmosphere and mood of the characters and events of your story, elements such as weather, lighting, sounds and so on.
Time Period.
Good stories don’t just have a where, they also have a when – time is of equal importance as place when it comes to story setting.
Time Of Year.
The time of year of your Story Setting can include seasons, holidays, or significant dates. These can be borrowed from the real world or invented as part of the worldbuilding of your story.
Time Of Day.
One of the easiest ways to give your audience a sense of context and grounding within your Story Setting is through time of day. Any scene you write will have a time of day associated with it and in its simplest form will fall under either day or night.
Time In History/Future.
Story Setting options set in historical eras are abundant, and when considering a time in the future, the possibilities are endless.
Time Elapsed.
An often overlooked facet of time period is time elapsed – both moment by moment and longer spans between scenes. Without accounting for the time that passes throughout the telling of your story you risk losing the engagement of your audience.
Social & Cultural Environment.
The preceding categories and subcategories of Story Setting will contribute to the social and cultural environment of your story.
Social and cultural influences are wide-ranging and can have a number of varying effects on characters and events. You can use them to shape the values, characteristics and motivations of your characters.
This doesn’t need to be limited to the present timeline of your story either, ancestral influences can shape your setting and characters in the same way they can in the real world.
It’s also worth considering how your choice of population density reflects the location or setting you’re writing about in your story.
How Jurassic Park Used Setting for Storytelling.
Jurassic Park uses setting for some truly masterful storytelling, both in the book by Michael Crichton and the original movie by Steven Spielberg – we’ll use the movie for this example.
The geographic location of a tropical island gives an immediate sense of isolation and confinement for the characters which is amped up as things go bad, evoking tension and drama as they struggle to survive. This setting also adds a feeling of mystery and discovery, backed up when we see living breathing dinosaurs for the first time.
The man-made scientific facilities on the island (which fail when they’re needed) add a little more weight to the underlying message of the story, highlighting the dangers of tampering with nature and the consequences of attempting to control it.
As we arrive at Jurassic Park through the characters, we’re welcomed with beautiful blue skies and nice high electric fences to keep the dangerous dinosaurs contained – put at ease by a strong sense of security that everything is under control.
As things begin to take a turn, the weather is used to heighten the drama and tension – rain lashes down in hurricane-like conditions and visibility drops. The electric fences lose power and the dinosaurs get loose.
Jurassic Park uses rain to great effect as a storytelling device. The downpours often occur during tense moments or action scenes to create a sense of unease and danger that contributes to the overall atmosphere.
Jurassic Park is a story that perfectly highlights how setting can influence the characters, pace, plot, and conflict of a story.
On a slight side note, I feel it’s worth mentioning that if you think Jurassic Park is a story about dinosaurs, you should read my article on why there are no good stories about animals…
Stories Need Setting to Feel Real and Lived In.
Story Setting adds a sense of depth and richness to a story, making the world feel real and lived in. It’s a powerful tool for immersing your audience into the story and influencing the characters with circumstances outside of their control.
Great stories have many components, building blocks that you can’t tell a good story without and even if one of them is missing, your story will fail to capture your audience. Story Setting is just one of those ingredients. See my guide – The Essential Elements of Storytelling – to explore the others.
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