Plot Elements: Setting

This article continues the series on Plot Elements started in Article 8. The focus is on setting this time, a very useful tool, as well as an integral part of the plot - and also a selling element for both readers and publishers, which some people do not realise.

LARGE/SMALL FOCUS Some writers like to use a big world canvas as their setting, something which depends partly on the type of plot being developed. For example, a thriller may need whole countries as setting (almost like secondary protagonists) along with the hero/heroine, and the central characters may need to move around the world.

Other writers are happier in a cosier atmosphere of home/town/family and then the setting will be in smaller focus. Rosamund Pilcher or LaVyrle Spenser do this in their modern novels. This sub-genre is called relationships novels in England and Australia, though recent discussion between published authors suggests there isn't an exact title for this area of focus. Relationships novels are very popular in England and are becoming increasingly popular in Australia. Joanna Trollope and Maeve Binchy have been particularly successful with these.

HISTORY AS A PLOT ELEMENT Some writers (such as myself under my Anna Jacobs name) take history as one of the major settings, and it is crucial to the plot. The plot problem stems from the period in which the story takes place, and the story could not have taken place in a radically different period.

For example, In my novel 'Spinners Lake' the time period is 1862-65 and since the setting is Lancashire, I could not have written it without bringing in the Cotton Famine caused by the American Civil War.

GEOGRAPHICAL REGION AS A PLOT ELEMENT There is a genre very popular in the UK called sagas, ie historical novels which usually have a regional focus. I didn't realise when I was writing 'Salem Street' that I was in fact setting myself up to become a writer of northern sagas. Nowadays my contracts with my main publisher specify that I must produce a 'northern saga' and this usually means set in Lancashire, the county in the north of England where I grew up and where most of my novels have been set.

Since I lived for several years in Yorkshire I set one novel ('Jessie') mainly there and I received a letter from a reader saying she had enjoyed the book, 'even though' it was set in Yorkshire. She had clearly expected Lancashire as a setting.

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