Week Two: Get in late, get out early

This week we were exploring the setting and mapping that surrounds creating a narrative.

Our main reading was 'The Garden Party' by Katharine Mansfield, which demonstrated a few different important elements of how to describe setting. The clear sense of voice in the descriptions and the way that the depiction of the garden seemed more of a personal reflection on the part of the character instead of an impersonal stating-of-fact gave an insight into the character of Laura from the start. As Hilary Mantel wrote, “description […] usually works best if it has a human element; it is more effective if it comes from an implied viewpoint, rather than from the eye of God.”

It’s obvious fairly quickly that the garden is large, which would denote the family have money, which sets Laura’s class as high. Also, the way she speaks about the flowers and the garden party in general demonstrates that this is what she places importance in.

This idea appealed to me, and I would like to try and develop that in my own writing. As one of my favourite authors F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “The world only exists in your eyes – your conception of it. You can make it as big or as small as you want to.”

Reading that quote and the reading this week helped me realise that the description of a setting can be used as an additional device to tell the reader about your character. Everyone sees the world in their own different way, and I see now that it’s important to take that into account with your writing.

Sometimes characters in the story can have opinions on the setting which directly juxtapose each other to demonstrate differences between their characters; one person might describe the night sky in a romantic fashion when another will simply say it’s dark.

We should also consider whether the narrator understands what they see or not – if they are younger, they may not understand the implications of the scene, and therefore their narrative style is lacking in understanding. The quality/ knowledge of a description can denote the age of the narrator in that way.

It’s not something I had considered extensively but placing and mapping is really important to us as readers; being able to visualise/imagine the surroundings of a certain scene, whether outdoor or indoor, helps us to engage with the story and the characters.

The stories we were reading this week demonstrated that description of setting is important, but that you can also give the reader a certain degree of freedom in having to imagine the surroundings. As Eudora Welfy explained, every story would be different if it happened somewhere else and that setting is not just a backdrop.

Temperature and/or weather prompts can fill in a lot of the gaps for a reader about what kind of place they are in. For example the opening sentence of ‘Draft Horse’ by Michael Delp reads: “when he was a kid growing up in Fargo, he used to walk from the barn to the house, thirty below, his breath steaming out and then flowing past his face.”

From this sentence alone, the reader knows that the story is set in a very cold environment, so is perhaps visualising snow, frost, etc. They can also begin to imagine what the characters are doing in the weather conditions of their setting. What are they wearing? What are they saying about it?

I then began to think about what influence the environmental conditions of a story can have on the plot. In ‘Bonjour Tristesse’ by Francois Sagan (if you haven’t read it, I’d suggest you do) the setting plays a vital part in the events of the story.

The various settings of the novel reinforce the events of each scene; the chaos that ensues whilst the characters are at the busy casino, the romantic atmosphere of the semi-private bay where Cyril and Cecile choose to meet, the tense environment in the villa. In particular, the heat of the excessive of one day on the French Riviera creates an atmosphere of high pressure which leads up to the climactic point of the novel. Each setting has an important purpose for the scene.

It’s also quite interesting to think that descriptions of the environment around doesn’t need to be overdone. For example, if the writer writes that there is a palm tree outside the house, the reader knows that the setting of the scene is in a reasonably hot place.

In ‘The Garden Party’, Mansfield creates a harsh contrast between the two main settings by describing them as a place that Laura feel is safe and one that she feels is dangerous. As Laura moves from the garden to the village, there is a stark and immediate change in atmosphere.

I found reading the article by Robert Macfarlane, “Wizards, Moomins and Pirates” (linked below) gave me an insight into the importance of mapping in stories, particularly in fantasy stories such as Harry Potter and the LOTR books. I’ve been considering whether there is a need/place for a map in my story, but the article definitely gave me a different perspective on the place of story maps. As Macfarlane writes, story maps “are records of specific journeys, rather than describing a space within which journeys might take place.”

In our seminar, we defined setting as something which refers to a specific location (i.e. house, supermarket, car) and placing as a geographical location. We discussed that we should avoid “waking and talking” writing which over-explains the mundane/ self-explanatory details of setting.

My seminar leader reminded us of the idea of “get in late, get out early”, particularly when it comes to short stories. Essentially, if you write every little detail, there is nothing for your readers to discuss.

I’ll finish this week with the words of the module convenor –

“One of the qualities of any great story is that they exert their narrative power with every reading, over and over.”

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/22/wizards-moomins-and-gold-the-magic-and-mysteries-of-maps