Alan Ackmann

Wherefore art thou, Alison?

Alison Lurie’s lecture, which I almost didn’t attend on account of fatigue—similar to the kind you might feel from so many Sewanee updates—was a basically insightful lecture focusing on an often neglected element of fiction: setting. I admit that I approached this topic cautiously. Some of my early fiction was overly reliant on setting, using it as a substitute for characterization and indulging in historical trivia rather than emotional depth. I remember one story that featured a barge worker on the Mississippi River (it was a wretched enterprise, and the less said about it the better) that was flawed because I conceived of the story as an exploration of a place rather than a person. Setting (for me at least) is often easier to make interesting, because it is easier to understand—much easier than people are, anyway. As a consequence of these early failures, I’ve come to devalue setting a bit, so my early drafts often feel strangely anonymous, like black-box theater productions, and I tell myself I’m creating universality whereas I’m actually creating vagueness. Hey, it’s a flaw! You learn, and you move on.

Speaking of moving on, the WHERE is the first aspect of setting Lurie discussed, pointing out (rightly) that dramatic scene is akin to stagecraft, and that interactions between characters will be radically affected by what surrounds them—props and weather and furniture. A fight between two characters will be completely different if it takes place in a restaurant rather than a bedroom, or on a cruise ship rather than a hospital. People take parts of themselves wherever they go, and these elements are changed by what is introduced. Part of creating a lush environment in fiction involves giving your characters a full realm to draw from, so that setting can be a way to define characters and sociability rather than being simple window dressing. Similarly, a change in setting can also be used to advance (or even trigger) plot, as Lurie herself demonstrated in Foreign Affairs, which deals with the way two academics change when spending time in England. People change based on where they are; good fiction will reflect this.

Equally important, though, is the complementary WHEN of setting. For many reasons—marketability among them—young writers often hitch their stories to grand events, using them as a convenient means of obtaining dramatic heft, and of instantly characterizing an era by distilling it to a handful of decisive incidents. The problem, though, is that (a) most people don’t talk or think like that (“I remember when your father and I were married—it was the year of the Apollo moon landing”) and (b) it is easy to let fascination with history overwhelm character or narrative. You must also, Lurie pointed out, be cautious of using pop culture in fiction, as pop culture is inherently fleeting—within ten years or so, the “present” won’t be present anymore, and the vanished identity will weaken your fiction.

Finally, Lurie cautioned against the “pathetic fallacy” of matching a setting to a character’s emotional state, which reeks of cliche. I’ve had experience with this one, actually. A few years ago I used a John Gardner exercise and asked a class to describe a lake from the point of view of a woman who just found out her son was killed in war—only students couldn’t mention the death, the son, or the war. In eleven of the twelve descriptions it was raining. That’s not good fiction, people!

In the end, Lurie’s lecture was good at reminding students that, while setting certainly shouldn’t be the forgotten child of fiction, it also shouldn’t be allowed to run the show. That’s worth remembering, I think.

That will do for now. Tune in next time for an account of a presentation by agent Gail Hochman. This one you do not want to miss!

Posted by Alan Ackmann - Aug 31, 02:54 PM.
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