Please welcome Lynne Reeves Griffin back to Writer Unboxed today! Lynne Reeves Griffin is an internationally recognized family counselor, public speaker, teacher and writer of fiction and non-fiction. Her work has appeared in Parents, Psychology Today, Solstice Literary Magazine, Chautauqua Journal, Craft Literary, Fiction Writers Review, Brain, Child and more.
Writing as Lynne Griffin, she is the author of the novels, Life Without Summer (St. Martin’s Press), Sea Escape (Simon & Schuster), and Girl Sent Away (SixOneSeven Books).
She writes novels of domestic suspense as Lynne Reeves, with The Dangers of an Ordinary Night published by Crooked Lane Books, available now!
To learn more about Lynne’s work, visit LynneGriffin.com or follow her on Twitter and on Instagram @LynneReevesGriffin.
The Places You’ll Go: Writing Setting or Setting Goals
When I wrote my first novel, I was so preoccupied with getting the psychology of character right that I admit I didn’t pay much attention to place. That’s not to say I ignored it all together. I chose a backdrop of interest and I used setting details to ground the reader ‘in scene.’
Still, it wasn’t until I took a writing class with short story writer and teacher Stace Budzko that I recognized the power of setting to do so much more.
In workshop, Stace guided us to write a scene using only all pleasing telling details. Then we were to rewrite the scene using only all menacing ones.
It was a lightbulb moment for me. I had known that in order for themes to emerge from setting, a story has to, in some way, rely on its setting. But I hadn’t fully considered that place and its unique elements could influence the story such that it would be drastically different, or might not exist at all if it took place somewhere else.
Realizing how underutilized setting was in my first novel, I vowed to course correct for my second. I set a new writing goal: to strengthen my ability to write place. Since setting comes alive in its details and in the way the character experiences the environment, I decided to push my abilities by making a house, in effect, a character.
I played with the questions: What if a home in the story has its own persona? A vibe it gives off that creates story conflict between two characters? By setting a story goal that was also a writing challenge, it was my hope that I’d see setting differently, while also learning to write more nuanced prose. Dear writer, I’m here to tell you, this writing goal enlivened the process of crafting this new story. So much so, that now, in addition to writing novels that explore new psychological phenomena, I also set craft goals specific to each novel I write.
“It’s the job of the writer to create a world that entices you in and shows you what’s at stake there.” —Nancy Huddleston Packer
For my third novel, I aimed to strengthen my ability to write a story with high stakes and crackling tension. I wrote about what I learned about building tension in fiction on the macro and micro level for Writer Unboxed.
“Some places speak distinctly. Certain dank gardens cry out for murder. Certain old houses demand to be haunted. Certain coasts are set apart for shipwrecks.”
—Robert Louis Stevenson
Like all elements of craft, setting must do more than one thing at once. So my goal for writing The Dangers of an Ordinary Night was to turn up the dial on every element of craft using setting. As with my other novels, I used the element setting to ground readers in ways I hoped would allow them to immerse themselves in the narrative. I deepened character by making inextricable links to place and plot. In every scene, I paid close attention to highlighting how the environment could raise what was at stake for my protagonists, making conflict and tension visible on every page.
In doing so, I found myself writing two distinct places that would collide in my first novel of domestic suspense. The abandoned hotel in a seaside town became the perfect place for a crime. This setting allowed me to create atmosphere, impacting the mood of the reader. And the former Exeter Street Theater in Boston (a place I had walked by every day of my twenties, and then again for five years when I worked there in my forties) became a fictionalized performing arts school, where I could offer social and cultural commentary about parenting, and our desire to mold our children into the people we wish they could be.
“Place in writing often exists at that intersection between the reality of place and one’s imagination about that place—what one believes, hopes, or imagines about the various possibilities of oneself in that place. It may be that places exist in order that memory itself has a home.” —David St. John
It’s also true that I’ve written specific settings in certain of my novels to preserve my own memories of the places I hold dear. My high school theater, the neighborhoods where I’ve lived and worked, the coastal town where I’ve raised my children.
How can you rethink the way you use setting to illuminate other elements of craft? What element of craft will you challenge yourself to improve upon? We’d love to hear from you in comments!