When does the setting matter?
You don’t always need to describe your setting. While it is important to describe your character’s surroundings so that the reader can feel as if they are participating in the action too, sometimes doing so slows down your writing. There are pros and cons of letting your writing slow down. It helps building suspense, but it might throw the reader off. It helps on character development, but slows down plot development.
In order to keep your writing flowing without problems, you should ask yourself if the place is really worth describing. So, when does the setting matter?
(Note: Take these tips with a grain of salt. It always depends on your story and your writing style. While these can help, these are not rules).
1. Does the setting mean something to your character?
Sometimes, the way your character feels about their surroundings says a lot about who they are. It’s interesting to try and describe your settings based on how your character perceives them. If the setting is a place very closely related to your character, such as their house, describing it might be important to give your readers a broader perception on your character’s personality and taste. Your character’s personality will, most of the time, influence the course of your story; therefore, the reader knowing your character well is important, so that they can feel involved in the narrative.
2. Is the setting relevant to the plot?
When your character is in the middle of a fight that accidentally started in a drugstore, you probably don’t need to describe what is in every shelf. Describing a place that doesn’t mean anything to the story will leave your reader feeling like that place is going to be relevant. And when it ends up being completely irrelevant, the reader is going to feel like you didn’t tie a loose end. When you’re narrating action, ask yourself whether the place where it is happening is relevant. If it is going to appear again somewhere down the line, giving the reader a few general ideas about the place is a good idea. That way, when the place shows up again, the reader will recognize it. Then, you can give out a few more details. Remember: If a place is going to be relevant and appear in your book more than once, don’t describe everything at the same time. This will help your story remaining interesting, while your reader still has enough information to feel involved in the narrative.
3. Does it carry any kind of symbolism?
Symbolism is interesting. Not everyone will interpret facts the same way, but that’s actually good. The reader might picture a certain object or place in a different way that the one that you, the writer, originally intended, but that adds some subjectivity to the story. Letting the reader imagine objects and places as they please gives them a whole new freedom that allows them to relate to the story better. Therefore, if the place where your action takes place carries symbolism, go with it. As long as you don’t spend too much time describing how a cup resembles your character’s great grandmother, this might actually work!
4. Does the setting need to be described right now?
If you’re writing an action scene, is it really necessary to stop your character in the middle of a punch to let the readers know about the color of the ceiling? If the setting is either important for your character and for your plot, try to describe it before or after you need to write an action scene. Even if the action scene is not a fight, or a crime, re-evaluate whether you could present the setting to the reader in some other time. It’s always better not to interrupt action scenes with description. Your readers will be looking forward to knowing what’s going to happen, so they’re likely to skip description paragraphs, anyway.
5. Avoid cliché descriptions - Describe the necessary.
Describing a rainy day as a metaphor of how sad your character is rarely works anymore. If you really need to let your reader know how your character is feeling through the setting, there are less cliché-d ways of doing so. Maybe, there are tears on the pillow under his head when he goes to bed. That being said, if you really need to describe something, describe only what’s necessary. If you want to embellish your writing by using fancy words in description, do that by the way your character interact with things when nothing very relevant is happening. Readers don’t often like it when an important scene is interrupted by the smell of a beautiful flower or the dust on a nightstand.
6. If you’re going to interrupt a scene, do it well.
If even after this paragraph, I wasn’t able to convince you not to interrupt a scene with a hefty paragraph of description, make sure your description is worth the interruption. Describe objects and places in a way that will leave your readers shock. Make them have to re-read your description to understand what you meant. In just a few words, make it memorable, make it awesome. Describe a woman’s dress as being full of winter. What does that mean? I don’t know, but the reader will try to peek into your mind to understand it. As long as you know what you’re writing, and every word means something, you have the power to keep the reader interested. Use it wisely.
To sum up, just ask yourself if you really need description. While description is really important in a story, not everything needs to be described. Not everything has enough significance to be worth two paragraphs. In your first draft, maybe you’ll need to describe everything, so you can feel closer to your story. However, when editing, try to ask yourself: does the reader need this? Because, most of the time, the writers use description as a way to keep track of their settings. However, the readers don’t need to have as much information as the writer does. So… Does the reader really need this?
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