Every story has a setting. Spiderman is set in New Your City. Lord of the Rings takes place in Middle Earth. The setting is the time, location and environment of your story. Choosing the setting of your story is critically important as your setting will be closely interwoven into the characters, plot and action of your story. How you create and use your setting can greatly enhance a fantastic fight tale. In general, there are two types of settings: Backdrop and Integral.
Backdrop Setting
This is the minimalist approach for keeping it simple. Your setting is very generic and not specific to time. You will not need to spend much time in its description. For instance, your entire fight story may entirely take place in a boxing ring. You might wish to provide a few useful details such as the grimy atmosphere, the smell of cigarette smoke, the rowdy fight crowd, but otherwise you can give readers’ imaginations a lot of leeway in filling in the rest of the scene. Perhaps you are writing an apartment style wrestling story where all the action occurs in an empty carpeted room. You might mention the feel of plush carpet between the toes. The action might include bodies slamming into dry walls causing cracks in the plaster, or the sensation of noses being smeared into the carpet, but lengthy passages of the room are not necessary. Backdrop settings are a good choice for stories where you want to focus more on characters and the action and the setting not need be very specific. An example of one of my stories is “Goodnight, Snowflake” a story about an older catfighter returning to a production company after 20 years to fight a troubled young woman. I intended it as a deeply psychological story that didn’t require an elaborate setting.
Integral Setting
This type of setting is important to creating context to your story, characters, conflict and action. It can give your story mood and atmosphere and help drive the action. Components of integral settings are location, environment and time.
Location: Where is your story geographically located? It may be a real or imaginary place. It could be very specific. My story, “My Little Sherry” mostly takes place in the Roxbury neighborhood in Boston. The location may be somewhat less specific. Fyre’s Fight Journal is set in Texas, but the exact city is not revealed. I followed this approach with KFJ. It gives readers the Texas flavor of the stories without restricting their imaginations to a particular location. Locations may completely unspecified if it’s not important to the story (a beach, a backyard, a barn, etc.).
Environment: This is the immediate physical situation of your story. It is the most important, but most difficult aspect to write about your setting. The environment brings your location to life. The goal is to appeal to the readers senses, giving them the vision, sounds, feel and smell to the setting. The environment is the part of setting that is interwoven into the plot and action, creating mood and atmosphere. Is your story about a fight in an isolated abandoned warehouse? You would expect a foreboding atmosphere. Tell us about the poor lighting, the barren concrete floor, the broken windows, creaking pipes, musty odor, etc. Is it in a dive bar? Talk about the grimy floor, smell of stale beer, neon lights, smoky air, etc.
How does the environment effect the fight? Is it on a beach? The sun, waves, and sand getting in the hair, eyes, and mouth could be a factor. Do surrounding objects come into play during the fight? In KFJ Dance Mom Dust-Up, during a fight in a dance studio, elastic bands are used as whips and the balance barre becomes weaponized. The Junkyard by Jonica is perhaps the grittiest story I’ve read on FCF.
Setting can be used to reflect mood. In My Little Sherry, the dark and icy weather reflects Conner’s mental condition.
Finally, the setting can sometimes contrast with the action to add shock or highlight the stakes. My Waiting At The Door describes a typical lazy suburban Saturday afternoon with the ambience of lawn mowers, clouds, barbecues, etc. in sharp contrast to two moms engaging in a taboo grudge wrestling match in a backyard. In Dance Mom Dust Up, the innocence of a dance school for children clashes with two moms having a fight in an adjacent room during the kids’ dance lessons.
Time: Does your story take place during a specific year or at least period of time. You will need to make sure everything in your story is consistent with that time. It is easy to accidently create an anachronism (something inappropriate for that time. e.g. a character has a cell phone in a story about World War II).
Does your story occur during a specific time and place. Think of 1920’s Chicago, The Coliseum of ancient Rome, a peasant village under the reign of Charlemagne, England during Henry VIII. Historic pieces can be a lot of fun to write but require knowledge of the time and place you are writing about. For most of us, that might require considerable research, which is why I haven’t attempted it. The most historical story I’ve written here is Summer of ’77 where I tried to be true to 70s U.S. culture. Sinclairfan is the master of historical stories, having written numerous very impressive works. Ahnafights’ Wild West stories are exceptional.
My Advice: Writing settings to your story can be great fun but can be challenging. For beginners, I’d say first think about the fight you want to write about. Remember, this should be fun. The fight is the main course, so start with that. What kind of fight will it be and where will it occur? Backdrop setting is easier for beginners, but I wouldn’t want to limit anyone’s imagination. When you decide on your fight scene, work your story up to the fight and weave your setting into it. It can be difficult to decide how much or little space to devote to communicate your setting. I’ll start out with two recommendations. First, avoid lengthy paragraphs describing a location and environments. Many readers are turned off by long paragraphs. Second, you usually don’t need to describe your setting all at once. Spread it out, communicate more information as your story unfolds. Second, express the setting as experienced by the characters as much as possible. As they say, “Show, don’t tell”.
Compare these two paragraphs. Which do you like better?
The cattle laid listless in the scorching heat of the mid-afternoon sun. The thick air was oppressive with humidity mixed with the stench of manure wafting heavily in the air. Standing on the hard-baked soil of the pasture, Hannah and Ivy stood nose-to-nose, menacingly staring at each other as flies buzzed around their heads. Neither woman was willing to back down. They both knew they were about to fight.
Hannah felt the heat of the mid-afternoon sun simmering on her bare left shoulder as her eyes locked into a menacing stare down, standing nose-to-nose with Ivy. The oppressive heat, humidity, and the stench of manure pressed upon both women. Even the cattle sought relief from the heat, resting in the pasture to conserve energy The hard sunbaked soil beneath their feet would be a formidable battlefield for the fierce conflict they knew was about to take place. Neither one would blink despite the flies buzzing around their faces. Their feud would escalate into a physical war in a matter of seconds and both of them knew it.
Writers and readers alike are invited to leave comments. I’d love to hear from you. Have fun.
Kiva
