Sometimes I wonder if maybe all setting when viewed through POV isn’t personal symbolism for the character. I mean think about walking through your own house for a moment and describing what you find inside. Sure, some writers are going to tell me that they have a house with four bay windows, the rooms inside are painted white, and three people live inside…factual detail. They are going to argue with me that these details are simply that–details, something that is unchangeable, immutable, unemotional truth.
Maybe so. Does it make for a good story though?
Maybe this same house, where the rooms are painted all in white, is on the market. The rooms have just been recently repainted. This family of three is breaking up–the fresh white paint, the empty rooms, the house for sale–everything trying to cover up a failed attempt at marriage. But even that doesn’t work for the POV character who tells the story, even the new smell and fresh color is a constant and painful reminder. Fresh paint, fresh pain.
Facts or personal symbols?
Seriously. How hard can this be to understand? Nothing in fiction is accidental–or shouldn’t be. If you don’t see it when you write it–then pick it out when you do the redraft. Find the subtext. Create the symbol. Not everything of importance runs directly through the thoughts of the character. It doesn’t have to be specifically said in dialog to be true.
The wife doesn’t have to cry into her cornflakes at breakfast and scream at her husband who is sitting across from her for the reader to get it. The vase of wilted half dead flowers on the table will suffice–and that’s shouting it to the rooftops. It could be far more subtle. If you write it, it’s looked at as significant. Readers are always “reading in” to your words. They are looking for meaning. Don’t waste that by just writing anything–don’t use non-specific detail because it hurts your brain to get up close and personal to the setting–make it work for your story–make it extremely relevant.
Want to argue with me that setting is dead facts, a still photograph? Show me that same photograph and I’ll find a story in there. No people or dialog needed. Complete with guaranteed conflict of the life and death sort.
