creative writing:creating unique writing style-setting

Setting

creative writing:creating unique writing style-setting

Setting is the environment where your characters operate. Your setting or background or environment for your story could be imaginary or realistic. In choosing your setting, choose an environment that you know very well personally. It is difficult to situate your story in an environment you are not familiar with through personal experience. You will be in a better position to create a more convincing story by drawing on the things you have heard and seen. According to Maxwell-Mahon, there are three important things any good writer must remember while locating a story. a. The setting must be located as quickly as possible and with minimum words. 66 b. The setting must be factually and temporally credible c. The setting must form a unity with both character and action so as to produce the overall effect or idea that you want to convey to the reader (7). Assuming that you want to set your story in an environment you are not physically familiar with but have heard so much about, you should visit the place. If for instance you have heard so much about the wild life park in Jos or Tinapa in Calabar and you want to set your story there, you cannot give an accurate account of the environment until you have visited the place. You need more information the setting or present incidents that take place in that venue because you will find it difficult to give accurate account of for instance, which roads leads to it, the guides, and many other things. If you are writing a novel, you may need to give a vivid description of the scenery in and out of the place, the animals, events and the people you encounter there. Did you stay in a hotel, or stayed with a friend or a relation? In answering these questions, you may find some interesting incidents or event that you could incorporate in your story. 3.5.1 Physical Setting The physical setting as the name implies is the physical environment where the action of the story takes place. Whether your setting is imaginary or real, you must endeavour to reflect the physical environment. This includes the scenery, the prop, (drama), the houses, the roads and other physical aspects of that environment that help to situate your narrative. In case you want to use a realist setting, you must include notable landmarks like names of towns or locations in the towns. A very good example of such realistic setting is found in Ola Rotimi’s Hopes of the Living Dead and Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again, and also Fetus Iyayi’s The Heroes. Sometimes the names of characters and interjections of vernacular in the forms of exclamations, phrases or 67 dialogue are useful pointers to the physical setting in your work. You should therefore take this into consideration while writing your own fiction. As stated earlier, read the works of the literary masters to help you improve on your style in the literary genre you wish to write. 3.5.2 Historical Setting Historical setting refers to the time frame or possible date/period/year when the events of the story take place. The historical setting can be discerned in your work in several ways. You could insert specific dates as we find in Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man. It could be through historical incidents as we find in the same play or in Festus Iyayi’s The Heroes and other novels that deal with the Nigerian Civil War. In this novel, for instance, his characters are fictitious but General Gowon’s wedding is mentioned, so you may decide to include specific historical events. However, you may decide to discard specific historical events and concentrate on some incidents that could happen at any time. When you set your story in the past, please check your facts very well to ensure the authenticity of your setting. This is very important. When you are not sure of a particular setting, discard it.