I have been thinking recently, in relation to my WIP, about concentration of setting. It isn’t something I have consciously thought about before, but it occurs to me that most of my books tend to revolve around one main, fairly tightly circumscribed setting. There might be, within that, a number of ‘sets’ (if one is to think in filmic or televisual terms) – different rooms within a house, say, or different locations within a workplace, a village…. But by and large the action has tended to be geographically concentrated. (Actually, if I am honest, an awful lot of it takes place at kitchen tables!)

Do others find that their work is concentrated in this way? Are there strengths to it (building a sense of place, of course – but also of claustrophobia, or a certain kind of intensity, for example?) - and are there corresponding weaknesses? Does it risk getting boring?!?

One reason it occurred to me is that I had recently been reading the final edits of my previous novel and although it is strongly about location and characters-in-landscape, and almost all takes place within narrow geographical confines, actually at about the four-fifths point when events become dramatic and tensions need to be resolved, the MC makes a major geographical shift (back to England from France), and that seemed to work well I terms of lifting or shifting the dramatic tone, signalling a change of gear….

Do you think it is a problem that my WIP (which also focuses in a big way on ‘place’) will probably – as currently conveyed – never make this shift away from of the MC’s usual tracks: home, work, daughter’s school, the occasional trip to the pub…

In terms of concentration of setting, I always think of the brilliant film ‘Twelve Angry Men’ – which has just the one unitary set throughout, and has, as a result, a fabulous intensity to it. can anyone think of other examples – books or films – where the scene shifts very little and this is an important aspect of the atmosphere of the piece?

I’d be really interested to hear people’s general feelings/views on this issue, and to hear others’ experiences!

Rosy x

There are 3 novels I can think of right off the bat where setting played a major part, almost becoming a character in its own right:
The Tenderness of Wolves - set in the snowy Canadian wilderness.
Snow on Cedars - who can forget the winter snow and the strawberry fields.
The Shipping News - the claustrophobic Newfoundland town, the wildness of the berry-covered headlands, and the unpredictability of the sea.

<Added>

If you're talking about novels with a single or limited setting.....hmmm, whether consciously or subconsciously I tend to avoid those.

I don't think it needs to be a problem at all, if the setting is doing what you want it to.
There are Magnus Mills' books - The Lost Men and All Quiet on the Orient Express, which have very concentrated setting and are great, nevertheless.

If you're talking about novels with a single or limited setting.....hmmm, whether consciously or subconsciously I tend to avoid those.

Oh dear - not what I wanted to hear, Naomi! Do you mind if I ask you why? I am mulling over what I risk or am losing, if I confine my setting throughout the book.

R x

I don't think it matters at all - it's all in how it's done - the best of Joanna Trollope often has very limited settings, as I recall. It'd be hard to pull off sticking to a single room, I was thinking... but then think of Rear Window.

If you're writing family dramas, then, well, family life does mostly follow a single and quite restricted pattern. Having said that I think it could be (I only say could be) a warning signal that the book is risking being dull, if it means that the setting is just that - setting. I know that hearts break over a kitchen table just as well as they do on a cliff, but on the cliff you characters also pink in the cheeks, slightly short of breath, and worried about being blown off...

Emma

Waiting for Godot?
Anyway, the 'setting' can be said to be the place inside the MCs head, or the relationship, or the family - just as much as it's the geographical setting.
Susiex

but on the cliff you characters also pink in the cheeks, slightly short of breath, and worried about being blown off...

But in the kitchen you've got the potatoes boiling over leaving a scummy mess on the hob and someone burning their tongue on a boiling cup of tea and the dog rushing through leaving muddy paw prints everywhere!

I have to admit, I'm as guilty of narrow settings as Rosy is. About two-thirds of the way through my last novel I became aware that when I thought about it I had a strong picture of the mc sitting alone at her desk in a dark room illuminated by the lap-top and a desk lamp. Even now, when I think about that piece of work that is the image that always flashes into my brain.

True about the cliff, Emma. Hmm. A kitchen (with apologies to Saturday's boiling potatoes and muddy pawprints) doesn't even have the same potential as a jury room, prison cell, hospital bedside....

Will think about what you've all said.

Conversely to the 'containment' thing, does anyone find that they have used physical, geographical movement to give dynamism or a shake-up to their story?

R x

doesn't even have the same potential as a jury room, prison cell, hospital bedside....

Still don't agree. My examples were purely domestic 'cos that's what I write, but I remember reading something in which a very nasty torture scene took place over a gas hob. All those knives and heat sources offer potential in lots of different directions. And more than one sex scene has taken place on a kitchen table...All human life etc

Chekov said something along the lines of 'People don't have grand scenes, fights, passions... they have dinner.'

It's perfectly true, of course. It's not that there isn't potential in a kitchen, more that there's different potential - and possibly more dramatic potential, if that's what you're after - on a cliff-top.

The whole of the modern strand of TMOL takes place in two houses and the nearby town. I made it like that on purpose - to corral and cut off the narrator, ready for me to work my evil purposes on her... The first third or so of the period strand happens in the same house, and one thing that was good about that was being able to explore how differently the setting was to different people in different times. So that's a plus of keeping to one setting - you've space/time to do that.

Maybe you have to think in terms of using a familiar setting to set off what's unfamiliar in your story - new, different, aslant, not-what-you-expected, wry, new-angle-on-old-clothes - about ordinary things. It's certainly true that when I read a kitchen-based story, it had better offer me not just the documentary pleasures of oh-it's-just-like-that, but a new, fresh take on them. Otherwise, why would I read about my own life?

And you use an unfamiliar setting to set off what's perennial in your story - the constants in life, love and misbehaving dogs - as well as the documentary pleasures of that kind of setting, crashing waves and all.

Emma

Maybe you have to think in terms of using a familiar setting to set off what's unfamiliar in your story .... And you use an unfamiliar setting to set off what's perennial in your story...

As always, Emma, you come up with a great way to think about things!

And true, I suppose, Saturday, about kitchens. They are only as mundane as the events that occur there.

R x

Otherwise, why would I read about my own life?

I worked as a librarian for a time and some people undoubtedly read for the pleasure of recognition, just as others read for the excitement of being taken somewhere new.

Also, I'm not sure that 'newness' is the key to making the domestic interesting as that often leads to another set of cliches

new, different, aslant, not-what-you-expected, wry, new-angle-on-old-clothes - about ordinary things. It's certainly true that when I read a kitchen-based story,it had better offer me not just the documentary pleasures of oh-it's-just-like-that, but a new, fresh take on them.

I know what you mean, but I think directing people towards finding a new angle can be a bit of a bum steer.

It is incredibly difficult to put a name to what it is that lifts some work above other stuff but I think the closes I can get to a description is to talk about its truth. I think I probably look for truth and a close scrutiny of the situation that is being captured rather than newness. This seems to affect how deeply I respond to a piece. Some work can feel new but still very glib and self-involved.

I'm thinking aloud here so bear with me, but with some work you know the writer has really thought about the situation for himself. The plot or setting may not be new but the voice is truly individual. In contrast, other work feels 'parroted'. Not because it is badly written - the writer has taken care to expunge all the verbal cliches that are being collected in another thread - but because the underlying voice lacks true character, even though the setting or plot may well be superficially new.

Therefore, with well-trodden ground like the domestic, I'm not sure that it wouldn't be useful to tell someone to really scrutinise the situation and strive to describe it with precision rather than tell them to find a new angle on it.

If you're talking about novels with a single or limited setting.....hmmm, whether consciously or subconsciously I tend to avoid those. Oh dear - not what I wanted to hear, Naomi! Do you mind if I ask you why? I am mulling over what I risk or am losing, if I confine my setting throughout the book.

I wouldn't pay any attention to my opinion, Rosy, I'm not a 'family drama' sort of reader.

So, Naomi, it's only the unitary 'kitchen sink' setting that would put you off - not, say, a condemned cell, or a coal mine after a rockfall?

R x

I'm not sure that it wouldn't be useful to tell someone to really scrutinise the situation and strive to describe it with precision rather than tell them to find a new angle on it.

No, I think that's entirely the point - I was thinking in terms of product, not process. If you think the situation out from scratch, as it were, looking for the core truth, you will come up with something that seems new to the reader, in the sense that it strikes them afresh, even if it's actually one of the oldest truths of humanity.

I'm having a very interesting time with the WIP, because I have two narrators, with (deliberately) diametrically opposite characters, but part of the same plot, so operating in the same environment both physical and moral. Towards the end they even take part in and describe the same events. I'm finding it easier than I'd feared it would be to find and make the most of their different take on it all.

But excuse me, the gendarmerie maritime is bearing down on my hero mid-Channel...

Emma