Setting is the context — in terms of time, place, and social environment — that a story is set within. Great authors immerse readers in new worlds, from the far reaches of space to ancient Earth inhabited by wizards, or perfectly capture the world we already live in. Giving readers enough detail to help them visualize the setting without burdening them with unnecessary detail isn’t easy, but looking to successful works for inspiration is a great way to start. Here are 5 novels that do setting well, with insights into what you can learn from them.
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Embracing the time period
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is both a record and product of the 1920s and provides a critical view of Prohibition-era America during a time of social and moral shifts. Fitzgerald uses various settings to depict his view of American society at a time where West Egg represents new money, East Egg represents old money, and the Valley of Ashes exists as a juxtaposition by representing decay and poverty. Each area almost becomes a character in its own right.
Gatsby’s time period was distinguished by several social and economic changes. For example, the novel nods to the real-world introduction of prohibition and hints that Gatsby probably made his fortune through bootlegging. There are details sprinkled throughout the novel that draw attention to women’s rights, racial issues, and the proliferation of car ownership, all of which were real-world concerns and which make the setting come alive to the reader.
If your novel takes place in a specific real-world time setting — whether in the past or our current time — it is worth engaging with what makes that period unique. For instance, you might consider certain social, political, economic, or technological changes happening and how they impact your plot and characters. These details should often remain as background information or subtle motifs, improving worldbuilding and setting without becoming the focus of your novel – after all, you’re not writing a history book!
Dune by Frank Herbert
Building a complex social environment
The universe of Dune by Frank Herbert exists within the context of an Imperium that is feudal in nature with power shared between the emperor, noble houses, and the Spacing Guild. These houses are often at war, with the first novel’s main conflict taking place on the planet Arrakis for its uniquely valuable Spice Melange. Beyond this, there are things like personal shields making ballistic weapons useless, wars against ‘thinking machines’, the Bene Gesserit witches, and dozens of other groups and extra details sprinkled throughout the novel that build its setting.
Despite the short summary, it hopefully illustrates the carefully considered social setting in Dune and how each group exists within this fictional universe. These individual aspects alone may not seem groundbreaking, but when viewed together, they mirror our own complex social environment and make stories set on far away planets 20,000 years in the future seem believable. These details are sprinkled throughout the novel, providing a fully immersive experience for readers.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
Showing, not telling.
In this classic children’s book, Lewis makes use of creative environmental descriptions for readers to make their own minds up about the setting without being told directly, which makes for a rewarding reading experience. Near the start of the novel, for instance, when the Pevensie children arrive at the Professor’s house, Peter says “It’s about ten minutes’ walk from here down to that dining room and any amount of stairs and passages between”. Readers can build their own mental image about the size of the house from this description, without Lewis spelling it out for us.
Another example is Lucy’s first discovery of Narnia at the back of the wardrobe — arguably the most memorable moment of the series. Again, Lewis doesn’t simply inform us that she’s arrived in a magical land, but allows readers to slowly experience Lucy’s wonder alongside her:
“Next moment she found that what was rubbing against her face and hands was no longer soft fur but something hard and rough and even prickly. “Why, it is just like branches of trees!” exclaimed Lucy. And then she saw that there was a light ahead of her; not a few inches away where the back of the wardrobe ought to have been, but a long way off. Something cold and soft was falling on her. A moment later she found that she was standing in the middle of a wood at night-time with snow under her feet and snowflakes falling through the air”.
Revealing setting without spelling out everything can be particularly engaging for readers as it lets them use their own imagination to finish putting the information together.
Mortal Engines by Phillip Reeve
Crafting believability from setting
In Mortal Engines, Reeve’s ability to richly describe setting makes the otherwise unbelievable concept of London becoming a mobile ‘traction city’ seem entirely plausible. Many concepts, especially in sci-fi and fantasy, exist far beyond the realms of possibility — from teleportation to enchanted broomsticks — and it’s up to the authors to write with enough depth and confidence to make these worlds seem real.
Reeve introduces the unique concept of a ‘traction city’ with London as it spots a nearby town as prey to break down for parts:
“Soon the city was lumbering in pursuit, a moving mountain of metal which rose in seven tiers like the layers of a wedding cake, the lower levels wreathed in engine-smoke, the villas of the rich gleaming white on the higher decks, and above it all the cross on top of St Paul’s Cathedral glinting gold, two thousand feet above the ruined earth.
It’s not just the traction cities that are richly described, the rest of the world feels like a living, breathing reality. Reeve gives just as much attention to all the locations that the main characters Tom and Hester visit, including the Shield Wall:
“It was like a wall of night, black, black, built from huge blocks of volcanic stone, armoured with the rusting deckplates of cities that had dared to challenge it and been destroyed by the hundreds of rocket batteries on its western face. On its snow-clad summit, four thousand feet above the valley floor, the banner of the broken wheel snapped and raced in the wind and the sunlight gleamed on armoured gun-emplacements and the steel helmets of the League’s soldiers.”
By injecting detail into the setting, Reeve proves that you can create believability and convince readers of any assortment of outlandish concepts, provided you make them possible to believe, given the overall logic of the world.
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
Setting the tone
The tone of George Orwell’s 1984 is one of oppression and pessimism and can be viewed as a warning of the dangers of totalitarian states. This is not only conveyed by the characters, but arguably even more so by the setting of London within the state of Oceania. Big Brother, the government’s mascot, is watching over everything and Orwell never lets the characters or the readers feel entirely safe.
The size and material of governmental buildings contributes to this feeling of oppression in the face of total power. Contrary to its name, The Ministry of Love is actually terrifying and is responsible for maintaining loyalty to Big Brother:
“The Ministry of Love was the really frightening one. There were no windows in it at all. Winston had never been inside the Ministry of Love, nor within half a kilometre of it. It was a place impossible to enter except on official business, and then only by penetrating through a maze of barbed-wire entanglements, steel doors and hidden machine-gun nests. Even the streets leading up to its outer barriers were roamed by gorilla-faced guards in black uniforms, armed with jointed truncheons”.
This is just one example of Orwell establishing the oppressive tone of his novel with vividly described setting. Huge concrete buildings with armed defenses and ‘telescreens’ capturing your every move gives readers the same sense of bleakness that the characters must experience. Whether your novel is equally bleak, or takes a more optimistic perspective, the way that you describe the setting affects the overall tone.
Ultimately, different authors reveal setting in various ways. Some authors prefer to make the setting act almost like a character, while others favor keeping it firmly in the background as a place for characters to inhabit and nothing more. However you want to use setting in your next novel, hopefully these examples have been helpful!
(c) Rose Atkinson-Carter
Rose Atkinson-Carter is a writer with Reedsy, a marketplace that connects authors with the world’s best self-publishing resources and professionals like editors, designers, and ghostwriters. She lives in London.
