Round Robin – Crafting Fictional Settings

Last month we discussed settings in the real world and how we transport them onto the page. This month we’re looking at fictional settings, or settings that don’t exist OR are so far in the past that you couldn’t possibly have been there.

Since the majority of my writing takes place in fantastical worlds, or in the case of Tapped, other planets in our solar system, this is where I have the most experience. Obviously I have never been to Mars or Pluto or Europa, and I won’t lie, writing those places was a challenge.

It was a lot of FUN, but it was challenging fun.

So here’s my process, grown over the course of a couple decades of practice.

First, the rough draft is always bare bones. I can’t allow myself to get hung up on describing the setting too much or I’ll never finish the book. The rough draft is also where I spent an alarming amount of time researching/staring out the window/worldbuilding.

However, worldbuilding is its own topic. I want to get into the act of making that setting come alive on the page. And to do that, we have to skip forward to the editing process. Everything I’m about to detail is used during the Second Draft.

The KAVS Cycle

The late great David Farland taught a class on settings and in it he discusses what he calls KAVS. You can still access it through the Apex Writers Group online, which you will have to pay for but I highly recommend. I have been part of Apex (off and on when I could afford it) for years now.

Anyway.

I have my rough draft and I make 4 passes through each chapter focused on a different aspect of the KAVS cycle.

KAVS stands for Kinetic, Audio, Visual, Smell.

First pass, Visual. This is literally everything my character can see in their setting. Often when I am doing this pass I also have DeviantArt/Pinterest up in another screen because I need the inspiration. Sometimes I’ll even go so far as to build a mood board in Canva, but admittedly this is rare and I reserve it for settings that I circle back to often.

I do this for characters too. Here, you can peek at Nora Grayson’s file in Pinterest.

Also, here’s the mood board for Nora’s family home.

Alright, some important things to note. Not everything has to be exact in these mood boards. I’m just going for the feel of a place. For example, Nora’s office is in the round room of a Victorian House, though the picture shown is obviously square. What’s important about the image isn’t the shape of the room, but the style.

You can see that it’s more masculine in nature, which brings me to the next element in the KAVS cycle: Kinetics.

Kinetics is anything tactile (touch, taste), any movement in the scene (swish of a cuckoo clock’s pendulum as an example) AND the emotions.

Nora’s study is still masculine because it was her father’s office. It evokes a slew of memories for her. SO my second pass is going through how this setting makes my character FEEL and WHY.

The why is so very important, not only for character development but because showing the history of a place is one of the easiest ways to make a setting real for the reader.

The third pass that I do is the Audio pass. Which is self-explanatory, but let’s go ahead and get into it. We tend to react to sound in our environments.

Example, my cat just made a chirping noise, so I turned to look at her. She’s perched on the window sill, her tail flicking, white body coiled as though she might pounce through the windowpane to get to the bird outside.

Characters in a setting will also react to sounds in their environment, so let them. Honestly, I might do this too much sometimes, but having a sound draw the character out of an internal dialogue is a legitimate storytelling tool.

The fourth and final pass that I do is Smell.

Of all the senses we put into our books, I feel like smell really solidifies an environment. Foul, sweet, musky, we all have references in our minds that we can immediately draw upon when a writer says, The room smelled like pencils and leather.

Or

The scent of cinnamon was heavy in the air.

Or

The back of her throat tickled at the heavy pepper. (That one you get Kinetics and Smell all in one go.)

The reader picks up on the smell, has a reference, and suddenly it’s real.

Generally speaking, I do a chapter a day during my second pass at a manuscript. I know I’m not winning any races here, but by the time I’m done with that second pass I am confident enough in my story that I can send it out to my editor.

Take a look at what some of my fellow authors do to craft believable fictional settings in their work!

Bob Rich https://wp.me/p3Xihq-3rJ 

Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/

Belinda Edwards https://booksbybelinda.com/blog/

Anne Stenhouse https://goo.gl/h4DtKv

Helena Fairfax http://www.helenafairfax.com/blog

Sally Odgers https://behindsallysbooksmark2.blogspot.com

Victoria Chatham http://www.victoriachatham.com

A.J. Maguire  https://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/ (YOU ARE HERE)

Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea