Setting (15 page)

But even if circumstances make it possible for a switch to omniscience here, why does the author choose to use it? I think the answer is clear. Especially in an outdoor story of the Old West like this one, a feeling for the vastness of the country and its visual beauty are vital elements. The reader yearns imaginatively to see the mountains. And, as in virtually any story, he needs a periodic recontact with the physical setting to remind him of his physical orientation. Therefore, in this example, the author meets reader needs by "fleshing out" the setting with a panoramic view, and he takes advantage of a natural transition point to do so.

Notice, however, that the purely omniscient view is not maintained for long. The character Ford's name is mentioned midway in the second sentence. The fact that his name is mentioned does not in itself establish his viewpoint, because the godlike observer can see him just like he sees the mountains and snow. But mention of the character's name begins to set the reader up for insertion into a character viewpoint, and sure enough, two short sentences later, a viewpoint is established with the words
He saw.
Only Ford can know what he saw. Therefore, when these words occur, the reader is again placed in Ford's viewpoint.

You might also notice, however, that considerable material not necessarily in Ford's viewpoint follows this single viewpoint

identifier. The light snow, Ford's heavy breathing, and all the rest of it contain no intrinsic evidence that they are from Ford's restricted viewpoint. So additional panoramic material is inserted. But a reader, once put into a viewpoint, will invariably tend to assume that everything which follows is experienced by that viewpoint. So here the additional panoramic material is assumed to be from Ford's viewpoint, and author Clinton is careful to make sure that nothing that comes later in this segment is from a viewpoint that the character Ford could not possibly experience. Clinton seems to know well one of the cardinal rules about handling point of view in setting as noted in chapter two. To state it negatively: Once in a viewpoint in any given segment, don't get back out of it.

A BRIEF RESTATEMENT

A brief restatement of the principles mentioned here and in earlier chapters relating to the subject of viewpoint may be in order.

• Use the "on high" omniscient viewpoint to establish general story setting, tone, the look and feel and possibly background of a place.

• Move inside a viewpoint character to gain reader identification, and to reflect character outlook and mood.

• Move from viewpoint character to "on high," if you must, at the beginning of segments, after a transition of some kind.

• Return to character viewpoint at the earliest opportunity.

• Always think about what the reader needs to know, not what you may know or want to inflict on the poor soul for no good reason.

If you follow these principles, your story setting will be presented fully, vibrantly and convincingly. But your job in handling your viewpoint will not be done. What's left? Pegging your presentation of setting to
feeling
and
mood.
Which is the subject of chapter eleven.

CHAPTER 11

SETTING THE MOOD:

HOW SETTING VIEWPOINT CREATES ATMOSPHERE

Back in chapter six we briefly considered
emotional focus of a character as a unifying factor in storytelling, and promised to get back to the matter at an appropriate time. Having looked at viewpoint in chapter ten, we can now look more carefully at emotional focus and story mood, and how both interact with your story's setting.

It may be that you will choose to open your story, or relate parts of it, from the broad, omniscient viewpoint. In such situations, you still need to be conscious of the general emotional mood you wish your story to evoke in your reader; you will need to select details designed to create or enhance that general mood, be it joyfulness, sadness, fear, dread, anger, or whatever. More often, however, you will probably tell virtually all your story from the viewpoint of a character inside the story action, as discussed in chapter ten. In these cases, it is even more critical that you understand how the viewpoint affects story mood.

Your character's emotional set and the general mood conveyed by a story at any given point are inextricably bound together. Given a central character who is sad and lonely, for example, the depiction of the setting must reflect details generally in keeping with that mood, even if you happen to be writing from an omniscient viewpoint at the moment. When you are in character viewpoint, the need to dovetail character emotion and story mood is much more vital.

If you walk your sad and lonely viewpoint character into a bright and happy setting, the story mood will not be bright and

happy despite the objective nature of the setting because your sad and lonely character will not see the setting in terms other than his own internal emotional set. Thus, walking into a joyful wedding, for example, he will see it all as a contrast to his own plight; you the author must show that the happiness around him only reminds him of his own sadness.

Three crucial aspects—
who
the story is about,
what
you show about the setting, and
how
everything feels to the reader—must be consistent in mood and reinforce one another. Your viewpoint character, like people in the real world, will interpret the setting through the lens of his current emotions. If you want to write a story with a sad and lonely mood, you will write about a character whose feelings are sad and lonely. If you write about a character whose feelings are sad and lonely, then your setting will look (or be interpreted as) sad and lonely because your viewpoint is that of a character who cannot interpret things in any other way.

Once you have recognized this dynamic interaction, you can consciously manipulate your story elements to give the story exactly the general mood you desire.

In writing any story, you need to think about the following generalized questions, all of which are closely linked:

• How do you want the reader to feel while experiencing the story?

• What is the general mood you hope to convey from the setting?

• How do your character's emotions color what he sees?

• What setting details impact both the character's feelings and general mood of the story?

Every story, you see, elicits a general feeling matrix in its reader. The poet T.S. Eliot, writing about this subject years ago, talked about what he called "the objective correlative," that precise relationship between what is presented and how it makes the reader feel. No story should leave the reader emotionally unmoved, or thinking, "So what?" Your setting must fit the desired feeling or your story won't work. So consciously analyzing how you want your reader to feel will help you plan and present your setting.

You attain this reader feeling through story mood. If you want your reader to feel sadness, for example, you need to present your story in a setting which includes somber details, unhappy elements, dark shades of gray, items designed to create a mood that will lead to the desired feeling.

And how will your character's emotions color what is shown of the setting? We have already seen how a happy character might "reach out" into his environment and notice happy things, while a sad one is likely to notice the sad, or interpret whatever he sees in a sad way. You can't simply depict a sorrowful setting, for example, without making sure that your character's feelings are such that sad details are what he will see because of the sorrowful tint to the emotional lenses through which he experiences the story world.

And \yhat kind of details do you need in your setting to reinforce the desired mood? If the story is to leave the reader angry and resentful about some wrong in society, and if the mood is to be somber and bitter, and if the character is to be hurt and rejected, what specific details do you have to locate and present in the setting to make sure the character —and through him the reader—gets the desired feeling clearly and forcefully?

Sometimes, of course, a particular setting virtually demands a certain kind of emotional response in the character, a certain story mood, a certain reader feeling. A graveyard, for example, is difficult to imagine as a setting for a lighthearted, humorous story. Yet Peter S. Beagle achieved exactly this effect in his novel,
A Fine and Private Place,
through the viewpoint of an extremely unusual character. But Beagle's story is the exception which tends to prove the rule. More often than not, you should give some serious thought to the kinds of feeling a particular setting can predictably engender, and then make your setting decisions accordingly.

But general thoughtfulness and planning will not necessarily get the whole job done for you in terms of emotion and mood.

Your general questioning invariably must get down to specifics like some of the following:

1. In the opening of your story —What aspect of the setting should be shown at the earliest possible moment in the story to establish an opening mood or tone? What specific details should be included in this opening? From what vantage point should the opening be presented?

2. During the course of your story —What central unifying aspect of the setting should be shown repeatedly? What different views or experiences of this central aspect will be used to avoid obvious repetition? What other aspects of setting will be developed, and in what order?

How many different viewpoints will be employed? If settings change drastically, how will each new setting be established, and with what mood or tone?

If different viewpoint characters are to experience the setting, how specifically does each character's emotional outlook color his or her individual experience of the setting?

How will all differing views and aspects of the setting be unified in a coherent, consistent story mood or tone, and how do you want this general tone or mood to make the reader feel?

3. In the ending of your story, what feeling do you want to leave your reader with? What aspect of setting will you stress as the ending to help evoke this mood? From what viewpoint will this last look at setting be shown? Is there a possibility of developing story theme more clearly through employment of the closing look at setting?

Many of these questions are intimately interrelated, of course, but let's try to separate them and consider them individually insofar as it is possible.

STORY OPENING

In deciding what general aspect of the setting should be shown to establish a story-opening mood or tone, it is important to remember that the opening feeling you engender in your

reader sets up his expectations for everything that follows. You need to be quite sure what mood you wish to evoke right from the outset.

Here we are talking about the broadest possible definition of mood, such as sadness, fear, joy, apprehension, isolation or engulfment. Every story
feels
a certain way, and this is what you need to define. Then, having defined it in your own mind as clearly as you can, you need to think about your setting and decide what you should present first to make the story feel that way to your reader right from the outset.

Perhaps you have envisioned a large city with teeming traffic, streets alive with business people during the daytime and crime at night; rivers, trains, air traffic, skyscrapers and large wooded parks; rich neighborhoods and poor ones. If the tone or mood of your story is to relate somehow to the dynamism of all this humming activity and the nervous electricity of a complex city environment, perhaps your opening should stress all of these aspects in a broad-view look written in a staccato style that adds to the electricity and confusion. On the other hand, if your story is really the sad and nostalgic tale of a couple growing old in Brooklyn, perhaps your focus at the outset will be as narrow as the description of a single potted violet on a windowsill behind the dusty front window of an upstairs apartment.

Suppose you opt for this second example. What other details besides the little potted plant will you show? A roach crawling on the glass or a small, silver-framed photo of a young serviceman killed in Vietnam? An old lamp with fringed shade on the marble-top table or the latest issue of
Penthouse,
folded open to the letters section? An unopened letter or an old-style telephone ringing? The distant scent of sachet or the stale odor of marijuana? Harsh street sounds or the soft sound of a recorded string quartet? Obviously, the specific details you choose will immediately serve to begin establishing your desired opening mood.

Also in terms of your opening there is the question of viewpoint. As discussed in chapter ten, description from the omniscient view is best accepted by the reader at times when a character viewpoint is not firmly in the reader's mind. Certainly the prime time when this is true is in the very opening of the story. For that reason, you may well choose to begin with an omniscient viewpoint and only later go into a character viewpoint. It is also true that writers very often wish to establish a broad setting picture at the outset of the story, before narrowing their focus, so this too may dictate an "on high" viewpoint at the start.