Setting Feature Menu Setting Mood and Tone Setting

Setting Feature Menu Setting, Mood, and Tone Setting and Character Setting and Conflict Practice

Setting draws us into the world of a story. Details of setting tell us • where and when events are happening • how the situation feels • who the characters are • what challenges the characters face

Setting Details about a place usually are an essential part of a story. • The setting may include people’s customs—how they live, dress, eat, and behave.

Setting also may reveal a time frame. era time of day season [End of Section]

Setting, Mood, and Tone Setting can add to a story’s emotional effect—its mood or atmosphere. relaxed, carefree lonely, sad foreboding, mysterious

Setting, Mood, and Tone Details of setting also help express tone—the writer’s attitude toward a subject or character. Listen to this passage. What is Mark Twain’s tone? What details help create that tone? The furniture of the hut was neither gorgeous nor much in the way. The rocking-chairs and sofas were not present, and never had been, but they were represented by two threelegged stools, a pine-board bench four feet long, and two empty candle-boxes. The table was a greasy board on stilts, and the table-cloth and napkins had not come—and they were not looking for them, either. from Roughing It by Mark Twain

Setting, Mood, and Tone Quick Check The water is now just below my windows on the ninth floor. There is nothing to do but watch. The water is filthy—there had been the six-week garbage strike, and all the city’s garbage is awash—and the seagulls are everywhere, feasting. from Notes from a Bottle by James Stevenson What details reveal the location? What details reveal the situation? What mood do they create? [End of Section]

Setting and Character Setting also can reveal character. • What do these details tell you about Meg? Meg sat back in the stylish chair and chatted on her cell phone. The shopping bags at her feet bore the colorful labels of many different stores—but each seemed to have “fashionable” and “expensive” written all over it. [End of Section]

Setting and Conflict In some stories, the characters’ environment • provides the main conflict • directly affects the story’s meaning [End of Section]

Practice Work alone or with a partner to plan a story in which setting will play a major role. Use a chart like the one shown here. Time: Late one winter night, early 1950 s Place: Run-down mansion in rural Scotland Details of setting that affect mood or tone: Outside—dense fog; howling dog Inside—ticking clock; cold, damp rooms Details of setting that reveal character: Bare rooms with few chairs; no rugs; dim light; hundreds of books in piles and bookcases Details of setting that affect conflict and meaning: Isolated mansion; doors locked and barred

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