008I – Creating a Great Setting: An Interview with Marcy Weydemuller

Marcy Weydemuller is an editor, writing teacher, and author of books for kids and adults. Today she is talking to us about setting. In many genres, setting is practically a character in the book. But a silent setting can also have quite an impact. It can be a mirror or a shadow of the character, the tone, or the atmosphere of any novel in any genre.

Marcy shares a few examples of different kinds of settings from her book, Eight Strategies for Writing Innovative Settings. Think of setting as being part of the main character's journey. You can practice finding what to add to this setting-journey by walking down your own street and noticing all the details, thinking about how those details affect the characters/people living there.

One book Marcy mentions as making great use of setting is Merrie Destefano's Afterlife: The Resurrection Chronicles.

Setting can tie into theme, myth, metaphor and so much more. Marcy gives us so many ideas of how to integrate setting into our stories to make them richer and fuller!