How to Figure Out the Macro and Micro Setting of Your Novel

Lesson 5 of "How to Finally Get Started on that Novel"

 Mariam Chagelishvili

Lesson 5 of 8 from “How to Finally Get Started on that Novel”

Once you’ve created these gorgeously alive characters, found your novel’s voice, and started to sculpt your plot, you don’t want to leave all these things to float in the ether. Think about how much The Great Gatsby is defined by the setting of “one the strangest communities in North America,” and, importantly, the fact that all of the main characters are outsiders in this glittering East Coast world. Think about how Mrs. Dalloway is in many ways a love letter to the act of walking through London. And so on.

We often say that in a well-crafted novel, the setting is kind of its own character, which is honestly an odd way to describe it, given that generally speaking a place lacks agency and can’t really make decisions on its own. 

Or can it? I guess what’s even more odd is that sometimes places do seem to have minds of their own. In my novel Unseen City, Meg takes her inability to find an affordable new apartment so personally that she starts to feel that New York City is literally shoving her out on purpose – the city itself becomes her antagonist, which is painful to her, given the long love affair they’ve shared before this point. In the world of the novel, it turns out that the city is in fact swarming with ghosts, who do sometimes impose their will on things. Ghosts, gentrification… it’s always something in this town.

In that vein, some of the central conflict in a novel can indeed come from the setting. Think about those two classic story skeletons: A person goes on a journey, and a stranger comes to town. In both, the distance between the protagonist and their setting provides a lot of the dramatic tension.

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