Free A Writer's Guide to Active Setting by Mary Buckham

smaller community on the outskirts that, in the 1800s, was still rural. The character’s intention is to interview a possible witness who can shed light on a gruesome murder that occurred at one of the city’s most well-known hospitals. The author’s first draft might have been something like this:
    FIRST DRAFT: William Monk decided to walk the distance between the hospital and the residence of a woman who could shed some light on the murder victim’s past.
    The above keeps the focus on the murder, but does not pull the reader into the Victorian time period. And there are no sensory details.
    SECOND DRAFT: The day was hot and the route crowded as William Monk left the hospital to discover more clues.
    Technically there’s a sense of the weather, but it’s so generic as to be all but invisible. The reader isn’t in the skin of the POV character, William Monk, experiencing what it was like to walk from one London environment to another. So let’s see how the author, Anne Perry, approaches this change of scene.
    It was a beautiful day when he set out: a hot, high summer sun beating on the pavements, making the leafier squares pleasant refuges from the shimmering light hazy with the rising smoke of distant factory chimneys. Carriages clattered along the street past him, harnesses jingling, as people rode out to take the air or to pay early afternoon calls, drivers and footmen in livery, brasses gleaming. The smell of fresh horse droppings was pungent in the warmth and a twelve-year-old crossing sweeper mopped his brow under a floppy hat.
    —Anne Perry,
A Sudden Fearful Death
    Now let’s pull apart the details to determine how, in one paragraph, the author places the reader into the Setting world of this historical novel.
    It was a beautiful day [
This is what many writers might start with, but it’s generic and means little to the reader—what one person views as beautiful may not be the same for another when they hear the words “beautiful day.”
] when he set out: a hot, high summer sun [
Now she states it’s hot, but again the author does not stop here.
] beating [
Strong verb that shows how hot this day is.
] on the pavements, making the leafier squares pleasant refuges [
The phrasing is not expected from a contemporary man, but something one would expect a well-educated male from the late 1800s to say.
] from the shimmering light hazy with the rising smoke of distant factory chimneys. [
A very specific detail that goes a step beyond the heat of the day by expanding and letting the reader see, and possibly smell, factory smoke, which paints a stronger image of industrial England.
] Carriages clattered [
Strong auditory action verb.
] along the street past him, harnesses jingling, [
The author did not stop with clattering carriages, but added in the sounds of the horse harnesses to make it very clear this is a world where people walking still rub shoulders with carriages.
] as people rode out to take the air or to pay early afternoon calls, [
Gives a reason for the carriage traffic that is a very specific reference to a very specific time frame.
] drivers and footmen in livery, brasses gleaming. [
And here she shows two more specific visuals, not only an image of liveried servants but also their brasses, a mark of a wealthier standard of living where the image of even one’s horses matters.
] The smell of fresh horse droppings was pungent [
Not the usual scent a contemporary stroller in today’s London would expect to inhale, but once pointed out, it’s easy for the reader to imagine the scent in the air.
] in the warmth and a twelve-year-old crossing sweeper [
Child labor, another historical detail from this time period of Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray.
] mopped his brow under a floppy hat. [
The last final detail that brings home what was set up at the beginning of the paragraph, that the day was hot.
]
    NOTE: The first time an important Setting—one important to your story—is described,