Friday Special!

A little something and thoughts on settings

Hello, dear readers!

I’d hoped to bring you a submission to the Lunar Awards contest, but the Story Gods are displeased with my sacrifices (coffee and chocolate - almost always a winning combination!) and my tale is not finished. Alas and sadness, but at least there will be a next time.

Instead, I wrote this.

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Lots of stories talk about the sea, or the magic in the waves. They speak of the salty air and the way spray explodes off the rocks, or the comforting squish of wet sand between your toes during a lonely mid-morning walk whilst thinking about your beloved. 

I’ve never seen the sea. 

Thought about it a lot. Imagined it. Wondered what it would be like to bob and weave on a boat like a cork, with only a few sheets of steel - is it steel? - between me and the endless water that smothers our beautiful Earth. Wanted to sink my toes into the surf like everyone else, and discover the joys of the dunes or the secrets of a boardwalk, and lay under the heat and feel like I belong there. 

But I don’t have that. I have corn. 

Endless fields of corn, roasting under the summer sun. Knee-high by the fourth of July, and we’ll have a good crop this year. Clusters of trees that group together like women at a hen party, their branches wiggling like hats discussing the latest gossip. Great red barns and lonely farmhouses, their constant vigilance like lighthouses in the plains. Fences that don’t dissuade the deer from filling their bellies on our food as they risk their necks and the farmers’ wraths for their meals, grazing in half-plowed rows of vegetables. 

Sometimes we get wheat. Or beans. I’ve even heard of some extremely lucky landowners managing an orchard of grapes and crafting their own wine. 

Mostly, though, we have corn. 

I used to get jealous of that. Other people get wind, and waves, and seabirds calling to each other over the horizon. We get deer, and hawks, and coyotes that will carry off small pet dogs if you’re not careful. We pick ticks off our ears and trudge through cricks that overflow during the rainy season in the fall. We keep blankets and an umbrella in the car, because you’ll never know what the weather will do. We don’t have meet-cute rendezvous, or people who throw themselves into the surf in romantic lust, or cosy hotel courtships between people who hated each other until six minutes ago. 

We have fields. And blazing hot summers, and freezing snow up to our arses. 

And we have corn. 

It isn’t all bad, though. We have stars, too. Great big galaxies that we can see bits and pieces of, if the weather’s right. Our cities aren’t very big, so we don’t have eight lanes of southbound traffic to fight through for work. Just the two, and they only swell to three or four when you get close to the capitol. 

We also get lightning bugs, little tiny lanterns that light up our humid summer nights. And cicadas, which croon their late-summer tunes so loud it sounds like white noise. And bats that thrum over our heads during evening fires, filling their bellies on mosquitos and other small nuisances. 

We also have horses. And tractors. And sleepy nights filled with the hum of croaking frogs, and little bunny pawprints in the snow, and feral cats who hunt mice in the barns and sheds and keep our belongings safe. 

We don’t always get all the seasons - sometimes it seems like we skip one here and there - but there’s always spring. New leaves unfurling on the barren branches, and the thrill of seeing the first robin of the year. Splashing through puddles left by melting snow, and watching the tips of the grass turn green, and dusting off the mower again. Listening to the rain that covers our moss-coated tree trunks, and watching the squirrels steal seeds out of the birdfeeders as the sparrows scold them from brightly colored houses. 

Maybe it’s not as fancy as surf and sun, laughter and ice cream, seabirds and boardwalks. Maybe it’s not the perfect setting for a summer romance, or passing time on the sand, cocooned in warmth and hunting for the perfect tan. But in its own way, it is beautiful. It’s vibrant. It’s welcoming. It’s warm. 

It’s ours. It’s mine. 

It’s home. 

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In case you couldn’t tell, I’ve been thinking about story settings.

There are so many books that create magical environments and explain them so well. For example, in The Night Circus (an amazing book by Erin Morganstern and I highly recommend it) the setting is very well-told. The way she describes the sights and sounds of the circus is designed to make you feel like you’re sitting there with the narrator, with a front-row seat of the story’s action. You’re not just reading it. You’re in the circus. Not watching, but as part of the show.

But there are other books, also about magical places, that seem overwhelming. The details feel disconnected, like they belong in a different time or place. The narrator tries to describe it in a magical way, but the details end up bleeding together like paint in the rain, each color splashing over another until the reader is so confused they forget what the story is. Or in still other stories, the setting isn’t really mentioned at all. Possibly because it really isn’t that important.

Personally, I love the first option. Reading a book that makes me forget I’m reading is perfect for me. When things aren’t explained or described clearly, I get confused. It takes me out of the flow of the story, and it’s difficult to get back into it.

Thoughts? How do you try to set the scene in your own stories, or where have you seen it done well?

Share away, dear readers! The floor is yours.

Until next week!

<3 Olivia

(Photo by Photographie AMG, Pexels)