To create setting, provide information about time and place and use descriptive language to evoke vivid sights, sounds, smells, and other sensations. Pay close attention to the mood a setting conveys.

Learning to create a vivid, believable setting for your story is a skill that requires practice.

Here are some ways to master that skill:

1) To portray setting in both fiction and non-fiction, refer specifically to place and time.

For example:"In the early weeks of 1837, Charles Darwin was a busy young man living in London."—David Quammen, The Reluctant Mr. Darwin

2) Provide clues about the place and time by using details that correspond to certain historical eras or events.

For example:"Because the nights were cold, and because the monsoons

were wet, each [man] carried a green plastic poncho that could be used as a raincoat or groundsheet or makeshift tent. With its quilted liner, the poncho weighed almost 2 pounds, but it was worth every ounce. In April, for instance, when Ted Lavender was shot, they used his poncho to wrap him up, then to carry him across the paddy, then to lift him into the chopper that took him away."—Tim O'Brien, "The Things They Carried”

(A short story about the Vietnam War)

3) Describe the inside of a room where a scene takes place.

For example:"The walls were made of dark stone, dimly lit by

torches. Empty benches rose on either side of him, but ahead, in the highest benches of all, were many shadowy figures. They had been talking in low voices, but as the heavy door swung closed behind Harry an ominous silence fell."—J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

4) Describe the weather and the natural surroundings.

For example:"And after all the weather was ideal. They could not have had amore perfect day for a garden-party if they had ordered it. Windless, warm, the sky without a cloud. Only the blue was veiled with a haze of light gold, as it is sometimes in early summer. The gardener had been up since dawn, mowing the lawns and sweeping them, until the grass and the dark flat rosettes where the daisy plants had been seemed to shine."—Katherine Mansfield, "The Garden-Party"

5) Weave details about setting into the descriptions of action.

For example:"During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.“- Edgar Allan Poe “Fall of the House of Usher”

Adapted from: http://udleditions.cast.org/craft_elm_setting.html

Remember that although using these strategies proves to be very effective, the most effective strategy is closing your eyes envisioning the setting yourself and relying on your five senses to paint a vivid picture for your reader.

Have fun with creating your setting and letting your reader into

the world of your imagination.