Writing a Romance Setting that Readers Don’t Skip

Elmore Leonard provided sage writing advice when he said, “Try to leave out the parts people skip.”

You may believe that every word in your novel is important and no read would dare skip it, but consider your own reading; are there passages you pass over? What are they? If you’re like me, they’re usually about setting.

The problem is that setting is important to the story. So how can you orient your reader to your story without writing content they’re going to skip over?

Read below the video for a text version of this video.

Tips on Writing Setting that Doesn’t Get Skipped

Settings and descriptions provide an important cue to orient your reader to where, what, and when of your story.

The setting you put your character in gives the reader:

• Location – Where the story is taking place including the city or the grocery store.
• Season – What time of year the story is occurring?
• Time of day – Is the character skulking about at midnight or just rolling out of bed in the morning?
• Mood and atmosphere – Is it foggy? Hot and humid?
• Era – Is this a historical, contemporary or futuristic story?
• Population – What other people are around?
• Social/Cultural influences – What is going on in society that impacts the story and character?

If readers didn’t know that Pride & Prejudice took place in the early 1800s, when women couldn’t inherit property, Mrs. Bennet and the girls would look like gold-diggers

But, before you use this list to write your setting, remember that setting descriptions are often the things reader skip.

Why?

Some might call them boring, but the real reason they’re skipped is because they take the reader out of the story. If you have your readers on a wonderful ride through your book, they don’t want to be interrupted to be told about the trees. And yet, maybe those trees play an important part in the story. So what can you do?

The good news is, you can write setting in a way that keeps your reader in the story.

What do readers need to know?

Do readers need to know if they’re in regency England or Manhattan today? Is it dead of winter or the beauty of spring? Is the location opulent or sparse. Does any of this matter to telling the story or revealing the character?

The first step to writing setting is determining what the important elements are. What do readers need to know and experience in the setting to enhance the story and help the story to make sense? How does the setting impact the character or plot?

The thing to remember is that you only need to provide enough setting to ground the reader. Some writers like to spend a great deal of time describing brocade upholstery or the varying colors of leaves on the trees, but those descriptions are only important if they factor into the story and your character. Would your character notice brocade or leave colors?

Experience setting through your POV character’s senses.

Many authors use telling and an omniscient or distant POV narrator to provide information on the setting. For example:

Suzy stood at the end of the long drive. The hot humid air hung heavy. The tree-lined drive wound up toward colonial home, with its pristine white columns standing as proud as it had when it was built over a hundred years before.

This isn’t bad and your reader won’t necessarily skip it, but contrast it with the next example:

Suzy stood at the end of the long drive. She pulled her shirt away from her damp skin as a trickle of sweat dripped down the center of her back. Even this early in the morning, the heat and humidity felt like a sauna.

In the example above, we learn it’s hot and humid, not from being told by the author, but from Suzy’s experience with it. You may recognize this as show, instead of tell.

It’s not enough for Suzy to think or say, “Boy, it’s hot and humid,” although you can use dialogue or thought. Instead, the passage uses Suzy’s senses to have the reader vicariously experience it. What does it feel like when it’s hot and humid?

Overlay your POV characters personality and attitude.

Believe it or not, some people don’t mind heat and humidity. Others hate it. Having setting and description filtered through the POV character not only orients the reader to the setting, but also provides information about the character.

Here is the full sample about Suzy in which we learn about the weather, the location, and some of Suzy’s thoughts about the situation.

Suzy stood at the end of the long drive. She pulled her shirt away from her damp skin as a trickle of sweat dripped down the center of her back. Even this early in the morning, the heat and humidity felt like a sauna.

She blew out a breath, willing herself on the last part of her journey, and started up the drive, hoping she wouldn’t twist an ankle in her 3-inch Jimmy Choos on the white crushed shell gravel. She estimated a half-mile walk to the main house and was grateful for the mature oak trees lining the road that offered shade from the oppressive heat.

As she neared the pre-revolutionary home, standing like a jewel in the green rolling piedmont, its pristine columns shining as if they’d just been painted, she felt like she was walking back in time, and half expected footman to greet her.

Please note, that I just made all this up on the fly, so, much can be done to improve it. But I think you can see the point I’m trying to make. In the first example, we’re told about the setting, whereas in the second, we discover it through Suzy’s experience. We also learn a few things about Suzy.

Having setting revealed through your character is less likely to get skipped because action is taking place while we’re being oriented to setting: Suzy is walking up a long drive to a house.

Use Action

You can reveal setting by how your character reacts to it. Pulling her coat tighter around her would indicate it’s cold. In the Suzy example, she tugs at her shirt to get some air.

Use Dialogue or Thoughts

You want to be careful with this one. Done wrong, your dialogue or thoughts can be as boring as an omniscient narrator in providing setting. Why? Because it’s being used to info dump. Everything in your writing should work to drive the story. Having your character describe the setting for no other reason than to give setting can be boring.

Boy, it’s hot on this tree-lined gravel driveway.

Snore.

But what if Suzy was on her cell phone?

Suzy stood at the end of the long drive on her cell phone, letting Joe know she’d finally arrived. She pulled her shirt away from her damp skin as a trickle of sweat dripped down the center of her back. “Boy, it feels like a sauna here.”

“You’re almost there.”

Not quite. It had to be a half mile to the house!

Suzy blew out a breath, willing herself on the last part of her journey, and started up the white crushed gravel drive. “Hope I don’t twist an ankle. I wore my Jimmy Choos.”

“Stop whining.”

Suzy continued up the drive, grateful for the mature oak trees lining the road that offered shade from the oppressive heat. Each step brought her closer to pre-revolutionary home, standing like a jewel in the green rolling piedmont, its pristine columns shining as if they’d just been painted.

“Wow, this house is something. I feel like I’m walking back in time.”

Again, this isn’t perfect, but hopefully it shows you how to incorporate setting into the story, instead of interrupting story to tell about setting.

Do you have tips for writing setting that doesn’t get skipped? Let me know in the comments below.

Want to grab the Romance Author’s Novel Organizer mentioned in the video? You can get the print or PDF version here.