1. Setting Setting Setting, Mood, and Tone Setting and Character
Feature Menu
Setting
Setting, Mood, and Tone
Setting and Character
Setting and Conflict
Practice

2. Setting
Setting draws us into the world of a story. Details of setting tell us
where and when events are happening
how the situation feels
who the characters are
what challenges the characters face

3. Setting
Details about a place usually are an essential part of a story.
The setting may include people’s customs—how they live, dress, eat, and behave.

4. Setting Setting also may reveal a time frame. era time of day season
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5. foreboding, mysterious
Setting, Mood, and Tone
Setting can add to a story’s emotional effect—its mood or atmosphere.
relaxed, carefree
lonely, sad
foreboding, mysterious

6. Setting, Mood, and Tone
Details of setting also help express tone—the writer’s attitude toward a subject or character.
Listen to this passage. What is Mark Twain’s tone? What details help create that tone?
The furniture of the hut was neither gorgeous nor much in the way. The rocking-chairs and sofas were not present, and never had been, but they were represented by two three-legged stools, a pine-board bench four feet long, and two empty candle-boxes. The table was a greasy board on stilts, and the table-cloth and napkins had not come—and they were not looking for them, either.
from Roughing It by Mark Twain
The details of the shabby setting help create a humorous tone.

7. Setting, Mood, and Tone Quick Check What details reveal the location?
The water is now just below my windows on the ninth floor. There is nothing to do but watch. The water is filthy—there had been the six-week garbage strike, and all the city’s garbage is awash—and the seagulls are everywhere, feasting.
from Notes from a Bottle by James Stevenson
What details reveal the situation? What mood do they create?
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8. Setting and Character Setting also can reveal character.
What do these details tell you about Meg?
Meg sat back in the stylish chair and chatted on her cell phone. The shopping bags at her feet bore the colorful labels of many different stores—but each seemed to have “fashionable” and “expensive” written all over it.
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9. Setting and Conflict In some stories, the characters’ environment
provides the main conflict
directly affects the story’s meaning
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10. Practice
Work alone or with a partner to plan a story in which setting will play a major role. Use a chart like the one shown here.
Time: Late one winter night, early 1950s
Place: Run-down mansion in rural Scotland
Details of setting that affect mood or tone:
Outside—dense fog; howling dog
Inside—ticking clock; cold, damp rooms
Details of setting that reveal character: Bare rooms with few chairs; no rugs; dim light; hundreds of books in piles and bookcases
Details of setting that affect conflict and meaning: Isolated mansion; doors locked and barred

11. The End