First things first: let's get our terms straight.

DISCLAIMER: I understand that most of my quotes come from Wikipedia. If you find a better source that succinctly explains the terms and makes sense to a peasant like me, please drop me a link.

Setting

Setting is a distinct literary element. It's a very common one in fiction. I (and Wikipedia) would define it as:

both the time and geographic location within a narrative or within a work of fiction

Setting can contribute to truth, but not much more. For example, if the Setting of the Hunger Games was the Jurassic period in some desert wasteland, it's a lot harder to create a convincing, oppressive government because they probably don't have access to things like guns, metal fences, the concept of law, and other advanced technologies that help keep people in line. BUT, the Setting alone (place and time) doesn't do so hot on communicating a truth to the reader. That's where Backdrop comes in.

Backdrop

Backdrop is where we can be more creative and start to show events and characters (albeit historic) that mean something. What is Backdrop? I'm glad you asked. Once again, I shamelessly quote Wikipedia to illuminate us on Backdrop:

the history of characters and other elements that underlie the situation existing at the main narrative's start

History is meaningful, and more often than not relays truth. Why? Because it's made up of people (characters) and actions in a Setting.

Conclusion regarding the terms

The Setting must work together with Backdrop to create a time, place, and history that feel real. With those things, we have the tools we need to communicate truth.

So how do I do that?

In short:

Tell the truth

Sounds ironically unhelpful, doesn't it? Allow me to explain how I'd go about this (keep in mind that I'm not a professional).

First, you stated that the truth you'd like to show is that...

we are responsible for our actions, rather than the tools we use to perform those actions

My question(s) to you is: Why is this true to you? What have you experienced, what have you seen that makes you think this way? Was it a manipulative sibling? Perhaps something more politically charged, like mass shootings? Whatever it is, you need to come to grips with your experience and think about what led you to believe this. If you don't actually believe it, you're going to have trouble coming up with a believable Backdrop and Setting. It's possible, but hard.

Once you've done that, pick an event you witnessed, create a similar, fictional situation in your mind, and let it play out in your Setting. You now have one possibility for a backdrop that has the potential to communicate your truth.

Note the words "possibility" and "potential". This is not a cut-and-dry procedure. Communicating truth through fiction is hard work, but I think you've chosen a good place to start.

Just to recap: You need to tell what is true to you. In my opinion, anything else is way too much work, or pointless.

Best of luck to you.

EDIT: To Mark's point, there's no 100% guarantee of communicating your truth to the reader through fiction (no 100% guarantee for any genre, for that matter), so don't get your hopes up. But an author communicating what they want to the reader is really every author's goal--whether they want to craft experiences that their readers are hungry for, or whether they want to communicate truth through Backdrop and Setting, or both.

posted about 7 years ago

CC BY-SA 3.0

The Spartan‭

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Stories create experiences. Stories that are heavy on setting create an experience of that setting. People sometimes simply receive an experience for what it is. We are experience junkies. Stories are one of the ways that we satisfy our need for experiences. They help keep us sane.

People often draw conclusions from their experiences. Sometimes these are tacit conclusions. That is, they affect how we think and act, but we don't boil them down to an aphorism or a conclusion. Sometimes we do articulate our conclusions.

You cannot force a reader to draw a conclusion from your story, still less to articulate one. They may simply receive the experience as they might receive the experience of walking in the woods or eating ice cream. They may tacitly form a conclusion without articulating it. In particular, they may not draw any conclusion from your story alone. Sometimes it takes many repetitions of an experience before any conclusion is formed -- something advertizing people are well aware of.

You also cannot force the reader to draw the same conclusion as you do from your story. Different people draw different conclusions from identical experiences, if for no other reason than that they interpret them in the context of their other experiences and no two people have the same experiences.

But there is also the issue of confirmation bias. Whatever our views are on a subject, we go through life looking for evidence to confirm that view. We see evidence that supports our position, are blind to evidence that undermines it, and interpret our experiences as evidence favorable to our positions. Different people see different things in the same experience, at least in part because they are looking for different things. People will form different opinions on what your story "means" based on what they want it to mean. For evidence of this, you have only to look at the conflicting readings that book reviewers and literary critics have of major works.

But if you cannot force your conclusions on the reader, you can at least work to shape their experience in such a way that it favors the conclusion you want them to draw. One of the most basic techniques for doing this it to engage the reader's sympathy for a character before you reveal something about them which might make the reader hate them if you led with it. Another is essentially the opposite, to make the reader hate them initially before showing redeeming features that make the reader question their first judgement. ("Luke, I am your Father!")

But you don't get to show a truth to the reader directly in a story. The best you can do is to give them an experience that is true and hope that they reach the truth for themselves. Of course, you could just write an essay to state your truth didactically. But there is a reason that we write stories: the truths that people find for themselves through experience are much more firmly held because they are not someone else's truths, but their own.

posted about 7 years ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

Mark Baker‭

4371 reputation 12 1104 744 58

I think the word "setting" is too broad for what you are talking about; in both your examples, Star Wars and Hunger Games, the specific component of "setting" that you are referring to is the culture of the characters.

In Star Wars, all the main characters know and believe in the magic of The Force, and the plot would not exist without it: No Vader, no Yoda, no Jedi, no Obi Wan, no Emperor, and Luke is just a not very special kid.

But that is a cultural thing, nothing to do with the space ships, asteroids, planets, technology, alien bars, their money, and so on.

If what you want to do is highlight a "truth" [in quotes because it is your truth, and you will be manipulating characters to behave as you wish in order to demonstrate your truth, which may be far from what people do IRL or what some reader that believes your "truth" is a falsehood would consider realistic or likely] then invent a cultural element that is the opposite of it, or in line with it, and a story that hinges on it (like Star Wars hinges on The Force). Note that Star Wars chose simplistically, a literal magical Power to represent figurative powers (political power, the power of wealth, the power of physical coercion, etc). The same kind of story can be told using Magic as the power to be abused, and "White Magic" and "Black Magic" have been used thusly in stories for thousands of years.

If your story is about gun control, you must have a cultural component where "gun control" plays a central role; either the presence of it or the lack of it. Maybe guns are prohibited by law and nobody has them, or the opposite: Guns are mandated by law and everybody has them, perhaps even first graders.

Then find some conflict: Rebels, corrupt officials, whatever (I'm not going to write your story).

IMO it is improper to call this "setting". Star Wars would be a completely different film with nearly the same exact plot if we were talking about magic wizards in medieval Europe. All that need remain the same is The Force and the cultural composition of it (a few good guys, a few bad guys, an unwitting public). The robots and aliens could have been just some humans, R2D2 just a dwarf with a few magical talents, the City in the Clouds just a City on a Mountain, and Luke drops away off the mountain, getting a magical new hand later.

Also note that in Star Wars, the vast majority of the culture is very little different than the modern times. Hans Solo and Leia have a pretty normal American love story; a simple transplant from a romantic comedy about a cowboy and a rebellious young girl that ends in a kiss. Ships are not run differently, a captain in charge giving orders to subordinates and passengers alike [it is not the ONLY way to run a ship]. Neither the rebel or emperor army are run much differently. The ruling councils, how the bar is run, how planets are run is all quite familiar to the audience. Even Yoda's teaching is quite traditional.

Whatever the central "truth" is you want to represent, start with a culture the audience will find familiar (or at least easily understandable), and ADD a new cultural element that you can use to show what happens with your "truth". Adjust the rest of the culture, as little as possible to accommodate this new element.

As for the REST of the setting, many time periods, levels of technological development and civilization are possible. Pick whatever allows you the most leeway to tell your story and raises the stakes the most. If your hero and/or protagonist need to kill a lot of people and never think about them again, you might need a more "wild west" (little law enforcement) setting, like Star Wars. If your hero is going to be trapped by a government with no way out but to fight, think Hunger Games. Think about whether the hero has public support or is a public enemy, whether they have much leeway to act or little, whether they have many resources (as the rebels do in Star Wars) or nearly none.

posted about 7 years ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

Amadeus‭

3156 reputation 2 1399 613 37