How to make a setting relevant?
One piece of feedback that I got on a story I wrote is that my settings feel irrelevant, or that the entire book could have been a phone call. I am not sure how to go about fixing this. The characters, for example, are in an office, or a restaurant, or a different office at various times throughout the story ― but any of these places are interchangeable as my story currently stands.
How can I tie the scenes and dialogue in my story into where the characters are? Are there techniques that I could use to mention the setting in relation to things that the character say or do, or to make the settings matter more?
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DPT and Sara Costa have provided great points. (Sara beat me by 4 minutes!) Having the characters interact with the setting is a way to make it matter for the scene.
Most of the time when I see this addressed in writing craft books or online by authors, the solution is stated as making the setting a character.
In practical terms, one way to make the setting important is to give the characters a reason to be in that setting, when it makes sense to do so. For example, if they meet in a diner because it's where they used to hang out with their friends, then the setting is important to the characters, their history, and their development. Or maybe they met there, and so it carries significance that way to them. But the gist is, make the setting significant to the characters somehow.
But it's not always possible to have the setting be significant to the characters prior to the scene. The other side of that is making it significant by its menace, or what it's representing to the character(s). An old house is significant to the young characters who believe it's haunted and are afraid of it. The woods are familiar to the townsfolk in the daylight, but ominous and threatening and strangely UNfamiliar after sundown. That sort of thing.
You could also write the scene so that there's no way it could have unfolded without being there. An exaggerated example is the ancient burial ground trope, where it's significant because it's a place of magic and mystery. Reference Stephen King's Pet Sematary for a great example of this trick, and don't forget The Dark Tower cycle; that tower represents a significant location throughout the series and in the "Kingverse" in general.
If the setting is important to the general world of the story, or to its characters personally (if not everyone in that fictitious world), then it will have a lot of weight.
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@DPT's answer is great (+1), but let me add one more element to it: it's not enough that your characters interact with the setting. There needs to be a reason why your characters are there in the first place, the setting needs to affect the story.
Your characters are in an office. Why? How does it affect the story that they are in the office rather than talking on the phone? Surely there's more to it than the fact one of them can chew on a pen? Is their particular workplace a part of the story? Do they need to be aware of coworkers? Does something happen there that can only happen in an office? And so on.
Consider how locations can enhance your story, what each particular location can give it. If there's nothing, you might as well have the whole story happen in one place.
As an example, in a short story I wrote recently, I needed a meeting between two characters. At first, it could happen anywhere - the important thing was what they said to each other. I wanted a location with a historic significance, because tradition was one theme I explored in the story. I decided on a church, because that accentuated my MC's religious devotion - a character trait important to who he is. Then I went and picked the particular church that was tied to the patron saint of what my story was about. Then I had the characters interact with the setting. In essence, I repeatedly asked myself what setting would give my story most.
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+1 DPT, yes your characters should be interacting with the setting.
If the "entire thing could have been a phone call", I'd say you have a problem with the dialogue, and the character emotions.
Dialogue itself should be influenced by the setting, and vice versa. Intimate dialogue is seldom exchanged in a loud restaurant, some of it isn't appropriate for a restaurant at all. You make it so the setting influences what can be said, and what characters want to communicate but can't, or can only do surreptitiously. A business meeting is not the place to declare undying love. A bedroom might be.
Likewise, depending upon what is being exchanged, you should devise your setting to, in some way, resonate with the emotions of the moment.
A failure to do that may be a failure of the dialogue, if it is monotoned, always the same emotions, then so is your setting, making both forgettable. People should be communicating for a reason, and dialogue is a form of action, there should be more than an exchange of information, there should be conflict (disagreement, questions, disbelief, confusion demanding an explanation) and emotions or feelings involved. Excitement at learning something, setbacks, wonder at revelations, vulnerability. Anger, disappointment, grief, fear of what might happen. You need to imagine how people FEEL about what they are hearing, they should be feeling something besides "Okay," or "Understood."
If your characters do not have feelings, then your settings cannot resonate with and emphasize those feelings, or create dissonance and clash with those feelings. (Clashes can work; e.g. sitting in a comedy club full of laughing people, and finding out on your phone your father was just killed in a car crash.)
Sometimes settings can influence or steer the conversation. For example, take two partners talking business coming back from lunch. But I want to change the topic to something more personal, to indicate their friendship. So first, a setting conducive to a friendly conversation. A shortcut through the city park. Second, I let their business conversation comes to a natural (comfortable) end. They walk for a minute in their own thoughts, then one of them (Mike) sees a retiree flying a two-string stunt kite in the park.
Mike gestures toward the kite flier. "That's what I want to do. Scrap this whole damn deal, and make myself a kite."
John giggled. "Go fly a kite? Is that a joke? 'Cause I don't get it."
"No joke, I love fuckin' kites, and I haven't flown one in ten years because of this stupid job."
"After We get this deal done, then ..." John spoke while laughing, "you can go fly a fuckin' kite!"
"Right, that's gonna happen," Mike said. Then after a pause, "They have competitions, you know. Make patterns with your kite, or they have battles to cut a string. It's like a sport."
"Uh huh. Like chess is a sport?"
Mike's head was turned right to watch the kite flyer, but they'd passed him. He faced forward, shook his head, smiling. "Fuck off."
John laughed.
If none of your settings actually matter, then you don't have enough variety of emotions in the types of conversations you have. If I want these two characters to have an argument, I'd likely put them in an irritating setting, someplace unpleasant that neither of them want to be. Not a park, maybe someplace noisy, or at least uncomfortable. Too hot, or too cold. Stranded in the middle of nowhere, perhaps. And I will craft the story so it seems natural they end up there, but I want the setting to add to the stress they are feeling by having an argument.
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