Setting

Setting is often vital to the existence of the story. Setting, it appears, is a pretty simple concept. Setting includes the time, location, and everything in which a story takes place, and initiates the main backdrop and mood for a story. Setting has been referred to as story world or milieu to include a context (especially society) beyond the immediate surroundings of the story.

Elements of setting may include culture, historical period, geography, and hour. Along with plot, character, theme, and style, setting is considered one of the fundamental components of fiction. A setting is the time, place and social environment in which a story takes place.

Eudora Welty said, "Every story would be another story, and unrecognizable if it took up its characters and plot and happened somewhere else... Fiction depends for its life on place. Place is the crossroads of circumstance, the proving ground of, What happened? Who's here? Who's coming?"

Writers describe the world they know. Sights, sounds, colors, and textures are all vividly painted in words as an artist paints images on canvas. A writer imagines a story to be happening in a place that is rooted in his or her mind. The location of a story's actions, along with the time in which it occurs, is the setting.

Setting is created by language. How many or how few details we learn is up to the author. Many authors leave a lot of these details up to the reader's imagination. Setting can add an important dimension of meaning, reflecting character and embodying theme.

The function of setting in a story:

The function is to show where and when the story happens. It will make the reader aware about the social life, custom and atmosphere about the place where the story happens. The setting of a novel encompasses a number of different, but linked, elements:

• time - day or night; summer or winter; the historical period (an actual date)

• place - inside or outside; country or city; specific town and country; real or fictional

• social - the minor characters who take little part in advancing the plot, but whose presence contributes to the realism of the novel

• mood and atmosphere - eerie; dangerous; menacing; tense; threatening; relaxing; nostalgic; happy; light-hearted etc.

Words clue for setting in a story:

1. What: is used to show the reader about what is the story about, what is the important part o the story to show the conflict, etc.

2. Who: is used to show the reader about who are the participants on the story, who is the main participant, etc.

3. Why: is used to show the reader about everything that might be happen in the story. For example: Why the participants get hurt? Why the ending of the story is sad.

4. Where: is used to show the reader about where and the place of the story happen.

5. When: is used to show the reader about when is the story happen in the past, in the future, now or still happen.

6. How: is used to show the reader how is the ending of the story, how’s good the story. Maybe for knowing about how is the happen.