Writers often talk about characters that are problems. But what about settings? When I use a setting multiple times in a novel, or thoughout a series, remembering all the details can become a headache. The geography of a setting, the layout of a room, or a room’s furnishings may be critical to my plot or character development, and I can’t have doors or whole mountain ranges moving. If you can’t visualize your novel’s settings, use floor plans and maps.
Borrow floor plans or draw your own.
My Rae Riley Mysteries series started with a short story, “A Rose from the Ashes”. When I sat down to write the first novel, I knew the farmhouse where Rae’s newly-found father and his family lived would be a major setting I would use during the course of the series. I had to imagine it as clearly as I see my own home. So I dug out a pad of graph paper and got to work.
That floor plan has saved me a lot of time and embarrassment. When I write a scene around the fireplace, I have a map of where the couch, recliner, and easy chair are positioned and how close they are to the dinner table. Also, I never want a reader to write to me with, “I thought the kitchen looked into the dining room. Where’d the wall come from?”
If drawing a floor plan sounds too complicated, give it a try before you discard the idea. Remember your drawing doesn’t have to be structurally sound. It’s just a guide for your imagination. You can also use floor plan books or look online for plans. The photo above is my collection of floor plan books I have acquired over the years.
These sites are helpful for finding floor plans for residential homes in a myriad of styles: Architectural Designs and Houseplans.net
Draw maps for geographic locations.
Again, you don’t have to be a cartographer to draw a map of your novel’s farm, village, or city. Use graph paper to draw a map with the details you need make your setting seem real. Wellesville, the county seat where Rae Riley works, is based on my hometown, but I’ve changed details to suit my series. While writing my fourth Rae Riley novel, I realized I had to go back through my previous novels and reread how I described Main Street because I’d never drawn a map of it. From those descriptions, I finally put together a map, and now I have a valuable reference tool for the rest of my series.
Here are more tips on writing settings in novels.
Writers, how do you keep the details of your settings straight?
