Tips to Write Exotic Settings Your Readers Will Love

by Sarah Sally Hamer @SarahSallyHamer

First, what is an exotic setting? Actually, it’s as simple as any place you don’t know. Paris, France, may be exotic to someone who lives in South Texas but, on the other hand, South Texas could be unusual to someone who lives in Paris. After all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder!

Setting is as important to a story as any of the other aspects: characters, dialog, plot—and can do as much for your story. 

Ways Setting Can Add to the Story You're Writing

• It can create theme. A cozy mystery is almost always set in a small town where everyone knows everyone else. The setting for that mystery is completely different than a police procedural set in a large California town. Compare “Murder She Wrote” to “The Streets of San Francisco.” They are both basically stories based on the solving of a murder but couldn’t be any more different in the way the characters deal with their surroundings.

• It can create tone. Similar to theme, tone is more specific and allows the reader to really feel they are in the jungle with George or in the Apollo 13 with Jim Lovell. Details matter, with the frozen hot dog being the perfect image of how cold it was in space.

• It can create deeper characterization. Setting often (and should!) intimately reflect a character’s state of mind. Imagine your protagonist has just walked into a restaurant to meet a friend for dinner. What does the room look like? How about the people who are in it? If she’s just been dumped by her boyfriend, her “take” is going to be MUCH different than if she’d just gotten an engagement ring. Everything in the room—the color of the walls, the smell of food, the smile of the server—will irritate her if she’s angry, and maybe she’ll even snap at the server when she’s offered a glass of wine. But if that ring finger has a nice, new diamond on it, she’ll love everything about the restaurant and may even ask for champagne. 

• It can move the story forward. Just as a character experiences changes throughout a story, so can a setting. Back to the restaurant example. Our protagonist will “see” it differently depending on how she feels. So an author can open a window, so to speak, into how the character is evolving by describing the restaurant a little differently each time she walks in.

• It can allow for interesting details. I love history, so I try to add in historical information every chance I get. In a paranormal romance I wrote set in New Orleans, I added as many details as possible to help with the ambiance. Talk about an exotic location! Even without the party atmosphere, there are thousands of things I can describe to give the “flavor” of an amazing place.

A couple of things to be careful of when using setting.

1. Don’t give too much description. The story is about the character, not the location. 
2. “Attach” the character to his or her setting. Setting doesn’t mean much if there’s not a character to experience it.
3. Be careful not to use all your fascinating research in the story. Keep it salient and concise, with just a whiff of detail.

I think most readers feel the same way I do—reading a book allows me to walk away from reality and imagine myself in some distant place, where I can immerse myself in the heat and blue skies of Greece, the wild highlands of Scotland, or the vastness of outer space. The beauty of writing stories allows us to give them that pleasure.

What’s your favorite setting in a book? Mine right now is Egypt as I’m reading Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile one more time.

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Tips to Write Exotic Settings Your Readers Will Love from @SarahSallyHamer on @EdieMelson (Click to Tweet)

Sarah (Sally) Hamer, B.S., MLA, is a lover of books, a teacher of writers, and a believer in a good story. Most of all, she is eternally fascinated by people and how they 'tick'. She’s passionate about helping people tell their own stories, whether through fiction or through memoir. Writing in many genres—mystery, science fiction, fantasy, romance, medieval history, non-fiction—she has won awards at both local and national levels, including two Golden Heart finals.

A teacher of memoir, beginning and advanced creative fiction writing, and screenwriting at Louisiana State University in Shreveport for over twenty years, she also teaches online for Margie Lawson at www.margielawson.com. Sally is a freelance editor and book coach at Touch Not the Cat Books, with many of her students and clients becoming successful, award-winning authors. 

You can find her at hamerse@bellsouth.net or www.sallyhamer.blogspot.com