A Writer's Guide to Active Setting: How to Enhance Your Fiction with More Descriptive, Dynamic Settings

by Mary Buckham, Dianna Love (Foreword)

Enhance Your Fiction with the Power of an Active Setting!

Setting is one of the most underutilized and misunderstood elements of the writing craft. And when writers do focus on setting, they often pull readers out of the narrative and jolt their attention from the action on the page.

A Writer's Guide to Active Setting will show you how to create vivid, detailed settings that bring your story to life. You'll learn how to deepen character development, anchor readers to a specific time and place, reveal backstory without slowing things down, elevate action sequences, and more.

Drawing upon examples from authors writing across a variety of genres, Mary Buckham will illustrate exactly how the proper use of setting can dramatically improve your story. You'll learn what's effective about each passage and how you can use those techniques to make your story shine.

"Takes an all too often overlooked technique, and elevates it to a next-level game changer for powerful fiction." -- Cathy Yardley , author of Rock Your Plot

"A powerful combination of fresh insights, practical examples, and how-to advice on the often overlooked but critical element of setting...written in a quick-to-read and easy-to-understand style, and packed with useful application exercises." -- Kelly L. Stone , author of Thinking The Secret to Freeing Your Creative Mind

"If you're a writer, then Mary Buckham's book is a must-have tool for your writer's toolkit. Creating settings that are rich and believable is not an easy task, but with this book, I found that each chapter gave me great tips that I could immediately implement in my manuscript." -- Laurie G. Adams , author of Finding Atticus

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Reference, Crafts

256 pages, Paperback

First published December 3, 2015

About the author

USA Today bestselling author Mary Buckham credits her years of international travel and curiosity about different cultures that resulted in creating high-concept urban fantasy and romantic suspense stories. Her newest Invisible Recruit series has been touted for the unique voice, high action and rich emotion. A prolific writer, Mary also co-authors the young adult sci-fi/fantasy Red Moon series with NYT bestseller Dianna Love. Mary lives in Washington State with her husband and, when not crafting a new adventure, she travels the country researching settings and teaching other writers. Don’t miss her latest reference book Writing Active Setting.

Currently she is neck-deep into writing an Urban Fantasy series centered around five women drafted to combat preternatural beings agitating for world domination. The INVISIBLE RECRUIT series combines a fantasy/paranormal element with high stakes and the pace of action adventure stories. Mary loves creating thrills, spills and spells as she follows the ups and downs of fascinating characters starting with Alex Noziak, the heroine of INVISIBLE MAGIC, INVISIBLE FATE and INVISIBLE POWER.

Reviews

[Maria V. Snyder · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book for fellow writers!! I highly recommend it!!

[Raegan Fredrickson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some basic lessons about setting, certainly some good lessons to always be mindful of. A long winded writing style. Could cut 60% of the examples and it would be a shorter yet tighter how-to book.

[Alyssa White · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has a strong sense of development. As an amateur writer I found this book very helpful when it came to painting the pictures with words. The step by step process and the development per-line can really help someone create more depth into their story. I highly recommend this book for those who might need those additional pointers in setting. Details are your friend! One of my favorite things that ties into this entire book is the idea of building the world. When having a physical place you want to assume people know what you are talking about, but being able to create the vivid image and how the world is just makes things better.

[Cynthia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a great writer's reference. The different ways that setting can be used is covered and the examples provided clarify how it is done. I have gained tools for strengthening my own writing as a result of reading this book and it is one that I will refer to again and again.

This book will help you create unique characters through setting as well as deepening the way the user experiences your story.

Mary Buckham presents the information in a way that is easy to understand.

I received an ARC in exchange for a review.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

I worked through this book slowly. It is extremely insightful to anyone who wants to use SETTING to its fullest potential. Buckham does an excellent job using examples, explaining, and breaking down the examples. There were so many wonderful sidebars and bullet points to help navigate the information. I will definitely come back and explore this book as I look at setting in my own WRITING. Any writer can find value in this book.

[Mary Emma Sivils · Rating 4 out of 5]

A useful book for writers looking to improve their descriptions of setting! Occasionally, it struck me as being a little repetitive, but it's one I'll probably come back to for tips!

[Raine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book!!!!! I can't recommend it enough totally changed my feelings about setting description and helped make my writing feel a lot less stale :o) give it a read if you have a chance!!!

[Kat Turner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best craft books that I have ever read. Writer's Guide to Active Setting covers not only how to enhance descriptions so that they serve the story, it offers a master class on the key techniques involved in making sure that prose does double, triple, or quadruple duty.

Mary Buckham shows, through copious examples and detailed breakdowns, how word choice, verb use, and even grammar and punctuation are all essential tools. She walks us through strategies for crafting pages that simultaneously reveal character growth, deploy needed backstory, tighten pacing, and advance the plot while supplying vivid visuals and deep POV experiences. A must-have for leveling up one's craft.

[Jacqui Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love reading and writing about setting, so Mary Buckham's book was both entertaining and immensely useful. The many examples helped solidify the concepts and made this a book I know I'll turn to often during my writing. It's earned its place on my keeper shelf...heck, it's earned a permanent place on the corner of my writing desk! Favorite line: "Lack of Setting is like going to a special event half dressed." A must-have resource for writers.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I highly, highly recommend this book. However, before you rush out and buy it, do more research than I did. The author sells the same info in a three-part series, all of which you can snag for half the price of this book. And, since the last third is pretty much a rehash, you'll save yet more money by buying one at a time.

That said, I'm still thrilled I bought this book, even though I paid more than I should have. I get so easily bored by setting descriptions that I keep my own descriptions very, very brief. But Buckham opened my eyes to ways I can make setting descriptions work hard at characterization, backstory, and emotion, all without adding on more than a sentence or two of length.

Her examples were also top-notch, including a wide variety of genres (including many books I've read and loved) that show how setting descriptions are genre-specific. My eyes glazed over at the long, literary-fiction setting descriptions...proof that I'm not their ideal reader and a suggestion of where my antipathy to description came from.

Then there are the assignments, which really drive the points home. After working my way through this book, I feel like I just took a multi-week class, and my writing is better for it.

[Wendy Bunnell · Rating 4 out of 5]

The definitive guide to writing compelling settings for your fiction. I love when a story pulls you in, not just with its characters and plot, but with a lush, descriptive setting that you can inhabit while you read. How does the setting impact the characters, the plot, and the reader?

But, I am not all about reading ten pages of description of what each passenger of the Lusitania packed for their fateful boat ship and where it was stored in the hold when the boat sank, sorry Dead Wake, that was Deadly Dull. I need ACTIVE setting, and this guide helps readers learn how to incorporate character-appropriate setting details into current scenes and not info-dump like a Victorian-era "masterpiece" which sacrifices pacing and plot in the service of detailed setting.

Overall, it gave great examples and good writing tips.

[Martha · Rating 5 out of 5]

For years I tried to find someone to teach me how to write evocative settings. Then I encountered the most wonderful craft book I’ve read in a long time, “A Writer’s Guide to Active Settings.” Mary Buckham doesn’t just show writers how to set the stage for a story world. She teaches writers how to lure readers in with setting descriptions that work on a deep, subconscious level. How does that happen? In unexpected ways. Settings can anchor readers, reveal character, deepen emotions, create conflict, and make backstory more compelling. Mary Buckham draws from a wide range of genres to explain the inner workings of this extraordinary fictional technique. She has my vote for Teacher of the Year!

[Seth Waylin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been on the hunt for helpful writing guides since I started writing regularly eleven years ago, and this one is up there as one that is going to be extremely valuable to me now that I've read it. While I may have already been implementing some of the advice given here by Buckham, I can now think about my writing and previous drafts in a more intentional way, and I can see the revision process becoming much easier now that I am more aware of problem areas to troubleshoot. Definitely a worthwhile tool to have!

[Nyon Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book changed my writing life. Before reading it, I was active seeking something to help me improve my storytelling through setting. I never knew what setting was supposed to DO. I always thought it was just the frills used to offset dialog, so that characters weren't just talking heads. Now I understand the many different ways setting can be used.

I'll be returning to this little book for years to come.

[Josie Johnston · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent guide for writers, on how to make your setting work to the max. Whether you are looking to get your setting to work with characterisation, foreshadowing, emotion... Mary Buckham's thoughtful study is full of examples and practical opportunities to apply the lessons to your own writing.

There is a wealth of advice in this book, maybe to the extent that it's difficult to retain all of it. This is one for the writer's book shelf, one to return to many times.

[Monica T. Rodriguez · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book for writers who want to improve their use of setting in their novels. The author not only gives tons of examples, she picks those examples apart to show you how an author uses setting to ground the reader, add characterization, insert foreshadowing, or for whatever else you might want to accomplish. I will be returning to this when I'm in revisions!

[Jess Eubanks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Setting can be so much more than just a description of the area.

This book had tons of tips on improving descriptions while making them matter to the story, and the characters. There were also tons of examples. I definitely recommend this one. I think it’s helped me add another layer to my stories, and really round things out.

[Brenda Lowder · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great book! Mary Buckham does an excellent job of showing how important setting can be in a novel--and how expansive the definition of setting really is. Lots of good writing advice for anyone who wants to paint their writing with sun-drenched color and add vital depth.

[Scoozer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a good writing book about active setting. The examples were helpful. The explanation clear and concise. All in all, this is a helpful book to anyone struggling with setting or wanting to refine their craft.

[Eleanor Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was useful. Out of the four Writing Craft books I've read so far this is #2. Active setting is definitely something I need to work on and this was a good recourse for that. I loved the assignments and I wish that there was more of them.
Consider renting it at the library if you can.

[James Walter Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book on setting for writers! Don't miss reading this one. Buckham offers up lots of examples of poor versus excellent treatments regarding how setting should be used in storytelling. There are also fun exercises at the end of each chapter for you to experiment with.

[Dan Mackison · Rating 5 out of 5]

For anyone who has ever struggled with writing descriptions.

[Jaimee Walls · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my top five favorite and impressive writing books.

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exquisitely explained.

[Caitlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has some really good points and reminders of the importance of setting and how you can make it work with your story as an integral part.

[Jane Nash · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really useful book on the craft of writing. I found it very Seoul when I was editing my own work, to see what was missing….

[Barb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actually got to meet author Mary Buckham at a conference and thoroughly enjoyed her presentation, which led me to purchase her book, "A Writer's Guide to Active Setting". I found it chock full of helpful tips and advice -- in particular Part Two: Emotion, Conflict, & Backstory. For me, this section was beneficial. However, I discovered actionable advice throughout the book that easily can be applied to my own work.

I definitely recommend this writer's guide, especially to a newer novelist beginning to develop their voice and struggling with show versus tell.

[Maureen Howard]

I received a copy of this wonderful book for reviewing purposes. I love how much information this book filled me with. It is definitely one I will always refer back to as I write any future stories. Already I have been able to pull helpful knowledge from this to make my own settings pop without overpowering the characters and the line of the story. I had never thought about how vital the different use of settings were til reading this. I apologize for rambling. This book is a must read for anyone who has wrote, wants to write, is writing, or just simply wants to know more about the making of a story.

[Peggy McGuire · Rating 5 out of 5]

I highly recommend this book. It's a quick read with a ton of great ideas on how to put your setting to good use to, among other things: anchor the reader in time and place, create complications in the story, show a character's emotion, and keep the story moving in an action sequence. The book contains a wealth of samples from published books to show you how the pros do it.

[Pat W Coffey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book not only "tells" the writer about an writing active settings, it demonstrates how to do it. It is an invaluable reference tool. It is a serious "go to book" for those moments when you are working through a scene, characterization, or dialogue and want to keep the reader engaged and reading further.

It is a reference for the serious writer.