The document discusses key aspects of setting in narratives. It defines macro and micro settings, with macro being the overall time and space of the story, and micro being individual scenes. Realistic settings follow actual time periods and locations, while fantastic settings do not. The level of detail and accuracy impacts realism. Settings influence characters, plots by limiting possible actions, and tone. Consistent rules are important for fantastic settings. Social and physical conflicts are common due to settings. Stereotypical settings include hospitals, battlefields, and haunted houses.

1. Setting

2. Setting
• There are two major settings—the world of
the narrator and the ‘story world’ or diegetic
world
– The story world is the time-space continuum
within which the story action takes place
– The discourse setting is the time-space continuum
represented in the telling of the story

3. Setting
• Each story will have a macro-setting, the space
and time covered by the entire story
– This can be centuries and wide ranges of solar
systems, galaxies, etc.
• Micro-settings: Individual scenes, episodes,
etc. are likely to occur within much more
limited time and space constraints

4. Macro-setting v. micro-setting
• Macrosetting: Los Angeles in 1997
• Microsettings:
– Home room in Riverdale High School, November
17
– Gym class the same day
– The protagonist’s bedroom, 10 PM that night
– The protagonist’s bedroom, 7 PM on Saturday of
the following weekend

5. • The micro-setting refers to the time, place and
immediate surroundings within which a single
chunk of story action takes place
– For example:
• a large tent in the Sahara Desert in 1904
• within a spaceship traveling to Mars in the autumn of
2027
• a corporate office building in New York City, February
2008
• Gondor in Middle Earth in the Third Age

7. Conditions
• Time and place can be seen to determine
weather, technology, social structure, culture,
etc.
– Small town v. suburbia v. inner city
– Ancient Rome v. contemporary Rome
– Revolutionary United States v. Revolutionary
Russia

8. A major distinction
• Is the setting for the narrative
– Realistic?
– Fantastic?

9. Realistic settings
• Realistic settings either are, or follow the rules of,
actual physical places and times where real
people could be found—not just story characters
• They vary in the distance from the audience in terms
of time, space, culture and experience
• Historical v. contemporary
• Foreign v. domestic
• Poor v. rich v. middle class
– Characters in realistic settings may be either real or
fictional and may be either realistic or fantastic

10. Realistic settings
• Even real places that are distant from the
audience and follow very different rules than
the audience member is used to can seem
‘fantastic’
– Audiences must learn the crucial rules of the
setting to understand the plot and characters
– The setting may seem so foreign and unbelievable
to the audience member as to act as a fantasy
setting
• Rwanda

11. Realistic settings
• The depth of detail provided and the
‘correctness’ of that detail will significantly
impact the audience experience of realism
and influence their suspension of disbelief
– Some directors/art directors are obsessed with
providing realistic presentations of historic or
contemporary settings
• 1945 Japanese submarine toilet seat

12. Simple v. elaborate settings
• Sometimes very simple settings are used in
order to avoid drawing attention away from
the plot and the characters
– THX 1138

13. Fantastic settings
• Fantastic settings are those that do not follow
the laws of physics, etc. as we understand
them
• They are often, but not always, inhabited by
fantastic characters
– Magic
– Science unknown to us (future advances)

14. Setting and exposition
• The more psychologically ‘distant’ from the
audience the setting is, the more exposition
will be needed to allow the audience member
to follow the narrative
– Germany during the Dark Ages may well be more
foreign to a contemporary audience than the
surface of the Moon

15. Setting and character
• Character is intimately tied to setting
– Certain character types are appropriate for certain
settings
– Attitudes and behavior that are appropriate in one
setting would be unacceptable in another
– Features of the setting may provide clues to the
personality of various characters

16. Setting and plot
• “a setting delimits the possible actions in a
narrative. As such, the setting is connected to
the plot, as the delimitation of actions has a
part to play in the nature of the possible plot.”
• (Talib, Narrative Theory)
– Forms of escape
– Available choices to satisfy motivations
– Chance factors
• Traffic accidents

17. The setting sets limits on
narrative action
• The state of technology
• Social rules of custom and ethics
• The physical layout of buildings, etc.

18. • The most significant requirement is that rules
must be consistent
– Magic must have limits and magical powers must
follow rules
– Too much magic, fantasy, etc. will strain the
audience’s acceptance even of a fantastic setting

19. • Social or physical conflict is inherent in many
settings
– Events always occur in a given time and place
• Many stories are based on the presence of the
characters at significant historical events

20. Stereotypical settings
• As is true of character types, there are a
number of stereotypical settings
– Western saloon
– Hospital emergency room
– Battlefield
– Haunted house
– Fraternity house

21. Settings may determine the tone of
the narrative
• CSI, CSI: New York, CSI: Miami
• Metropolis v. Gotham City
• The Shining
• Gladiator
• Heroes
• Brothers and Sisters
• ER
• A History of Violence

23. Law and Order