About Not Being Mugged

Post 1663:

When I think of holes in my writing game, setting is right up there. At some point I got it in my brain that if the characters are good and the dialogue and plot are banging, it shouldn’t matter.

There’s some logic there.

But then you read a story where the setting is fully integrated to the story. You feel the place on every page. The author is skilled enough to get descriptive and avoids getting boring. Not an easy thing to do.

Having read too many novels, I’d say that there are good ones that are low on setting and good ones that are high on setting. Great novels get it just right. They transport you and don’t forget to do the rest.

Feel me on this. You may really get taken to another place by a fantasy novel or something in space, because it’s fantasy. It’s frigging space. Hard not to feel the other of it. Problem is, a lot of stuff I read leans so hard into the worlds they create, they forget to do some of the other basics. Great characters and dialogue can’t be sacrificed.

It’d be like going to Venice with a group of people that are only interested in making Instagram posts. It’d be like going New York and not being mugged. What a terrible waste.

Get your settings right. Cheers and see you after.