: A good example of setting is Billy Nolan's Car. This has as a lot to do with point of view as well. The reader sees Nolan's car through bad-girl Chris Desjarden's eyes.Billy's car was old, dark, somehow sinister. [. . . ] The seats were loose and unanchored. Beer bottles clicked and rolled in the back (her fraternity dates drank Budweiser; Billy and his friends drank Rheingold), and she had to place her feet around a huge, grease-clotted Craftsman toolkit without a lid. The tools inside were of many different makes, and she suspected many of them were stolen. (134)
The main draw of this situation for Chris comes with a one-sentence paragraph: And of course he drove fast. This works well because we see the car through someone who is out of her element (an upper-class lawyer's daughter sees the world of lower class hood). The reader sees what excites her and why.
Exercise: Examine the setting of a key point of your story. Does this setting have a special meaning for the character(s) involved?
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