My blog posts on Day 11 and Day 12 were two halves of a short story, written quickly to use as an example for editing. Here, I would like to discuss setting.

The setting of a story discusses where the story takes place. In The House on the Hill, the action all takes place around an old empty house.

The House on the Hill is a house for sale on a cliff side. The house has clearly been loved, but now it is empty of people, although furniture remains. There is a photo that clearly brings back memories for Joseph as he goes back to look for it.

The house is described as:

• mail swept from the floor – unlived in
• coloured window panels and tiled floor in the hall
• double fronted – so a large house (double fronted is when the house has a room either side of the front door)
• 3 bedrooms
• sea-facing lounge with high ceiling and carved plaster
• faded wallpaper
• furniture covered with dust sheets
• threadbare rugs
• furniture not wanted – if buyer does not want then will be put in a skip
• old-fashioned Quaker kitchen with quarry tiled floor
• water still connected
• patio doors from kitchen leading to an ‘unruly’ i.e. overgrown garden
• smallest bedroom – a girl’s room with girl’s books

There is quite a lot of information about the house, and one thing as author I need to check – that it does not conflict. The house seems to evoke a number of different eras and perhaps it might be better if it were all tied to one era, the one where Peggy died.

Setting also includes atmosphere. The story tries to be mysterious. Does it succeed? I’m not sure it does. It needs to decide if it wants to be a ghost story, a memoir or something else. The setting of the house needs some minor tweaks, but I need to decide exactly what kind of story it is going to be and perhaps add some more clues to enable the reader to follow along.

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