334. It Was a Dark and Stormy Night . . . Using Setting as Story Structure with Daniel Braum

Author Daniel Braum discusses setting, how it can unknowingly capture moments in time, and why it is necessary to immerse readers into the story.

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Check out Dan's author page and his books:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Daniel-Braum/author/B01F9C69PS
https://bloodandstardust.wordpress.com/page/2/

Follow him on his socials to see what happens next:
https://www.facebook.com/DanielBraumFiction/
https://www.instagram.com/daniel_braum/

Transcript

Jennia: Hello, I'm Jennia D'Lima. Welcome to Writing and Editing, the author-focused podcast that takes a whole-person approach to everything related to both writing and editing. When we're thinking about how to start a story and looking for advice, we might be told to think first of our characters or maybe our plot. But what about letting the setting lead the way? Daniel Braum is an author and the host of Night Time Logic and he's going to share how, why, and when to use setting as your story's structure.

Jennia: Well, first, it is always a complete joy to chat with you and I'm so glad you're here!

Daniel Braum: Aww, great chatting with you! Thanks for having me on the program.

Jennia: Mhm! Would you like to start by telling us something about yourself and what you write?

Daniel Braum: Yeah! My name's Daniel Braum. I tend to write mostly, or I publish mostly, short stories. I guess a good pop culture touchstone for the kind of short stories I write—you might think of those old Twilight Zone TV shows.

Jennia: Ahh yes.

Daniel Braum: I publish mostly in horror with publishers such as Cemetery Dance Publications. But I'm on the borderlands or the outliers, the outlying edge of horror. I call a lot of my work "strange tales" in homage to British author Robert Aickman. Because a lot of my work is intended to be the kind of psychological horror, almost like a [Rorschach] plot where two different people can look at something and there might be intentionally ambiguous supernatural elements in it.

Jennia: Yes, I would agree with all of that, just from the one collection I've read! (laughs)

Daniel Braum: Thank you!

Jennia: So I'd love to hear how you define setting a structure and what this means to you.

Daniel Braum: Well, I could tell you what it means for me. I always like to be cautious with my advice and I think giving advice, just in general or specifically, at least for me, is intended to be like a tool in a tool bag and not like a, "Oh, if you don't write 5,000 words, you're not an author." Which, you know. So, for me, setting, it seems to be the part on both ends of the spectrum. On one end, it's the part that I think you can't teach or you can't control. And what I mean by that is that's where, for me, the inspiration or that magic part of why I want to write comes from.

Jennia: Mhm.

Daniel Braum: On the other end, I feel like setting may be the part of the story, at least for me, that maybe gets the short end of the stick. And maybe people either intentionally leave out or our beginners are taught to leave out. Like, after all, there's that maxim: "Don't describe sunsets." Okay, that's great beginner writing advice and maybe even great advice in general. But I feel like maybe we get conditioned as authors to not use setting as fully as we'd like.

Jennia: Yes!

Daniel Braum: So, for me, after publishing for a while and doing interviews and asking that question like, oh, about inspiration or process, I realized that, yeah, so first comes the inspiration we want to write. We've decided to sit down and write a story. I guess there's planners and pantsers. I'm very much a planner. You know, I like to have that story told in my mind. Or I like to be able to verbally tell a story to a friend or a colleague before I sit down on paper. But while I'm planning that story, there's often that bit of inspiration. A place or a thing in a place. Something very, very setting specific—

Jennia: Mhm.

Daniel Braum: —But, (laughs) at least mostly, we can't just describe that sunset, or describe that forest, or describe that object. So the setting is the part that you can't control, for me. And then I start the process, I guess—or it would be the writer's tool, for writers listening, in that toolbox. So, to me, I take the setting and I start to think of, "Well, the character comes second to that. And also the conflict either comes second, or third, or simultaneously." I think of what will be the best way to manifest this bit of inspiration—

Jennia: Ohh, right!

Daniel Braum: —in dramatic structure. And, for me, dramatic structure is characters with conflicts. Dynamic character. That's what I mean when I say setting as structure. I think it'd be more apt to say setting creating the structure or setting-specific structure.

Jennia: Right. And I was thinking, too, about your most recent short story collection and how you sometimes see not just how the setting has changed, but how people within that setting changed over time when they've left it and then returned to it. And so you're using those elements all together. So it's not just this isolated view of, "We're going to be looking at setting," or, "We are just going to be looking at this jungle or this beach." No, you're looking at how it interplays with everything else and how it does bring about that character change or growth.

Daniel Braum: Yeah, thanks for mentioning that! Yeah, that—the book that she just mentioned is Creatures of Liminal Space, which should be out now or out soon from Jackanapes Press. Yeah, often I do want to write about place, and I think you picked up on it. Whether it's intentionally or subconsciously that happens, both characters and points of change—which I think makes a great dynamic structure, and often I find myself writing about places themselves that may be in points of change—

Jennia: Yes!

Daniel Braum: —as well.

Jennia: Right. And with some of them, too, you can't really imagine it taking place anywhere else. That that setting has to be that setting or the story no longer works. And I think so often we're able to—I always think of those sliding backdrops that you'd see like in high school plays (Dan laughs), where you could just move out, like, you know, Henry the Eighth, or whatever, and throw in Antony and Cleopatra's background, and it wouldn't really matter because there's no focus at all on the background. But that's not true with what's happening here.

Daniel Braum: Oh, that's really, really well said. Both about how, yeah, the story must exist in that place. And now I can't unsee setting as sliding background (Jennia laughs) like a Met opera or a wonderful high school play (laughs). Great point there.

Jennia: Yes. Well, on the flip side, I'd also like to hear your opinion about what setting a structure doesn't mean or maybe even how some people mistakenly define it.

Daniel Braum: Wow! I'd be honored if anyone would even mistakenly define it or define it at all (laughs). Yeah, I'm not sure. I guess I could only speak for myself because it's just one tool in the tool bag. On the other hand, on the spectrum of authors of setting forward stories or setting forward authors, if could be such a thing—On the one hand, two of my earliest influences were Lucius Shepard and Tanith Lee. So before I even knew character conflict or setting, or before I even really had a deep dive into knowing what setting was or thinking about it as a reader, I just was into those stories where, like you said, the story couldn't take place somewhere else. Or when you got done reading a story, you felt like you went somewhere; the setting was a character in itself. On the other end of the spectrum, maybe we have authors that I enjoy almost equally, like a Hemingway with the very tight—

Jennia: Ahh, yeah.

Daniel Braum: —control prose, and he could do things in a sentence, or just a word, with setting as well. So, I'm twisting the word mistake, but maybe I'm just changing the question around to just say, like, yeah, it's more of a spectrum. There really are no mistakes. It's just intent and how you want to color your story.

Jennia: Yeah, but I think the keyword there that you just used is "intent." You know, so—

Daniel Braum: Yeah.

Jennia: —Yes, if you have this richly imagined landscape, but then you just say, "The sun was yellow," well, you've missed your intent. It hasn't come across on the page. So, yeah, I think that's one thing to just keep in mind that entire time. But also, how much of a part are you wanting the setting to play? Do you want the setting to be something that people not necessarily notice but understand is necessary?

Daniel Braum: Yeah. In one of the stories in Creatures of Liminal Space called "Phantom Constellations”—and when I was reviewing it, there's one small part of the story where it does take place over time and the character is in a different setting—he's in New York when most of the setting takes place elsewhere—and I noticed that that little passage, or it was pointed out to me, the setting in that little passage was simply what I call, or what is called, "white room." There was almost no setting details at all. Like, it was clear to the reader that it was New York.

Jennia: Mhm.

Daniel Braum: But the setting in New York was not intended to be anything there other than it was intended to show a passage of time (Jennia's dog, Sunny, barks). So I just noticed to me—and we get a vote of confidence (Jennia laughs) from one of our four-legged friends—

Jennia: I'm gonna leave that in! (both laugh)

Daniel Braum: *as Sunny* "Yes, there should be dogs in this setting!" *normal voice* But, yeah, so I guess the opposite of a rich setting could be a white room. And white room doesn't necessarily have to be a dirty word. I think it can be when it causes unclarity, like, the wrong kind of clarity—

Jennia: Ahh, yes.

Daniel Braum: —and the wrong kind of ambiguity.

Jennia: Mhm.

Daniel Braum: And, yeah, I guess what I mean by that is just having the reader not—you know, be out of the story, or not feel grounded in the story, or stray far from the author's intent.

Jennia: Right! And what part do you think that genre plays in that?

Daniel Braum: Wow, I mean genre is (laughs)—just the fun of genre came to mind in there, because a) You don't have to be grounded by reality. So, yeah, you have someone like Tanith Lee where they could have a city that doesn't necessarily have to be grounded in exact reality or in genre. A lot of authors do use secondary worlds and—

Jennia: Mhm.

Daniel Braum: —can build their own world, again, with its own—I think setting, it will have a lot to do with creating that. Or even in the corner of genre that I write in horror/ weird fiction/ strange tales, whatever genre label we want to use at any given time—

Jennia: Mmm, I was thinking quiet horror, but yes.

Daniel Braum: Quiet! Yeah yeah, quiet—Yep! So let's use quiet horror. I think quiet horror has a lot to do with atmosphere. So setting—using the haunted-house genre or even just the quiet-house story where the setting and those parts of the story that we relegate or identify as setting do a lot in creating that. It's definitely a tool that I think people who come in and you're coming into an atmospheric story, or a Halloween story, or a ghost story, or a quiet horror story. I think both the author intends to put that part of setting forward, and I think readers also are wanting, expecting, and craving to have sent forward there.

Jennia: Yeah, I agree. I think there are certain genres where you almost have to let setting play that huge part because otherwise readers might come away feeling like it's lacking something. And I was especially thinking of fantasy and SciFi with worldbuilding because they want something different from what they experience every day in their normal lives. But without worldbuilding and without those setting details, it's going to feel like it's not really in someplace new. It's just in some place.

Daniel Braum: [I was] thinking of a very famous author. I think his name is . . . Snoopy (Jennia laughs) with his famous opening line, "It was a dark and stormy night" (laughs).

Jennia: Yes! What a classic (laughs). Maybe that'll be the title of this episode.

Daniel Braum: "Don't try this at home, kids."

Jennia: Well, do you think there ever signs for an author that indicate that setting as structure should be the right choice for a story, or maybe isn't the right choice?

Daniel Braum: That's a great question. I guess I did contemplate that in that part of a story since I use it so much and when I find myself not using it, I certainly second guess that and make it conscious and start evaluating it. Maybe it has to do with perspective on that one. So, like, maybe I'm thinking of, like, I'll probably misuse the Joseph Campbell quote, but something that's very specific to us here—you know, we're writing and editing and broadcasting from America. So the details of our ordinary life, which might be the sort of thing—that might seem like the sort of thing that you would want to edit out or remove from a story to a non-American reader or to someone who's not there, those sort of details make for exactly the sort of thing that we're looking for when we go to a quote unquote for us, an "exotic" setting. I'd never been to India or some of the places or cities there. So I actually want those mundane details and—

Jennia: Mhm!

Daniel Braum: —those descriptions that might instinctively—or whatever the rule—you know, right on the nose. People might say, "Oh, take those out!" I'm like, "No, like, I actually—I want to see that tree. I want to smell that food. I want to see how you got from here to there." Whereas the instinct might be like, "Oh, yeah, let's trim that out."

Jennia: Ahh, yeah, I can see exactly what you're saying because I was thinking, too, I've seen this come up a lot and I think I've talked about it in a prior episode when they were talking about the classic American 50s' diner. Or now we have the retro diners that are meant to recreate that experience, whereas here we gloss over those descriptions because everyone assumes that they know what they're like or the same with the drive in theater, even though they're rapidly disappearing. But, yeah, someone who's never experienced one of those places or been to one in real life, and their whole knowledge about it only comes from media that they've imported from another country. So, yeah, that's a great point, but I think that also indicates that you should be aware of where your audience might be located.

Daniel Braum: Yeah, I don't know . . . how much should be in there, but I think it's one of the things that writing can do and we're talking about intent. It's one of the things that we can do intentionally to preserve places or, serendipitously—like, I guess I've been writing 20, 25 years for now, and some of the places that I had written about early in my career don't exist anymore—

Jennia: Yeah!

Daniel Braum: —or have changed. And I did not intend that. Although, now, in retrospect, it seems to be perhaps a not intended but very valuable aspect of the story. Like, wow, I preserved a little piece of something unintentionally that, yeah, you can't go out there and observe it right now. And I think that's a wonderful thing that any genre of writing can do. So, yeah, maybe I have more awareness of that at this point as a writer.

Jennia: No, I love that! And I was even thinking about—I think it was with you—we were talking about those old cartoons and the TV ads and things—not that that's—well, I mean, that's part of setting, right? And when you see those things, you think, "Oh, yeah, I remember that toy!" Or, "Oh, yeah, I remember when McDonalds looked like this!" Or, "This is what the playground used to be like. And we had this kind of slide instead of this kind of slide." But, yeah, there are all those details when you're living with it in the moment, you think, does this really matter? Do I need to include this? Everyone's going to know exactly what this is like. But, yeah—yeah, we need to think of setting as something dynamic. Because it is. And I think there's a Victor Hugo quote where he talks about how man destroys things faster than anything else. And one of the examples he uses is an old church and how they might decide that we're going to clear this away and make room for something else. And so it brings that to mind, too, that this foundational piece that we assume will be here forever, just because in our very small, short, limited lifespan, it has been there forever. But we're overlooking that very real possibility that it might not be someday soon.

Daniel Braum: I think it's a great point and a great example that you said, like, the old cartoon or any old or date-specific piece of television—I think perhaps more in film than in fiction—although, I think it happens in fiction as well—that's certainly used. Like, in film, all the time they use what's on the TV as either theme or to quickly date something. So maybe I'll use that as the answer to the question I passed and said we'll get back to it (Jennia laughs). When should someone be using setting a structure?

Jennia: Mhm!

Daniel Braum: I think if you find yourself using those shortcuts, those shortcuts both can be both effective in quickly dating something. But if you're not from that time, it could completely leave you on the outside of it. So that's why—it goes the same with music. I caution when using any sort of a shortcut to try to get beneath the surface level of that. But I would caution people to not just use it as, like, a date stamp—although, you could—and to try to move it a click forward, get to the character of that, or get to the theme of that and try to tie setting into point of view or emotional resonance, I think just makes it even stronger. So to say, how are these mistakes? There are no mistakes, but there are different levels, or qualities, or renderings of setting that we can think about.

Jennia: Yeah! And so how do you think an emphasis on setting can change a story? Let's say if you did have that white wall effect going and now you've added in something else, what's going to be different about this story?

Daniel Braum: Yeah, I think it could simply change the reading experience. Yeah, it can come right down to preference. Some people, "Hey, do you prefer Hemingway or do you prefer someone with a more rendered sense of prose? So it could simply just be, like, the central experience of how much do you like your senses to be engaged?

Jennia: Mmm.

Daniel Braum: Or not engaged? For some people—you know, we're talking about the fantasy setting. I'm thinking about Robert Jordan in The Wheel of Time. That was a series that was maybe 20 years ago, I—so many people were recommending it to me that I actually read it. And I was struck by how much setting—Like, there's just so much setting going on there. And I'm just reminded of how that was an element. It seemed to be like all the writers I knew, would criticize Jordan and they would call it fat fantasy (Jennia laughs). "Oh my god! Like, it's a door stop. All this stuff needed to be trimmed." But every reader, when I asked every reader how they felt about Robert Jordan—

Jennia: Mhm.

Daniel Braum: —they felt the exact opposite. They were like, "Well, what do you like about this book?" They were like, "I like how they had lunch—" They could care less about the plot (Jennia laughs) and tightness which—not that they could care less, but to them it's secondary. They're like, "Yeah, I'm not so sure I care how it ends up. I want to spend time here with these people"—

Jennia: Mhm!

Daniel Braum: —So I feel like if you highly edit Robert Jordan—it's like perhaps if I was his editor I would shake him around and smash him around (Jennia laughs). But not really. But, yeah. So how would it change it? You could really take the joy out of it for people who just want that immersion. And now that I think about it, maybe that was exactly what young me was getting, why early Tanith Lee and Lucius Shepard was firing for me. Because in addition to these plots, in addition to these ideas, in my young mind, I actually had the sense of immersion and these places where I'd never been yet, will never be. Or, in the case of Tanith Lee, no one will ever be because it only exists in that secondary world of her imagination.

Jennia: Yes! Exactly. Well, looking more at maybe contemporary fiction, [or] historical fiction as well, too, but what about setting as mood?

Daniel Braum: That goes right back to, "It's a dark and stormy night" like a gothic—

Jennia: Yes! Oh, Snoopy (laughs).

Daniel Braum: —Yeah, "Oh, Snoopy!" You know, Gothic fiction and quiet horror, and also to that, really setting does a lot of the heavy lifting for those sorts of things. And we might—again, yeah, we might feel a little bit our expectations weren't met or not as satisfying a snack like if our gothic story was not set in there? I mean, that goes to the issue of meeting, playing, or subverting expectations. But that could be a whole other topic for another time.

Jennia: That's true (Dan laughs). Yeah, I was thinking that too. Especially those—I used to read a lot of the gothic novels from the early, mid-1800s. You know, if you don't have, like, creaking stairs and the—

Daniel Braum: Yeah!

Jennia: —moss-covered, damp stones, then what are you even doing? (laughs) Well, have you ever written something where setting really wasn't playing a big role and then as you were revising and editing, perhaps you added it in for that extra little touch?

Daniel Braum: I'd have to think about that. Nothing is coming to mind. But, yeah, now that I'm thinking about it, I did there—Some of those stories I write are more on the nose [of] science fiction. And there was one story I wrote—it's out of print right now—it was called Mile Zero. And it was about—it actually was before this current political cycle. Maybe it was 20 years ago. But it was a story of a woman who was trying to escape the United States. It was a United States where many totalitarian things had come to pass and things having to do with autonomy of the body, like having chips or identification in the body. And she wasn't actually traveling to have an abortion, she was traveling where she wanted her child to live free of this sort of thing. So a lot of it took place in southern Florida. And I—maybe, like, the intent of the story wasn't to say something about southern Florida, but the intent of the story was to say about these political aspects. But maybe—I don't remember writing it, but that would be the sort of thing where I could imagine myself writing the non-setting stuff first and probably rendered it—

Jennia: Ahh.

Daniel Braum: —secondary only to maybe avoid what I would call like that white room syndrome. And in that case would be to the bolster the story to make it feel like it is in a real populated place. Not just like, "She's here, they're here, they're there." And I think that's a great place to use the topic of—yeah, right, just enough setting there to make it feel populated and bolstered the reality.

Jennia: And how do you? Do you have any suggestions for creating a setting that feels fully formed and yet like it's a fundamental part of the story? And I'm just gonna toss in that you managed to do this with stories that are only a few pages long, so I know that you know how to do it.

Daniel Braum: We can mention Creatures in Liminal Space again because—

Jennia: (laughs) Yes, let's do it!

Daniel Braum: Yeah! There's a juxtaposition in this book. Three of the stories might be called novelettes. I'm not sure the official—but long short stories of the higher end of the word count. So you have a lot more room to play with and more expectation of immersion. And those three stories are framed in a frame or setting—different sense of the word, like a gemstone setting—of flash fiction pieces. All of them which are stories of 500 to 1000 words apiece. So it's a very different [experience] crafting those things.

Jennia: Yeah.

Daniel Braum: I think the common element for me, I, like, go towards the specific and not the generic. And even if it is—and if we are using the generic then to tie it to the point of view or the emotional something—have to do double duty. You have it do something other than being present. You now have it delivering the setting in a way that's most organic to the story, if possible.

Jennia: Yeah!

Daniel Braum: I guess, detective stories, I tend not to write about that kind of stuff. But you have a get out of jail free card if you have a character whose natural point of view or natural inclination is to observe. When we have other characters, then it's kind of like, all right, the Supreme Court definition of pornography. You will know it if I see it. But, yeah, you want to have it feel organic to the character.

Jennia: Yeah. That brings up an important point, too, and this is something that I always include in my worldbuilding webinar. But you need to be thinking about your character within that setting. What are they likely to notice? What are they not likely to notice? Even how their career, their hobbies, their personal interests, how that's all going to also play a part in the things that stand out to them.

Daniel Braum: Yeah! Yeah. And even in some cases, I'm writing a lot of my stories when the settings are quote unquote "exotic" or non-American settings. A lot of them are outsiders—

Jennia: Mmm.

Daniel Braum: —so it sort of makes sense about certain things would come across or be noticed or be perceived as fantastic on the flip. And that—I do have some stories that are written about local people and that you just get a different set of tools and how to deliver that. And a different point of view and a different meaning to perhaps even the same things.

Jennia: Well, before we end, can you name a book or a movie that you think expertly uses setting as structure?

Daniel Braum: That one's real easy! It would be the short story The Jaguar Hunter by Lucius Shepard. I guess it could be found in his short story collection of the same name!

Jennia: Well, thank you so much!

Daniel Braum: Thank you!

Jennia: And thank you for listening and be sure to check out the show notes for additional information, including all of Dan's links. And then please join me next week when author Randy Lyman will explain how emotional disconnection could be blocking your success. Thanks again!