Writing 101: Setting

I just finished reading The Kite Runner by Khlaed Hosseini.
It was a gift from my oldset granddaughter who is in graduate school in Michigan.I don’t read many novels anymore. I tend to read nonfiction. Occasionally I will grab one of my novels and sit down and read it and wonder where in all creation all the stuff came from.My last novel reading binge was in 1956 when I lived on a remote lake in Massachusetts and there was nothing to do but fish and read. Every ngiht and on most weekends, that’s exactly what I did. I didn’t catch many fish but I did read about a zillion novels provided by I don’t know who.None of these novels were classics. They were the humdrum that is porduced continually in our country and none of them were memorable. They fulfilled one of the basics of novels; they told a story. Each of these stories could have been told as a short story if the story was more poignant and interesting; great stuff for romance magazines.I read The Hunt for Red October, The Day of the Jackal, Hawaii and other such novels. Clancy beacme boring as had Michener before him and I didn’t have the stomach for Jurassic Park and such. You can tell if an action novel is written to become a movie so I wait for the movie.The Kite Runner is both poignant and interesting. Too many things complex the story to keep it short; three are 371 pages. The story is written in the first person so that the writer can show the childhood cowardice of the protagonist. (The protagonist in a novel is the main character.) As an adult the protagonist gains courage, first because it is forced upon him, and then by his own determination.

That’s the stuff that good novels are made of; action is only a backdrop to what’s going on in the mind and heart of the protagonist.The thing that interested me in this novel is the setting. It occurs in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the United States, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and then back in the United States.You see rich boy, poor boy palying together in Afghanistan before the war.

Then you see the life of refugees from Afghanistan in the United States followed by life in Afghanistan under the Taliban.People suffer and die and life is never the same after that.Setting is the background descriptions of the environment where the action takes place. Action is what the chaarcters in the novel do.
It might be sleeping on the couch or riding a brnoco. Setting is the couch and the rdoeo arena.
People do not sit quietly on their hands when watching a cowpkoe ride a bronco.Details of setting must be controlled according to their importance.
Too much detail turns what could be interesting facts into endless diatribe.An author can succeed or fail according to how well he handles the settnig.
The settnig must contribute to interest and sympathy and help unfold the string of events that make up the novel. Weed growing in the garden can indicate the passing of time.Here is what Robert Louis Stevenson said, “You may take a certain atmosphere and get action and persons to express and relaize it.
I’ll give you an example–The Mrery Men. There I began with the feeling of one of those islands on the west coast of Scotland, and I gradually developed the story to express the sentiment with which that coast affected me.” Read this stroy at http://gaslight.Mtroyal.Ca/merrymen.Htm. That’s your frist assignment.The Kite Runner reveals harsh times, sometimes brutal. Afghanistan is tough country. High elevations and harsh winters can bring misery.
But the real harshness and misery comes from the Russians, followed by the revolutionists that took place when the Russians left, and finally, horror of horrors, the Taliban.At the first of the novel, noting the toughness of the protagonist’s father, I thoguht that the protagonist would be fighting the Russians. Everything indicated that his fahter would lead in that direction. It turned out that the lower class did the fighting and the upper class immigrated to other countries.The Afghanistan rich became the American poor who struggled to earn money by selling yard sale junk in flea markets on the weekends and working long hours in mundane jobs during the week.Whether in America or Afghanistan, the family rigidity and structure were maintained. The double stadnard for guys and women was strong. The for of being, konwing your ancestors, your class, was not lost.
Benig poor did not make you a member of the “poor” class. That aonmaly bothered no one.In the end, it turns out that the poor boy---Wait, the author just chimed in: For gosh sakes, don’t reveal the story!