Western Australian Authors Writing for a Worldwide Audience; How Do They Do It?

How I use setting to enrich my Aussie horror stories

Western Australia is famous for beautiful sunsets, incredible beaches, and hazardous wildlife. Perth, its capital city, is considered a sleepy place when it comes to the arts, and pop culture, but I disagree.

As a writer, however, where I am located doesn’t matter. I can write a story that appeals to a broad audience without setting it in WA, or I can set it in WA with purpose; leading the reader to learn more about Australia and its history.

Setting is as Important as Character

Do you create a character profile for every character? If not, you should! Make one for the setting, too!

Like characters, the setting should exist for a reason. It should be complex, comprehensive, and well-developed.

What To Include in a Setting Profile?

A Setting profile should consider all of the following:

• Smells

• Sights

• Taste

• Sound

• Atmosphere

• Local history

• Climate/Weather

• Local flora and fauna

• The role of the setting in the story

Make Use of History

When I wrote a monster horror story set in WA, I drew upon WA’s history, one that is marred by colonization and imperial invasion. I chose to take a romantic review of the Australian landscape; and made the natural world reject the characters that it saw as invaders.

As the story developed, and the tension ramped up, I described the landscape in ever more hostile ways. It was my way of showing the landscape turning against the characters.

I did this to encourage my reader to question the character’s right to have ventured into the bushland itself and ask them if the characters in the story the heroes or villains of the story were.

There’s No Such Thing as No Setting

Some psychological thrillers and character studies eschew the setting in order to create a hyper-dense and claustrophobic narrative. Done well, this is terrific, although I wouldn’t recommend it to the amateur author. It’s interesting from a writing perspective, because, like physics, nothing exists in a vacuum. Is no setting really no setting? Or is it something more complex?

The reason I don’t recommend this mode of storytelling to amateur writers is that character studies tend to be verbose and tangential, and publishers often avoid these kinds of stories unless you are an established author.