A Writer's Guide to Acting: How to Use Setting when Creating a Character, Part II

Behavior is a reaction to emotion and the importance of setting is about emotion. More specifically, it’s about how the setting affects you emotionally. Let’s go back to our example of one member of a couple finding out that the other has been unfaithful. We already learned how these characters would react should vary depending upon whether the scene takes place at a nightclub or inside a church. But does that go far enough? Is that all we need to understand about how setting affects character? Let’s add another level to that scene. This time let’s take the part of the person who is confessing. How would this scene play differently in each setting if that character’s emotional response to the nightclub or church differed?

The emotional resonance of a location is quite often determined by a person’s history with that location. In this instance, let’s say that the person confessing to the fling first met their significant other inside that nightclub. Would that make it a more emotional place than if it was just some meaningless club? Let’s go farther. What if that nightclub was where both of them said I love you for the first time? Now we’ve raised the emotional stakes quite higher. The nightclub has now transformed not only from some sterile environment that held no emotional resonance to one of the most important locations in the relationship of these two people. Would you agree that the emotional state of the characters during the confession scene would now be significantly influenced by the setting? What had been nothing more than a structure now becomes an essential part of the scene. Think about all the memories that would be unreeling inside the head of your character. How would those memories affect your voice and your body language? Would your voice quaver more than if you’d never been there before?