I attended a workshop on August 10, 2019, presented by award-winning author Glen Erik Hamilton. The Orange County Chapter of the California Writers Club hosted the workshop, titled First Class Ticket: Your Setting is Your Hook.
Glen focused on the importance of setting for any story, regardless of genre. For a reader, setting is unique, intriguing, evocative, and new. Glen urged the group to make the most of their own personal knowledge and experience. Using various authors’ descriptions in the handout provided, he illustrated how setting could impact a story.
Authors weave plot, character, and setting in a story, with setting allowing characters to interact and forcing circumstances and change upon them. Setting is a place and time, including conditions active at the time. Setting influences what happens. For setting to be used effectively, writers must understand their genre and determine how much table-setting is necessary.
Glen Erik Hamilton Reviewing Notes 
Workshop Notes 
Workshop Exercises
Glen asked whether you, the writer, choose the setting for your story, or does it choose you? Do you already know the setting, or are you striking out into something new? The answer…it depends.
Another question a writer must answer is how much detail is required when describing setting? The trick is to not over-describe, to not dump all at one time, to lead with the dominant characteristics (first look), and to boil the description down to the essentials.
Glen reminded the group to use all five senses when describing setting and to use the lessons provided by movies and television to try different lenses (wider, tighter). If your setting is by definition limited, consider going micro or in transit.
Another item to consider is the character’s point of view and how the character interprets setting.
Finally, as an author, consider why your book is set where it is, how characters “get around,” and why characters “stay put,” or come to, the setting.