CHAPTER 6

GENRE AND THE DRAMATICA DOMAINS

Where should we set our story?

Again—what's our movie all about?

Setting isn't just "the place where our tale happens," nor "its time, space length and historical period."  Nope.  Setting goes far beyond Time and Space.  It has little to do with background and scenery.  It's much deeper than that.  Setting is the source of the story's conflict.

Let me explain.  On a shallow level, Setting is just the Time and Place of our story.  So for the audience, a Western is any tale in 1800's American frontier, and whatever happens in space must be Sci-Fi.  But, on a deeper level—for the screenwriter—Time and Space embrace the characters' problems.  Location brings about specific evils.  And the story's tribulations have to be coherent with the particular surroundings (such as if I'd try to set a light romantic comedy in the middle of D-Day at Normandy, my characters would have a hard time romancing each other and would only care about saving their lives.  Conversely, if my characters are average farmers set in Average Farmland, they'd find no conflict at all in there, and my story would become the Ultimate Snoozefest).

(CONTINUED)