Setting: Where Angels Fear to Tread
“It was a shabby room, like a cheap, long-stay hotel room or a bed-sit in one of the poorer districts of Tokyo. A woven burnt orange curtain covered the window, but she knew from the lack of noise that it was like so many other windows in this city – a window to nowhere – it looked out onto an airshaft. Of all the filthy, lousy places to die, there was something bitterly ironic about getting murdered in a room that, given half a chance, she might commit suicide in anyway.” (from Gaijin, Republica Press)
For me, settings are an integral part of why I write and how I write. I don’t think this is necessarily the best way to approach writing – it’s just my way. Perhaps as much or even more than people, I’ve always found the combination of place, time and circumstance a powerful enabler of story. For every person, I think there is a specific combination of the three elements that will together conspire to make ordinary people do extraordinary things – to take a regular human being and force them, by dint of a sort of literary Darwinism, to evolve into an interesting character.
In Gaijin, the settings heighten Jennifer’s feeling of vulnerability. The banal, depressing surroundings in the opening scene underline her need to interact with other human beings, no matter who they are. The Bahausian neutrality of Sindo’s apartment contrast sharply with the tattoos on his body, making his colouration surreal. The snow on the balcony is the counter point to both the heat of Shindo’s lust and the warmth of Jennifer’s humanity. It also serves as a stylized backdrop to the human drama played out on the balcony: scenery for the kabuki that takes place out there.
Atmosphere in setting, especially, can bring eroticism to the surface or suppress it. It can be used as a stressor to push unlikely characters together. In The Waiting Room, Sophie and Alex are both strangers in a strange land; the macrocosmic setting of the sleepy Cambodian town offers them an obvious commonality. But there is also the microcosm – not just place but light, temperature, smell, sound:
“The crickets were screaming, and the single strip of lighting flickered on and off, pinging occasionally the way all fluorescents do. Somewhere in the distance, a hollow bell rang — night prayers for Buddhist monks — and from another direction the strange reedy sound of a woman’s voice singing karaoke in an outdoor cafe.
Her eyes snapped open, irritated by the noise and the blinking light. The man on the bench opposite quickly shifted his gaze to the floor; he’d been staring at her.
Tucking up her knees, Sophie tugged furiously at the hem of her cotton dress, trying to cover her bare legs from the mosquitoes that were surely eyeing her up as a late-night feast. The heat and the humidity began to tug at her eyelids, and she shifted slightly, nestling her hands between her knees.
It was the noise that woke her. Not the insects or pinging, but a sound that was utterly out of place in the environment — the stuttered rip of a zipper. She opened her eyes to see him looking at her again but, this time, he didn’t look away. His face was unreadable as she watched him push a hand inside his open jeans, free a semi-erect cock, and begin slowly and casually to stroke it.” (The Waiting Room, Republica Press)
One of the things I enjoy most about using setting in erotica is the ability to use it as a juxtaposition to the sex that is happening in it. Of course, you could set your sex somewhere familiar and comfortable – it would deepen the sense of security and trust. Or you could set it somewhere opulent and allow it to infect the sex with an erotic decadence. However, I find the hottest sex of happens in the places you least expect it to occur.
“It took her a moment or two to notice that his expression had changed. The grin was gone and Alex leaned forward, stood and grabbed her by the wrist.
“Come with me,” he said low and terse as he yanked her to her feet and out the door of the compartment, into the passageway. He didn’t stop there, but pulled her along behind him as he strode down the aisle, looking into compartments. Finally, he stopped at a small, narrow door and tried the handle. It opened and he stepped in, jerking her in with him. It was some kind of a storage space, not large enough to be a luggage compartment, or small enough to be a broom closet. It wasn’t until she was fully inside that the stench hit her.
It was the toilet. There was no sink, only a metal rack, and in the floor, a hole the size of a dinner plate, down through which she could see the ties whizzing by. No one had cleaned it in years.
Alex slammed the door behind her and pushed her against it.
“For fuck’s sake, Alex!” She yelled at him as her the back of her head hit the door painfully. “What’s your problem?”
“What is yours, Sophie?” He demanded in return, pinning her shoulders back. His face was inches from hers; she could hardly breathe for his proximity and the stench in the tiny room. “Where did you learn to hate yourself like this? Who taught you to be so ashamed?”
She stared back at him, lips pressed tight. What could she say? Shaking her head slowly, understanding his question and wishing to god she had an answer for him. “I don’t know.”
Alex nodded just once and pressed her into the door with his body. “We need to find out, schatze. You need to find out.”
“Can we please get out of here now?”
He nuzzled her neck with his face, moving his lips up to her ear. “Don’t you want to fuck?” He asked, grinding his hips against hers.
“Here?”
“Yes, why not?” he replied, his hand sliding over her breast and squeezing hard.
“Not here, Alex. It’s filthy…it’s sordid.”
His body was relentless, undulating against her, his hands drifted from secret place to secret place, probing her, kneading her.
“Yes, it is.” Alex’s voice had gone liquid and suggestive. “It’s filthy. Sophie-the-slut, let’s fuck…” (The Waiting Room, Republica Press)
I’ve always believed that the obligation of an erotica writer is to take the reader to places where ‘angels fear to tread’ both metaphorically and literally. Setting works on both a concrete and symbolic level to allow me to do that.
See, now part of me again feels like a hack.
I shouldn’t; it’s just different approaches in writing. Setting for me is…well, I wouldn’t say unimportant, but I don’t think much of it. I like it when a setting is part of the story, when it’s well described and you feel like you’re there. This, though, just isn’t what I do. And that’s good — if we all did it, it’d be a bit dull, wouldn’t it? 
When I get the idea for a story, it’s nearly always situational. I think: what if she said this? What if a person wanted to do x but couldn’t? So far, setting hasn’t mattered. I wonder if I should make it matter.
I don’t think that lack of focus on setting has anything to do with being a hack. All writers come at their stories from different angles. Mine just happens to be setting. Which, I’m pretty sure, means that my plots suck ass.