How To Layer Settings Like Stephen King

Analysis of "Misery" by Stephen King

📖 Misery is a classic suspense novel by Stephen King.

✍️ I studied Misery and discovered techniques you can apply to your own writing.

---

My analysis is broken into four posts:

Part 1: How to put readers into the mind of a character

Part 2: The unorthodox chapter design of Misery

Part 3: Why contradiction makes characters compelling

Part 4: How to layer settings like Stephen King

---

Here is Part 4:

The story of Misery offers a signifcant creative challenge:

It mostly takes place in one room.

In the hands of a lesser author, this could be dangerous.

Setting the narrative in a single location risks the novel becoming repetitive and leaving the reader bored.

But Stephen King keeps things interesting by layering settings.

While the story mainly takes place in one room, King finds clever ways to incorporate more locations into the story.

Here’s how to layer setting like Stephen King:

Misery mostly takes place in Annie Wilke’s secluded Colorado home.

Writer Paul Sheldon is being held captive by Annie, forced to write a new installment in his best-selling series of novels.

Stephen King uses this new novel, Misery’s Return, to layer additional settings into the story by including excerpts of the novel as it’s being written.

The included scenes from Misery’s Return take place in England and Africa.

These additional locations allow King to keep mix things up for the readers.

Instead of solely providing details and descriptions of the Colorado home, readers are given looks into the rainy streets of England and hot jungles of Africa.

King was smart to include such contrasting locations for the fictional novel within Misery. He didn’t choose another secluded place in the US, he chose places on other continents with completely different climates.

If the setting of your story is becoming repetitive, consider layering additional settings within the primary location.

You could have a character:

• Write a book (like in Misery)

• Read a book

• Watch televison/movies

• Look at artwork on a wall

There are lots of possibilities.

The important thing is to keep things interesting for the reader.

---

Continue reading my Misery analysis:

Part 1: How to put readers into the mind of a character

Part 2: The unorthodox chapter design of Misery

Part 3: Why contradiction makes characters compelling

Part 4: How to layer settings like Stephen King

Analyses are available only to C.S.M. Fiction paid subscribers. Thank you for your support.