How Setting Can Unlock Deep POV

One of my favorite things about writing is creating word pictures. Actually, the only way I can really delve into a new story, is finding physical objects or environmental anchors to assist in developing my characters on the page. Sometimes it's easy to load too much fluff in description, and now-a-days, the fluff is less and less accepted.
HOWEVER, if you write with a purpose, then description can be key in not only anchoring your character to the setting, but also unlocking deep pov, or the character's internal struggles and thought.

Example from my wip. The setting of this novel is a coal town:

Leanna stared hard at the black dust caked in Jack's nails and shadowed upon his lips while he mumbled a prayer of gibberish. 

Tongue of a fool. Surely God can't hear his tongue.

She sighed and considered a prayer of forgiveness. Whatever effort she had promised herself to muster up and ignore the bitterness only failed by nightfall. 

How appropriate, blackness of night pried open her well of hate, springing forth its miserable leak. Blackness revealed the honest truth. The blackness of the dust in this God-forsaken place; darkness of the shadow that hid whatever love Leanna first felt for the man who hovered over his meager meal, ready to devour the work of her hands after a long day in the blackness of the earth.

When I began this story, the coal town setting brought to mind the black dust. After developing my character's arc, I knew what the setting meant to the heroine. She hated it, it's a place she did not want to be. So blackness in this instance, symbolized void, hate, discontent, suppressed love. The blackness of the dust, the blackness of the night, the blackness of the earth, darkness of the shadow, all these things pull out Leanna's pov for the reader.

Now, blackness could very well mean richness of the earth, wealth of the mining company. If I chose to use the blackness to just explain the setting, the infrastructure of the coal town, then it would not be as strong of a word picture...because it only indirectly anchors the character to setting, and it doesn't have the deeper intention to pull out her inner thoughts.

Have you taken a journey through your setting, grabbing items or characteristics along the way?

Mold them, weave them, discover their unique ability to bear your character's soul to your reader.
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Angie Dicken first began writing fiction as a creative outlet during the monotonous days of diapers and temper tantrums. She is passionate to impress God's love on women regardless of their background or belief. This desire serves as a catalyst for Angie's fiction, which weaves salvation and grace themes across cultures. She is an ACFW member and CEO of a family of six.