What she means is even if you don't consciously choose a setting
your story has one.
I want to persuade you that becoming aware of your setting and
describing it fully and vividly will help you create richer fiction.
I'm going to read this opening scene from the story.
Perhaps as I read it you can close your eyes.
Better to notice the way your mind summons a visual picture,
which is really a collaboration between your imagination and Lawrence's.
The small locomotive engine, Number 4, came clanking,
stumbling down from Selston with seven full wagons.
It appeared round the corner with loud threats of speed, but
the colt that it startled from among the gorse, which still
flickered indistinctly in the raw afternoon, outdistanced it at a canter.
A woman, walking up the railway line to Underwood, drew back into the hedge,
held her basket aside, and watched the footplate of the engine advancing.
The trucks thumped heavily past, one by one, with slow inevitable movement,
as she stood insignificantly trapped between the jolting black waggons and
the hedge; then they curved away towards the coppice where the withered
oak leaves dropped noiselessly, while the birds, pulling at the scarlet hips
beside the track, made off into the dusk that had already crept into the spinney.
Those are a series of beautiful words.
Some are common and some are not.
You can open your eyes now.
But none are outrageously difficult.
In fact, they are lovely to say in the order in which Lawrence places them.
Will you say the final sentence aloud with me?