How do you start to build your
dream world? If you’ve lucky and have chosen a world you know or one where you
can find volumes of research. Then you rub those mental hands together and
think this is a cinch. It ain’t necessarily so.
You’ve chosen today’s world in a
town you can find your way around blindfolded. Your reader doesn’t know the
world so you much provide them with information to draw them into the time and
place you’ve chosen.
I often use a hospital setting
in my contemporary stories. I’m a nurse so I’m familiar with the venue. Follow
me back in time to the day I finished my first complete novel. The book was
sent off. With the rejection letter came a helpful hint. “Your characters are
existing in a vacuum/” I rewrote the book piling on the physical set up of the
hospital, the unit and the patient rooms. Sent the book off again. Rejected
again with this hint. "You definitely have shown me the hospital but your
descriptions haven’t put me there. Try using the senses.”
I was fortunate. In those days
editors wanted the full manuscript for fiction. Seldom happens today. So it’s
up to you and me to create a setting the reader can step into.
One way to define a setting is
to go from the large to the small.
Here’s an example from Wolfblade
by Jennifer Fallon.
The hall was massive. Sixteen
glorious cut crystal candelabras showed warm yellow light over the numerous
arrivals. Musicians in a corner tuned their instruments. She caught a view of
the handsome smartly dressed young men who had come to the ball.
As you’re establishing the
setting, research is needed to help you focus on your world. Maps, descriptions
and pictures of settings, houses, and furniture can be found in books or the
internet. Since some of my stories are fantasies, I have copies of Archaeology
and National Geographic to look for places and ruins I can use. Television
programs can provide needed information.
I’ve published 2 books set in an
alternate Egypt .
They’re a cross between alternate world and pseudo-time travel. A documentary
about camels taught me something I needed to know since I had first just wanted
to use the ancient Egypt
at the time of the Hyksos invaders. Wrong. Though there were horses present at
this time there were no camels. I wanted camels so I created an alternate
ancient Egypt .
When weaving word tapestries a
light touch is good. Vivid words well chosen are a plus. Bogging the story down
with volumes of data and description send a reader to find another adventure.
I judge a number of contests for
unpublished and published writers. One was for the first chapter of a book. The
first paragraph introduced me to a pair of intriguing characters. Then page
after page the writer took me on a tour of a costal road detailing everything
seen in glowing detail. Though the descriptions were vivid, nothing happened
and earned the writer a low score.
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