Writing Active Setting Book 1: Characterization and Sensory Detail Read Online Free
Author: Mary Buckham
these stories, too much Setting description that adds little to the story can leave readers dead in the water.
In the following example a young woman has gone missing after having car trouble near a well-known cemetery.
Erin knew the road: a narrow strip of pavement that ran a few blocks alongside the sprawling cemetery’s high chain-link fence. There was a park on the other side of the road — with a smaller, unfenced, old cemetery for Veterans of Foreign Wars. Only a block away, quaint, charming houses bordered the park, but there was something remote and slightly foreboding about that little back road — especially at night. Surrounded by so many graves, it was an awfully scary spot to have car problems.
– Final Breath – Kevin O’Brien
The last sentence is the reason for the Setting description. I f O’Brien had chosen to simply write:
Surrounded by so many graves, it was an awfully scary spot to have car problems and skimped on Setting and word choices that created an emotional feel for where the incident happened, the tension and conflict in the story would have been lessened because y ou as the reader would have been told the Setting was scary , but not shown that it was scary. T he story question raised — what happened to the missing girl — would not be as strong. But O’Brien did not need to go into other details about this cemetery — about the fact it’s the largest in Seattle, or is the final resting place for Bruce Lee and his son Brandon, or is one of the oldest cemeteries in the community. So a brief three- sentence description, followed by that key summation line, did its job to show you where the incident happened and why it was plausible that this girl disappeared in this location .
ASSIGNMENT :
P ART 1 : Describe a tree, a house , and a car from your own POV . No right or wrong here, as we’re trying to establish your basel ine way to use description and Setting . Do this part of the assignment before you look at Part 2. If it helps, think in terms of your story and as you describe a tree, a house , and a car.
P ART 2 : Notice your default way of describing elements of a Setting . Look to see if you write with too much information, not enough, with vague word choices. To help you , I’ve included some example s of these issues.
Intention: This is to determine how you most naturally write Setting elements. It’s hard to change what we don’t understand.
Some writers will write really long descriptions s uch as this tree description :
A Utah pine , I suppose. I know it wasn't an alligator. Remembering, I'd say the trunk was about a foot through, but the reason for the tree's importance was a lightning strike that burnt out the core. So the tree was alive on the outside and dead in the middle. The lowest limbs got thick as trunks and the branches went out and up. The shape was perfect for a tree house. After the dead middle trunk was cut off level with the live limbs that is. Scrounged pieces of 2x4 and small offcuts of plywood formed the tree house, which we lined with gunny sacking to make it feel like a real house. Slept in that tree more than once. Now a road goes over where the tree was. I reckon it provided winter fuel for someone's fireplace. The old jailhouse, though, still stands not a hundred yards away.
L ots of det ails in this description, too many as you the reader can get easily shifted from focusing on a specific tree to a lot of other issues, a character’s back story, how the character feels ab out the absence of the tree, a secondary building that’s now on the site . This example lets this writer know that he might need to pull in and focus the read er more on the tree description.
Over-describing can cause you story issues that will impact your pacing and frustrate your reader. The most important world-building aspect in the above example is the description of the tree as alive on the outside , but dead on the inside. This
In the following example a young woman has gone missing after having car trouble near a well-known cemetery.
Erin knew the road: a narrow strip of pavement that ran a few blocks alongside the sprawling cemetery’s high chain-link fence. There was a park on the other side of the road — with a smaller, unfenced, old cemetery for Veterans of Foreign Wars. Only a block away, quaint, charming houses bordered the park, but there was something remote and slightly foreboding about that little back road — especially at night. Surrounded by so many graves, it was an awfully scary spot to have car problems.
– Final Breath – Kevin O’Brien
The last sentence is the reason for the Setting description. I f O’Brien had chosen to simply write:
Surrounded by so many graves, it was an awfully scary spot to have car problems and skimped on Setting and word choices that created an emotional feel for where the incident happened, the tension and conflict in the story would have been lessened because y ou as the reader would have been told the Setting was scary , but not shown that it was scary. T he story question raised — what happened to the missing girl — would not be as strong. But O’Brien did not need to go into other details about this cemetery — about the fact it’s the largest in Seattle, or is the final resting place for Bruce Lee and his son Brandon, or is one of the oldest cemeteries in the community. So a brief three- sentence description, followed by that key summation line, did its job to show you where the incident happened and why it was plausible that this girl disappeared in this location .
ASSIGNMENT :
P ART 1 : Describe a tree, a house , and a car from your own POV . No right or wrong here, as we’re trying to establish your basel ine way to use description and Setting . Do this part of the assignment before you look at Part 2. If it helps, think in terms of your story and as you describe a tree, a house , and a car.
P ART 2 : Notice your default way of describing elements of a Setting . Look to see if you write with too much information, not enough, with vague word choices. To help you , I’ve included some example s of these issues.
Intention: This is to determine how you most naturally write Setting elements. It’s hard to change what we don’t understand.
Some writers will write really long descriptions s uch as this tree description :
A Utah pine , I suppose. I know it wasn't an alligator. Remembering, I'd say the trunk was about a foot through, but the reason for the tree's importance was a lightning strike that burnt out the core. So the tree was alive on the outside and dead in the middle. The lowest limbs got thick as trunks and the branches went out and up. The shape was perfect for a tree house. After the dead middle trunk was cut off level with the live limbs that is. Scrounged pieces of 2x4 and small offcuts of plywood formed the tree house, which we lined with gunny sacking to make it feel like a real house. Slept in that tree more than once. Now a road goes over where the tree was. I reckon it provided winter fuel for someone's fireplace. The old jailhouse, though, still stands not a hundred yards away.
L ots of det ails in this description, too many as you the reader can get easily shifted from focusing on a specific tree to a lot of other issues, a character’s back story, how the character feels ab out the absence of the tree, a secondary building that’s now on the site . This example lets this writer know that he might need to pull in and focus the read er more on the tree description.
Over-describing can cause you story issues that will impact your pacing and frustrate your reader. The most important world-building aspect in the above example is the description of the tree as alive on the outside , but dead on the inside. This
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