I cannot believe it has been a week already! Hopefully, we can take a look at the setting for the characters in our stories to shine.
The setting is always very important in your story because of imagery and believability. No matter if you are writing a short play, screenplay, novel, or non-fiction, etc., the setting is very, very important.
The general setting will reflect the time period and the events that take place in the story will happen "IN" the setting. The setting is like a movie scene, but on paper and will give the reader a good visual almost immediately. It also provides necessary background in setting up your plot.
The use of exact descriptive words will help make it easier to write a good setting, too. For example, using these words: "a brownstone place of worship" can be more simply stated as: "the brownstone church." The color of the church creates an immediate visual nicely.
Now, we can write: "The organ pipes in the brown church reached all the way to the sky." This gives the reader a bigger visual of that same brown church. Throw in an "electrified" choir and "miles" of pews and you have a mega church for your setting.
Now, if we spend a lot of time describing the church, then the church should be the setting for the introduction of the character. If you spend a lot of time describing the church and then there is no action between the church and the characters, this makes the story appear loosely organized and leaves the reader wondering "Why?" These "unnecessary" details will begin to alienate your reader.
Also, how your character feels about the setting is very useful in giving the reader images as well and developing a bond. How will your character relate to his or her setting? How will your character move from setting to setting? What is your character's attitude about the setting? What year or time period is your setting? Your character can reveal the time period nicely in the story line, too.
I don't know if I mentioned this or not, but you will sooner or later learn, that Zora Neale Hurtson is my favorite Author of all time. (Don't get me started-smile). (Uh-hmm). Ok, if your character loves his or her hometown, use a few warm and fuzzy words in describing their neighborhood or home or moving about the setting from chapter to chapter and be consistent. This means that if the character moves out of the hometown, once or twice down the road in later chapters, they can reflect on their hometown with pleasant memories or vice versa.
Zora was naturally expert at settings and could move readers smoothly from chapter to chapter and book to radio without missing a beat. Her characters are consistent throughout the story. Using an example from "Dust Tracks On A Road," Zora offers great examples of giving her characters the perfect setting.
Zora's descriptive word choices such as: "a Negro town," and "dark and bloody" gives readers strong images of a hometown setting which is "burly," and "boiling," and "hard-hitting." Then comes the character: "...walked one day a "heavy-muscled mulatto..." (Page 7)
In this example, Zora has accomplished giving readers a picture of a predominantly black, tough town lacking unity (distant, cold) and then she introduces a character that is just as tough as the town and cold -- John. This is a perfect match of character and setting.
Also, in "Dust Tracks On A Road," Zora writes that: "John Hurtson in his late twenties, had left Macon County, Alabama, because the ordeal of share-cropping on a southern Alabama cotton field was crushing to his ambition. There was no rise to the thing." (Page 7).
Here we "see" how John definitely did not like his hometown or the labor of share-cropping and John aspired for a better life. There was no changing his mind either. We have an "image" of him being a tough black man in his early twenties. John also tells the reader the time period was during the era when "share-cropping" was the main employment for blacks. Zora is now preparing the reader smoothly for a change of setting because John hates the hometown. In doing this, the reader will be expecting that the tough character, John, will champion over all adversities. We like him already, don't we? And that makes us readers want to turn to the next chapter.
Next week, we will take a closer look at organzing the perfect plot. That gives us a whole week to work on our main character and setting.
TIP: Use index cards to jot down notes about your character image in each chapter you are working on as well as the setting. This keeps you focused and choosing only the necessary descriptive words. Now, where is my Thesaurus...(Uh-hmm)?
See ya next week,
Posted By: agnes levine
Saturday, January 23rd 2010 at 11:05AM
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