Writers in the Storm

Lori Freeland

You might’ve heard that setting can be a character in your story. But did you know that setting can be as crucial to your story as your character? Location matters. Imagine if The Shining took place in a quaint bed and breakfast with an uplifting soundtrack? Or if the house Noah lovingly built for Allie in The Notebook turned out to be haunted like the mansion in The Haunting of Hill House?

The way you stage the setting in your story deepens the experience for both the character and the reader. Whether you’re being blatant or subtle, dropping heavy detail or sprinkling light clues, how you present a place tells readers how to feel about it.

We tend to form impressions of people the first time we meet them—whether we mean to or not. We do the same with places. The first time a new setting is introduced, the reader will form a lasting impression. That’s the image they’ll pull up on their mental movie screen every time that location makes an appearance. Let’s make sure they’re seeing what you want them to see and feeling what you want them to feel.

In BRING YOUR BOOK TO LIFE PART I, we talked about character descriptions. If you missed that post, you can find it here: Characters Are People Too.

THE SET UP

The Unveiling

Readers can’t see what you don’t show. Give the most description the first time we visit a new place, or all the reader will see is a white room.

Example: The city of Runaway hit its peak in the late ’60s with a storefront combination city hall, sheriff’s office, pizza place, post office, and library—if library meant a couple hundred donated paperback romance novels.

Example: The sixties had birthed this office. Shaggy avocado carpet covered the floor. Old books with multicolored spines bulged from bowed shelves that lined two of the four walls floor to ceiling. The hulking bookcases gave the room an I’m-closing-in-on-you feel.

Consider pointing out what’s not there—or what’s missing that should be there—to help paint a strong picture.

Example: There were no couches or lounges. Just an ugly metal desk, a tall gray filing cabinet, and two retro command chairs that could have come off the set of the original Star Trek.

The Return

When you take us back to a place you’ve already introduced, give a small reminder that brings back your original description.

Example: I leaned against the hulking bookcase and glanced down at the stiff shag carpet wondering just how crunchy it would feel under my toes if I kicked off my shoes.    

Universal Places

Sometimes you don’t need an actual physical description. Using common places that most people are familiar with gives an immediate picture.

Example: If Gwyn had to spend one more second pushing through the crowd at Macy’s, this would be her last ever black Friday.

It works the same way with phrases. And places can have personalities too.

Example: It didn’t help that I was alone in a house that was more “modern mausoleum” than “contemporary living.”

Paint the White Room

Don’t be mysterious in a scene opening and wait to let us know where your characters are. Part of writing a good visual is giving that visual up front. Unless your character doesn’t know where she is, we need to know.

Is your scene inside? Outside? In a car? In an office? A restaurant? A house? If you don’t tell us, we might catch on eventually, but we’ll be so busy trying to figure it out, we’ll miss what’s actually going on in the story. Plus, you’ve lost the opportunity to pull “setting” out of your writer’s toolbox and use it.  

Example: Kim stretched her legs under the table, bumping her son’s foot with her sandal.

Jason glanced away, his lips pale and his face chalky. Not the best look for a ten-year-old and light years from his usual light-up-the-room smile. 

The drone of conversation buzzed through the clinic’s congested coffee shop like annoying insects Kim wanted to swat away. Two nurses in cartoon scrubs waited for their early-morning caffeine fix while a guy in a suit held up the line ordering some complicated latte he should’ve gotten from Starbucks. 

(Immediately we know Kim is sitting at a table with Jason in a busy coffee shop that’s also located in a medical setting, and not for a good reason.)

Example: Jason shivered even though the sun-warmed leather seat of Mom’s van burned his back. People walked across the parking lot and disappeared inside the clinic. But no one looked at him. Or Mom. Sort of like they were invisible.

(Immediately we know Jason is in Mom’s van in a clinic parking lot, and it’s probably mid-afternoon because the seat is warm.)

GET IN THE MOOD

Atmosphere is Everything

Example: The faint glow of the fireplace and a few table lamps cast the sunken living room in a mix of light and shadow. A brown sofa on a thick bearskin rug faced the hearth. Two overstuffed loveseats and a cherry coffee table completed the conversation area. Compared to the cutting chill of my current company, the chalet teased me with visions of books, blankets, and endless mugs of hot chocolate.

Make an Emotional Connection

How your character feels about a place deepens the physical description.

Example: Oak Cliff High: Preparatory Academy and Boarding School. Breeder of the best. Alma mater to the elite. Nanny for the neglected. And—thanks to some poor choices I’d made my first week here—my hell away from home freshman, sophomore, and now junior year.

The Words You Say

Word choice conveys mood. You’d describe a church differently during a funeral than you would a wedding. The flowers and music and the actions of the people entering the pews would be completely opposite. Use power words to increase tension. Use calming words to diffuse tension.

False Advertising

Don’t open with a Children of the Corn setting, then write a light-hearted comedy. If your story isn’t horror or a mystery or a thriller, don’t write a spooky setting just because it sounds good. You’ll set your reader up with expectations you don’t plan to fulfill.

KEEP IT REAL

Know Your Geography

Unless you’re writing a futuristic, alternate-reality, or fantasy novel, it won’t be sunny and eighty-five degrees in Wisconsin in January. And you won’t be climbing a mountain in downtown Dallas.

Research. Act like you’re planning a vacation. Look at pictures, visit the city’s tourist websites, read about the climate. Even if you invent your own setting, make sure it gels with the geography and climate.  

The Right Reaction

Your characters should react to the setting the way you’ve described it, unless you give them a reason not to. A former SEAL who survives a plane crash in the jungle is going to see and handle his unexpected setting differently than a thirteen-year-old boy on his first flight alone.  

How your character reacts to setting tells the reader how to react. If you want your reader to be upset, your character needs to be upset. But remember to show, not tell.

Example: I make it as far as the great room before flashbacks rev my heart and slow my steps, kicking me into a mental spin of my last night here with Mom.

Splintered picture frames. Shattered glass. Broken lamps. Books thrown everywhere. My sister in the corner, hands over her ears in makeshift armor against Mom’s irrational rant. David and his sway-the-jury voice trying to talk Mom down. Me, frozen in the fallout, my world blasted into so many fragments there was no chance in hell I was ever getting my old life back.

I blink, and everything’s back in place. Mom’s paint-spatter art hangs on the wall in brand new frames. The contemporary lamps have been replaced. Her self-help books line the bookshelves.

Spotlight What’s Important

If you want something to stand out to the reader, it needs to stand out to your character. Shine a light on what you want us to know is important. At the same time, don’t point out what’s not important. If you spotlight something, readers will expect you to do something with it.

Example: We reach the thick, iron gates of The Oasis a century before I’m ready, and Jess stares out the window. This place is a lot to take in with its estate-like stucco buildings, golf-course lawn, patches of giant oaks, and the fancy pond that’s trying and failing to impersonate a lake.

Her gaze moves toward the gates as if she’s searching for a sign that will tell her where we are. She won’t find one. “This is where your mom lives?”  

“For the last thirteen weeks, three days.” I rub my fist against what feels like a pair of spurred cowboy boots two-stepping across my chest.

(I’ve put this place in the spotlight. Which is great if it’s crucial to the story. You expect it to be. But if it’s just a place in passing, do you see how I’ve set you up for disappointment?)

DON’T BLANK OUT THE BACKGROUND

The background provides the backdrop for your setting. Characters aren’t usually alone in public places. Don’t forget to show us what’s going on around your character. This is also where your characters senses come into play. Think about smells, sounds, and the way things feel.

Example: In some cruel kind of karma, a slow, steady stream trickled behind Claire’s grave. The late afternoon service had ended fifteen minutes earlier, but people were still filing out of the rows of folding chairs under the royal blue canopy behind us, murmuring to each other.

Example: Donuts lined the kitchen counter. The smell of powdered sugar swelled into a phantom pastry that stuck in my throat. Swallowing hard, I turned away and went back upstairs.  

Example: A breeze blew through the perfectly manicured trees dotting the landscape and raised an army of goosebumps on my arms.

TIME

Readers will assume it’s daytime if you don’t paint a picture that shows it’s not. They’ll also assume you’re in present time. Point out a different time period. If your story is set in the past, future, or in an alternate world, this is where worldbuilding begins. Description is crucial. Especially in your opening.

WEAVE DESCRIPTION INTO YOUR SCENE

Instead of information dumping, try weaving your setting into the action.

Example: I pull my ’69 mustang along the curb behind David’s boring black sedan. That’s where I lock my gaze. Not on the iron gates to my right or the sprawling estate behind them that could be a fancy bed-and-breakfast—but isn’t. 

NOT ENOUGH OR TOO MUCH?

Use pacing to decide how much setting description you need. If Maddy’s running through the woods to get away from a clown with a machete, we’d expect description that’s short and choppy. If she’s walking into a famous cathedral she’s always wanted to visit, we’d expect longer, more descriptive prose.

Finally, keep in mind The Big Picture. Think like a reader. We can’t see the beautiful images you’ve crafted in your mind—unless you show us. Look with fresh eyes at what you might be missing. Did you mean to set your characters in a forest but forgot to write in the trees? Ask your critique partners or your beta readers if they really feel like they’re standing next to your characters.

Have any other setting ideas? Please share in the comments.  

ABOUT LORI:

An encourager at heart, author, editor, and writing coach Lori Freeland believes everyone has a story to tell. She holds a BA in psychology from the University of Wisconsin and currently lives in the Dallas area. She’s presented multiple workshops at writer’s conferences across the country and writes everything from non-fiction to short stories to novels—YA to adult. When she’s not curled up with her husband drinking too much coffee and worrying about her kids, she loves to mess with the lives of the imaginary people living in her head. You can find Where You Belong, as well as her young adult and contemporary romance, at lorifreeland.com and her inspirational blog and writing tips at lafreeland.com. Her latest release, The Accidental Boyfriend, is currently up on the Radish app. Download the app for free. 

Lori Freeland Author/Editor/Writing Coach
lorifreeland.com (young adult website)
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Orly Konig

On October 8, 2015 I fell in love with a seed of a story idea. Over the years, that seed has sprouted countless offshoots and grown into a full-blown story tree. But that lovely story tree has been dropping its lemons on my head faster than squirrels dive-bombing for gourmet roasted nuts.

I’ve worked on this book a number of times over the years only to be interrupted by publishing deadlines (don’t you hate it when that happens?) and life (seriously, the nerve?!). A few months ago, though, I dusted it off, this time with a deadline (mercy!). This is not my first book. As a matter of fact, I think it’s the fifth or sixth one I’ve written. I’ve mostly honed-in on a process that works for me. I know that process shifts some, but for the most part, I have the confidence to know I’ll start and find my way to the end. 

But once in a while (okay, I probably say this about every story, every time, all the time), you come across a book that wants to kill you. Last June, I pulled this story seed out of the idea greenhouse and started working on it in earnest. There’s been growth and pruning, sour fruit to dump, and juice worthy beauties. Most of the time, though, I feel like I have a bullseye on my head.

But with that deadline looming, it was time to rethink a few beliefs …

1) GPS doesn’t necessarily work in the thick of the trees. For anyone who’s read my previous blog posts or followed me on this writing journey, you know I call myself a “pantser with suspenders.” I don’t outline and I don’t plot where the story will go. What I will do though, is mind-map story threads and brainstorm ten things that will happen to my main character throughout the book (small or large, it doesn’t matter).  Armed with those seeds, I dive in and find my way to the other end. 

Except that this book has been a work-in-(some)-progress for over three years now. I stopped working on it when my debut was acquired and revisions came in. I stopped again when my second book was acquired and needed a drastic overhaul. And I stopped again when life took a detour and took my energy and focus with it.

Sometimes the map you’ve used, the process you’ve perfected, the plan you careful outlined stop working. Sometimes they can actually take you in the wrong direction. Without my trusted process, I felt lost and unsteady. Could I even write another book? At some point, I had to admit that my directions I was clinging to weren’t taking me to where I needed to get. I had to let go and start trusting my instincts and ability instead. 

2) It’s okay to backtrack in order to make forward progress.Part way through the first draft, I realized I was missing something big. This lemon tree was growing sideways. So I brainstormed and story-boarded and came up with a brilliant (if I do say so myself) plan. I usually do this after the first draft is complete but this time, because of the starts and stops over so many years, I stopped writing before the first draft was complete, and started revising.  

And it seemed to be going well. Except that reams of paper later, I lost confidence in my new roadmap. Were these changes working or was I repeating myself? Was the scene I just referenced in an earlier chapter or something I remembered that was later in the book or one I’d actually deleted? One step forward, three back. 

For the third time, I abandoned my trusted process before reaching the end of the draft. The last third of this book was still in my head (and sort of in my notes) when I started typing in those new changes. This book doesn’t have an end yet (yes, it’s making me seriously twitchy, what gave me away?!) but by taking those steps backwards, I have a better view of where I’m going. 

3) Wear a helmet. Okay, not literally. That would just be weird and I’d hate for those pictures to show up on social media. This goes back to taking chances. If you’re worried about getting bonked on the head, you won’t look up as you wind your way through the word-forest. You’ll miss the detour signs and the amusing squirrels along the way. You’ll reach the end – whether it’s the right end or a dead end – without taking in the wonderous opportunities along the way.

So put on that imaginary helmet and look up, look around. Don’t be afraid to change course mid-way through a book or delete 2/3 of the first draft (yeah, that was a bit scary).

4) Buy margarita mix. Okay, I’m kidding. And not … celebrate your success (whether that’s with lemonade or margarita’s or chucking lemons at the people who leave rotten reveiws). Celebrate whatever success – every success – you can. Because, oh my god, you guys, there’s so much angst in writing. There’s the doubting if you’ll ever be able to reach the end and if you’ve forgotten how to string two sentences together and whether anyone other than your cat will ever be interested in what you’ve written (and said cat really only wants to shred the paper anyway).

*someone hand me the sugar please – I’ve just found a particularly sour lemon in this last chapter.* 

What’s your trick to get through a hard to wrangle manuscript? 

About Orly

Connect with Orly online at:Website: www.orlykonig.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OrlyKonigAuthor/
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by Tiffany Yates-Martin

You know that feeling—like you were coasting along on a greased golden road through your first draft (or second…or twelfth), and suddenly you come to a bone-jarring halt, like Wile. E. Coyote sent an avalanche right smack into your creative pathway.

Ka-pow, as the coyote would say: "writer’s block." I use quotes because I think getting stuck isn't the big scary monster it's often painted as—not a condition like a disease that must be cured, but rather a symptom of an underlying problem, the way a stuffy nose isn't your core problem when you have a cold.

So what’s causing your imagination congestion?

Reasons writers get stuck—whether in drafting or revising—contain multitudes…but I’ve found that often when characters are resisting and refusing to perform, it’s because the author (or sometimes the editor) is forcing them to go where they don’t want to go—pushing the story into a corner it doesn't want to be in. And, like the tantruming toddler who goes completely dead-limb when a parent tries to force him where he doesn’t want to go, your story can throw a resistance fit and go limp.

Writing is such a mystical process—an unlikely partnership of right and left brain, a delicate balance of inspiration and intention. Sometimes when the left brain takes the lead, the right brain rebels. A plot line or character arc may seem fantastic on paper…but as the story and the players begins to take shape they may change direction. If you keep slavishly trying to cleave to your original idea, inspiration often dries up.

I am a believer that you can't force a vision on a story--if you've created real, vivid characters and a juicy situation for them to live in, eventually it takes on a life of its own, and if you try to impose your will over the will of the characters they will freeze up. They will boycott you. Stephen King put it in a way I love in On Writing: You create the stage and the players, and then if you have done it well, the characters will get up there and perform the play in front of you. "What should happen next?" King asks. You will find out—they will come onstage and tell you. It’s miraculous, otherworldly, transcendent—and yet sometimes it’s hard to let go and let the muses have their way.

So how do you unclench and get unstuck?

First, give yourself some mental distance. I'm guessing you've heard this before, but if you’re stalled in a blind alley, stop driving forward. Get your brain out of that world for a while—distract yourself so your creative mind can take a step back, out of the maze, and recalculate.

Don’t just go work on another manuscript—that just keeps the screws turned on your poor overwrought mind. Studies have shown that “pushing through” mental strain is counterproductive.

Give your brain a break and let your body take the lead—go for a walk or a run or play Putt-Putt; take your dogs to a dog park (they will thank you); do yoga. Or wake up another part of your creative mind: paint; cook; garden; throw something on a pottery wheel. Or relax everything and de-stress: take a soothing bath; get a massage; meditate. One of my favorite ways to open up new ideas is by taking in someone else’s—read a book; go see a movie; binge-watch your favorite show.

The point is to force yourself away from your story—physically as well as mentally—so you can jostle yourself out of the track that keeps leading you into a dead end. But the magical thing is that while you’re ostensibly taking a break from the story, your characters are still bumping around on their own in the background, whether you realize it or not. Often once you come back to the desk, you’ll find they’ve solved the problem in your absence, and all you have to do is let them come onstage…and just watch.

If you come back and find things stalled right where you left them, here’s an exercise I love and often suggest to authors:

Write a scene—even just a throwaway scene—where, whatever you had planned for your characters, the exact opposite thing happens.

Do you want your protag to leave her husband and run away with her lover? Make her find out she's pregnant and can't leave. Make her husband get a terminal illness and she can't abandon him. Make her lover find out his ex is pregnant and he still loves her. You get the idea. Take the thing that ruins the story you are trying to tell—directly flies in the face of your intentions—and write the scene that way.

Notice that this is similar to the idea of torturing your characters. There's a reason that advice is so universally given: Conflict is juicy—and the bigger, the juicier. The scene that results may not be where the story ultimately goes--it probably won't be, because as you see I used extreme, bodice-ripping, melodramatic examples. But that's the idea—take the craziest, most completely opposite thing you can think of and write it, just as an exercise. More often than not, even if you don't use that actual idea it will jostle something loose, and you'll see an avenue out of your blind alley.

Just don’t keep banging your head against that same dead end and expecting something different to happen—for inspiration to suddenly descend. Because that, at the risk of clichéd writing, is the definition of insanity.

What do you do when your writing gets "stuck?" Please share your tips, tricks and woes in the comments!

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About Tiffany

Tiffany Yates Martin is privileged to help authors tell their stories as effectively, compellingly, and truthfully as possible. In more than 25 years in the publishing industry she’s worked both with major publishing houses and directly with authors (through her company FoxPrint Editorial), on titles by New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestsellers. She presents editing and writing workshops for writers’ groups, organizations, and conferences and writes for numerous writers’ sites and publications.