Setting is an essential element in any story. It provides context and a space for your characters. When wielded properly, it can do more than simply list what your characters can see. It can support every other aspect of your writing.
The last blog covered the basics of setting. Now it’s time to explore ways to use setting to its best advantage.
Story requires place to make it come alive. Writing setting is much like the job of a set designer for the stage or screen. The trick is to discover ways to bring your setting to life. This may mean describing a building, a forest, a living room or some other place where your characters can move about their lives. This is setting. It includes everything from location to descriptions of the dishes on the kitchen table.
Living a freelance life has its advantages and disadvantages. Sure, you can write in your pajamas, but you can also be left waiting by the mailbox waiting for that check to arrive so you can pay your mortgage. But you get to be in control of your work and your life.
The benefits will vary depending on the person. What I find an advantage someone else may not, but here is how I see it:
Show versus Tell is an age old battle for writers. Deciding when to show your world to your readers and when to tell them facts is a balancing act. Good writing requires both styles. In the last blog, we covered when to tell. This blog focuses on showing—the powerhouse of writing.
Showing gives your reader a more immersive experience. It’s the difference between reading a newspaper article and a novel. One gives the facts with a sprinkling of details and description. The other invites the reader to experience the story along with the character. It’s engaging.
Every writer has learned the first rule of writing: “Show don’t tell.” It is the preeminent bit of advice for writers of all levels and yet it remains one of the most misunderstood and confusing rules. Sure, it’s easy to understand why you shouldn’t tell your story from start to end like a person at the party who keeps saying, “…and then we…” with no end to the boredom. But it is not so easy to figure out what telling is versus showing. Sometimes they seem a lot alike. It all depends on how you write. The truth is good writing combines both showing and telling.
There are three main types of character arcs: positive, negative and flat/static. This is the third of three blogs that will analyze these types of character arcs. (Warning: spoilers ahead.)
There are three main types of character arcs: positive, negative and flat/static. This is the second of three blogs that will analyze these types of character arcs. (Warning: spoilers ahead.)
There are three main types of character arcs: positive, negative and flat/static. This is the first of three blogs that will analyze the three types. First up: Positive arcs. Caution: Spoilers ahead.
This is the final blog in a short series about developing a character arc. The first blog defined the character arc and its importance. The second discussed how to begin developing that arc. This final blog offers concrete steps to take to create a fully developed character:
Writing a character is like giving birth to a fully grown person. You are in charge of making them from how they look, walk, speak, act and everything else that comprises a person. Here are some tips to bring them to life:
Characters need to be a fully realized, complex people with virtues and flaws. They need convictions and fears, hopes and worries, and skills to help and hurt their progress. Most importantly, they need to change. This is the crux of character development. But how do you do that?
When we read a story, we want to get pulled into the lives of the characters on the page, to connect and engage. We want to struggle with them. Fall in love. Experience everything they do. We want to see them change. That’s how their journey becomes ours.
It doesn’t matter how amazing a setting or world is if there is no character for us to identify with or rail against. It’s the characters who pull us into and through the story. Characters who prevail and share their triumphs and failures with us. Ideally, these characters change somewhere between the beginning and the end.
The course of a character’s story is called a character arc.
Story is everything. It’s the prime initiative. The raison d’être. Nothing should subjugate it. Nothing be held higher or given more attention. Sounds simple, right? Not so much.
I recently read a story that had amazing detail, setting, and concept, but the author spent so much time pushing her agenda she lost the thread of the story. It was lost among the message. It didn’t help that she presented her story in a fractured timeline, destroying any chance for tension. The characters were subservient to the setting. The setting used mostly as evidence in proving her cause. It was a missed opportunity. The book could have been great. It had all the elements, but needed editing and a strong hand.
There are steps you can take to ensure your story remains at the forefront. The biggest is to understand the big ways you can go off track. Here are some things have a tendency to take over: