Is Your Setting Hiding Behind a Bush?

What about setting?

Does your dialogue take over; so much so that you have no idea where your characters are standing, what colors surround them, how it smells in the summer where they are standing?

Yes, for some of us, using setting is sort of like plucking our eyebrows, either we do too much or we do too little.

What do you think this woman is saying to herself? What does the setting reveal?
Photo by: titoy', courtesy of Flickr

Here's how to balance it.

Start with what you do best. If it's dialogue, go at it. Get those characters speaking. If it's setting, get it all out; the smell of the grapes, the taste of the watermelon, how the light flickers off of  her hair, but get it out.

Now, after you've finished with your chapter, go back and fill in the gaps. You'll know where they are. Either you'll have dialogue with characters sort of floating somewhere, or you'll have tons of setting that is beautifully written but that really doesn't move your story along. Read what you've written out loud and make adjustments.

If you find that your dialogue and setting is fairly balanced, good for you! Go on to chapter 2. Continue the process until your book is finished.

If you need some help with dialogue: Record some dialogue at a restaurant you're at, in the bus or at a park. Play it back at home. Notice how people really speak and incorporate that into your story.

If you struggle with setting: Cut out some pictures from a magazine. Use them in a binder and when you feel the block coming on, open up the binder and choose a photo to write about.

Your setting might be beautiful, but is it too much?
Photo by: thekeithhall, courtesy of Flickr

You don't want your setting to get lost behind a bush, but neither do you want it to stand out like a sore thumb. You want readers to finish your book, not get bogged down because of all of the setting details.

I'm done. Now have some fun.

Editing Out Loud

If you read my blog yesterday, you'll know that I was struggling midway through my novel, The feast. Something wasn't right, and I had a pretty good idea what it was.


Photo by: *^ ^* Sherry, courtesy of Flickr

Still, I printed out all of the pages I'd written so far, got a black Sharpie and began to edit. I read out loud for almost 2 1/2 hours. (Sure, my voice was a little foggy for awhile, but it was worth it).



Mikelao26, courtesy of Flickr
My favorite to edit.

To find mistakes it's important to read your manuscript out loud. I found typos, weirdly constructed sentences, and yep, that problem with tension. What was I doing, placing the ending scene before it was time? No wonder my book was climbing and then suddenly falling off the cliff.

The mistake occurred on page 45. I took the entire scene out and placed it at the end of the book. Though I realized that the last scene wasn't complete, some ideas came to me that would end the story in a way that felt good to me.

I finally knew something about the last line and I was pretty excited about that.

Still am.

Anyway, I have this hole, so to speak, that needs to be filled before the lovely ending that I got a head-start on. The trauma, the pains and everything that Virginia experiences must be lived and breathed before that moment in time when I can finally write the ending.

It just has to be that way. For the sake of a good story, and for the expectations of my readers.

In a nutshell, FOR YOU.

Happy reading and writing!

Kathryn