 Fantasy: January 14, 2009 Issue [#2827] |
  Fantasy
This week: Edited by: Storm Machine  
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“All knowledge is worth having.” Jacqueline Carey |
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Setting the Scene
This is important in every kind of writing, but none more than speculative fiction. How you set your scene describes whether or not it is a science fiction or fantasy from the first pages. Even in a novel series, it doesn’t matter if you end up switching from one category to another – how it starts is where it will be marketed and published.
In a workshop, the author described an unset scene like watching a play:
First the characters are talking, then the phone rings. A stage hand puts a phone in the room for the audience to see, then the character answers. Next a second character wants to sit, so said stage hand runs out with a chair for the character to sit on.
It could be comedic for a play. Unfortunately, when we do this in our writing we only confuse the reader. There is a happy medium between descriptive details of every single item in the room and enough to show the reader where the characters are.
At the workshop, the author labeled my chapter with several comments relating to setting the scene. She wrote several notes about this, like “we’re not human?” on page 1, “we have a mane?” on page 2, and “I is russet [colored]?” on page 13. It’s funny to think about it that way, reading along and discovering something that goes against the inner picture. Sometimes it’s difficult for the writer to see it, because we have most of those details firmly in our mind when we write it.
Look at your story. Have you made it clear to your reader who, what, when, where and why? It doesn’t need to be ten pages of exposition to show the wallpaper and the carpet colors – unless that is going to be important. Know what you’re going to use and put it in the reader’s head as well as your own. If halfway through your novel your character comes by some important ingredient to a potion and packs it in her bag for future use, when you use it for a purpose they’re going to remember. If in the meantime that bag containing important items gets left behind while crossing a river, they’re going to pick that up, too. |
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UPDATED Ch. 1 of magical fantasy - twin brothers' destiny to save world from Darkness.
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