Setting the scene

Setting the scene (my haphazard contributions to writing advice continue)

 

I am an impatient reader. I don’t care for nature descriptions, and I am known to have skipped pages and pages when a fight scene was described (looking at you, book 3 of Hunger Games). All I’m interested in is what the characters did and why they did it. As I read, so I write. I mostly focus on the psychology of the characters and the actions they take in line with that. I focus on their thoughts, emotions and dialogue. I write the bare minimum related to surroundings. Which is wrong, of course. I can see the action vividly in my head, but I need to allow the reader to do that as well. And without proper setting of scene, that is not possible.

I really admire writers who make the setting an ‘additional character.’ You can feel yourself transposed into the environment where the characters are. You can see and smell and hear the surroundings.

 I barely give the GPS coordinates.

 

Francis Flaherty in The Elements of Story suggests:

‘The way to stir the dozing reader, to propel him down the river, is to exploit the five senses. How do you wake a sleeping teenager? Fry some bacon. The smell, so ethereal but so strong, will lift him right up, float him down the stairs and deposit him at the kitchen table, just as in a cartoon. Rouse your reader in the same way.’

 

I struggled with this for years until I did the course ‘Story doctor’ with Kate Forsyth. In the course, Kate explained how to make sure that every scene is grounded and engaging. This should not happen during the first or second draft, but once you’re sure you have figured out most other problems in the story. She advises to use different colours to highlight, using a different colour the following language in every scene: green for smell, read for hearing, blue for touching, etc.

If you don’t have at least three of the colours on every page, it means the reader will have a hard time picturing/feeling the scene, and you need to re-write and add one or two more of the senses to the scene.  

This has worked wonders for me. Over the years, I’ve gotten better, and I don’t highlight as religiously as I have in the past, but I still try to do it to every scene that I feel doesn’t quite work, and I don’t know what’s wrong with it.

(Kate recommends to save the yellow highlighter for adverbs. If you have more than three on a page, delete, delete, delete)

 

Resources:

Francis Flaherty’s book ‘The Elements of Story’ is written for non-fiction writers but is applicable to fiction writers as well. Chapter 19, ‘The Smell of Pleather,’ is dedicated to the five senses the writer needs to evoke in the reader.

Kate Grenville’s ‘The Writing Book’ is a treasure trove of advice and practice activities. Chapter 7, ‘Description,’ focuses on how to write good/relevant descriptions, followed by examples from literature and exercises.

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