I love when an author takes me from my living room couch to wherever it is they want me to go...
An island.
A small town.
A big city.
A library.
A crime scene.
A wedding.
It's my chance to escape, to experience another culture, and/or to live somewhere different for even just a few hours. And when the author can make that setting come alive for me by way of all five senses...even better.
Last year I spent a few semesters teaching a creative writing class at a local community college. Each week, for six weeks, we looked at the basics (characters, setting, dialogue, etc.). Setting, by far, was one of my favorites. It was the one topic that consistently electrified my classroom, session after session.
It was fun to get my students to look at a particular setting by way of their five senses (for example: New York...what would you see, taste, hear, feel, smell) and then to examine it again under different circumstances (New York, once again. This time, though, in a snow storm).
Why? Because using one's senses makes "place" come alive for your reader. If you do it well, you can virtually pick your readers up off their couches and set them down in the middle of your story.
For a reader it doesn't get any better than that.
So let's give it a shot. If you're game, click on comments and try describing a place (your choice) using as many of your five senses as possible. Then we'll see if we can figure out where you've placed us. Or...tell us the name of a book where setting was so skillfully crafted that you actually felt as if you were there.
~Laura
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7 comments:
Bouganvilla grew wild at the front door and he paused, removing his sunglasses, before he slid his hand past sharp thorns to the buzzer. If chimes sounded inside the house, he couldn't hear them above the roar of the surf that pounded the shore beyond the dunes. The tide was on the rise. Soon, the salted air would drown the lemony scent of scattered citrus trees.
Wow. VERY nice, Leigh. The idea of being that close to the ocean is calming yet the unkempt feel around the door gives a bit of a chill.
VERY nice.
I'm chickening out on the five senses part,so I'll choose the OR part. I have to vote for Carol Goodman and her settings.
MarcieR
And apparently I can't follow direction either! So - I choose ALL of Carol Goodman's books!
MarcieR
Rachael heard a crack behind her. Turning around would just slow her down and she was having enough problems running on this steep grade. It was just an animal stepping on a branch, she told herself. Her heart was pounding in her chest and her mouth was dry from the dust that floated around her. Her foot caught a tree root sticking up out of the foot worn trail and she went down hard on the dirt. She smelled the salty sweat coming off the runner who was fast approaching. She held her hands in front of her to protect herself from the blow.
"Miss, are you alright?"
She opened her eyes and looked up at the man leaning over her. It wasn't George, she had been running from a ghost.
Probably not setting, but what I wanted to write. LOL
LOL, MarcieR. Directions, smirections. You did fine!
Nice,Lynn. I'd say it was a little setting intertwined with plot and that works! It keeps the setting alive, helps take readers into a shift, etc.
Thanks it is nice .... I can work alive ... very top...
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