Don't Underestimate Importance of Setting in Your Stories

 Blog Post:  Setting a Novel at Burning Man Festival

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My Burning Man boots after a dust storm

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How does an author invigorate her plot?

When you are stumped on moving a plot line forward, what do you do to reinvigorate your imagination?

Ah! Excellent topic this month, the “stuck” plot. In my experience, when you are “stumped” in your story, it’s because something is wrong with the plot. If you try to analyze what’s wrong, and come up with nothing, it’s time to step away and regroup.

Flee the house and the computer. 

Botanic Garden Montreal

Get into nature with a long walk, maybe someplace new or to your favorite park or Audubon preserve.  There is something about using your own feet to cover ground and look at trees, water, birds, critters or flowers that is a very human experience, by which I mean that people have been doing this—walking through nature for millennia.  No idea why, but it does something to the mind. It loosens it.

 

Montreal Botanic
Garden

   If you’re not a nature lover, visit one of your city’s museums.The paintings are stories made with ink and color, the sculptures tell a story in metal or clay. Photography may also inspire you. Walk around, look at art. Become inspired.

Think about your setting. Is it as vibrant as possible? Is the reader always right in the scene? Could it contribute something new to the story?

View from Whitney Museum New York City

Your characters? Look at people. Listen to them talk. Are your characters fully developed or do they need more work?  

 

A face with character!

But if you are “stuck,” it’s probably the plot.  If you are a “pantser,” which means writing from the seat of your pants with no outline, jump ahead in the story if you can.  Maybe writing a new scene will inform the one you’re finding so stale. If you have an outline or have sketched out your story, you can jump ahead and write one of the “big” scenes. Really dig into it. You can return to the “stuck” scene later.

Another idea! Do some research. Maybe you don’t know enough about what you are trying to write. Possibly knowing more about the situation (again think setting and characters, too) will help you move forward. 

Congo Mask - MFA Boston

Go to a movie, a good movie, not an “explosion” movie. Find something you would never think to, maybe at an art house.  Let yourself get lost in it.

Yet another idea!  Go to a concert.  I find chamber music or something classical sets my mind loose, but you may prefer pop or rock of country.   

 

Tanglewood Shed at Concert Time

Maybe the scene you’re stuck on doesn’t really belong in your story.  Can you skip it? Is it in the right point of view?  Visualize it in your head. Is there drama? Conflict? Is the plot moving forward? Or is this just filler that you don’t need?  

Watch Out for Rattlesnakes on Restroom Floor  - San Gabriel Mountains - CA

The writers below also have interesting thoughts on this topic: 

Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/
A.J. Maguire  http://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/
Anne de Gruchy https://annedegruchy.co.uk/category/blog/
Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Victoria Chatham http://www.victoriachatham.com
Marie Laval http://marielaval.blogspot.co.uk/
Dr. Bob Rich http://wp.me/p3Xihq-137
Helena Fairfax http://www.helenafairfax.com/blog
Fiona McGier http://www.fionamcgier.com/
Heather Haven http://heatherhavenstories.com/blog/
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Rhobin Courtright http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com

What Makes a Novel Memorable?

There are books we remember and books we forget. Sometimes we may forget most of the book but remember a character or a setting we found particularly appealing. Every writer hopes her novel or short story will be memorable. What, then, makes a reader always remember a book?

 Great characters. Atticus? Scout? They live in our memory long after the story has faded. Madam Bovary? Han Solo? Hannibal Lecter?  Memorable characters don’t always have to be good, but they have to capture our imagination. Every writer would like to know how to create characters so memorable they can’t be forgotten. I am thinking of Lolita and Humbert Humbert.  The reader won’t forget those two. It helps if a character is somehow unique. Think of Natasha and Pierre in War and Peace. Pierre is not your everyday hero.  War and Peace
I hope I have set you to thinking.

What else makes a book memorable? An intriguing setting will do that, be it Middle Earth or Tony Hillerman’s New Mexico. Empty spaces in the barren desert, but oh, how he makes us remember them. We remember Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn, too. Do you remember each story? Maybe not so much, but you recall the characters and the setting.  Tony Hillerman

My friend and fellow writer Ray Daniel has a mystery series set in Boston. Ray is a native and he knows the area well and his descriptions are spot on. Be brings you to Boston. His character, Tucker is also memorable because he’s a little odd. He’s a techy, but sometimes he’s not very smart and he is likely to break into tears in the course of a book. The combination of Tucker and Boston are pretty much irresistible. Ray Daniel

 Which brings me to Voice. Tucker has a memorable voice, and we do remember voices in books. Think of Scarlet O’Hara. She had it in spades. Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Milhone does, too. If someone ripped the cover off these books, you could still recognize the voices. The thing about voice is, it’s hard to teach.  You either have it or you don’t.

The last thing that makes a novel memorable is, of course, the story, and many writing teachers will tell you a good story trumps everything, but I disagree. Naturally there has to be a story, and we hope it will be good, but the best plot won’t be memorable with cardboard characters, generic settings and a blah voice. 

Writers work hard to bring you their best efforts. What books do you particularly remember? One of my favorites is the Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell. Each book is narrated by a different character, all unique.  The city, Alexandria, comes alive. You can see it, feel it, small it, and immerse yourself into it. The stories have intrigue and politics and love affairs with quite a few surprises, but it is the characters and the setting and the characters’ voices that last in memory.

 The Alexandria Quartet

Here are some great bloggers with good ideas about what makes a memorable novel. 

Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Dr. Bob Rich  http://wp.me/p3Xihq-I4
Victoria Chatham http://victoriachatham.blogspot.ca
Helena Fairfax  http://helenafairfax.com/
Marci Baun  http://www.marcibaun.com/blog/
Rachael Kosinski http://rachaelkosinski.weebly.com/
Connie Vines http://connievines.blogspot.com/
Rhobin Courtright http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com