Here’s an example (from the wonderful Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier) of how theme and conflict can often best be conveyed by character action and interaction with concrete elements of the setting.
Setting Up the Setting in the Scene with ONE SENTENCE
Just in time for our Scenes Course, here’s a short discussion of setting up your setting (time/place) in the first paragraph of your story!
Setting Up The Setting: ONE SENTENCE c. by 2021 by Alicia Rasley
One of the purposes of the opening few paragraphs is to establish the setting. If the reader is going to embark on this fictive journey, he needs to know where we are, and when we are, right? We can establish the larger setting with a tagline after the chapter heading:
Topeka, August, Sunset
June 1815, Waterloo
... if we want to-- that quickly establishes the overall limits of this world. But for the opening SCENE, how do we efficiently and evocatively establish where and when we are?
How about some sample lines that might appear in your own story's first couple paragraphs and tell the reader where this first scene is taking place, where and when the characters are?
The late afternoon light filtered in through the dirty store window.
New snow was piled another inch deep on the windowsill outside.
(Windows are useful because they show both inside and outside.)
Across the ballroom was a set of French doors, an escape out to the torchlit gardens.
To connect this to the character and event, maybe make the POV character do the perceiving, and react to it in some way:
Jamie squinted at the statue in the middle of the square, distinguishing through the glare of the noon sun the outline of a general on a horse. Gotta love England and its fixation on long-ago wars.
New snow piled up three inches deep on the windowsill outside, and Sarah pulled her shawl tighter.
Miss Carter stood in the doorway, surveyed her new kingdom, and started coughing. The early morning classroom smelled like chalk, pencil shavings, and teenaged hormones.
Across the ballroom was a set of French doors, Harry's escape out to the torchlit gardens.
This doesn't have to be done in all one sentence, of course, but I like to get clear early a few of these:
Where we are
Are we inside or outside
What time of day it is
Is it dark or light
What time of year it is or at least whether it's cold or hot
The POV character
That character's relation to the setting (Harry wanting to escape the ballroom)
Are there other people around
What it feels like there (stuffy or cold or crowded)
What's going on (a dance, a substitute teacher arriving, a chess game)
What the sound is like-- noisy, quiet
I find the last element harder to get in (sound), I guess because the opening is so often primarily visual. Hmm. Maybe sound is a good "entree"-- after all, often we hear before we see. Smell is very intrusive. So is sound:
Margaret closed her eyes to ward off the glare of the sun. She wished she could close her ears to keep out the sound of the chain saw butchering her old beloved oak tree.
Anyway, look at the first paragraphs of your own story, and maybe you can sneak in something, a line or two, that can establish "where and when" without getting out of the story?
Alicia www.aliciarasley.com www.plotblueprint.com Sign up for my email list for writing information.
If you're interested in the Building Bolder Scenes course, let me know!
here's the link again: http://bit.ly/building-bolder-scenes
What Harry Potter Can Teach Writers about the End of the Character Journey
Want to create an intense experience for the reader?
Start at the end! Craft the emotionally right end of the character journey.
Consider this: If your readers have gotten all this way to the end of your story, they know your characters and they know your story about as well as you do. Well, maybe not quite as well (but in some ways, maybe better!). Consciously or subconsciously, they know what the characters need. And they know what the story needs for a satisfactory ending, though they might not be able to articulate this.
But if you give them the wrong one in the end—an ending that does not complete the main character’s journey- their disappointment and dissatisfaction will be evidence that you did it wrong. So the ending – well, you have to get that right to know you’ve achieved a satisfactory experience for the audience.
Scene Planning and Design Specs by Alicia Rasley (c. 2021)
Scenes are what give the reader the experience of the action of the story and the perspectives of the main characters. Without scenes, the story would be heard and not experienced-- told but not shown. They are the generators of plot change and character development. And they're what the reader remembers long after she's forgotten the names of the characters or the details of the plot—the vivid moments of story captured in action.
First sentence in the scene- Starting the experience
First sentence in the scene —
Starting the experience…
I’m having some fun creating a big Building Bolder Scenes course, and now I’m focusing on the mechanics of creating the scene experience with the sentences and paragraphs. Scenes are EXPERIENCES, not just recountings. So getting the experience started early—the first sentence!—can set the reader up to FEEL all the way through.
Just keep in mind that your reader is apprehending the scene holistically-- she's incorporating every detail, not just your character's thoughts and feelings, into her experience. So you can imbed emotion subtly in the description and action. Just remember not to overdo. But yes, you can use adjectives and adverbs here. Just don't use them when you don't need them ("shouted loudly, bright scarlet"), and then when you DO use them, they'll have more effect.
You can set the stage early, hint at that "beginning emotion" of the emotional arc of the scene, by anchoring the setting in the first paragraph or so... but meaningfully. Here are some examples of how to sneak in emotion with physical/setting detail in the first paragraph of the scene:
LIGHT
His bulky body filled the entrance and blocked most of the afternoon light.
She shielded her eyes against the harsh noon light and squinted at the broken window.
He parked in the pool of yellow light from the streetlamp and slowly got out of the car.
She woke when the dawn light sliced through the curtains. Nothing had changed.
He squinted to see through the dimness in the barroom, searching the dark booths for the woman he had lost.
The car brakes skidded on the gravel, and when they finally stopped, the moonlit lake was only a few feet from their front bumper.
TIME OF DAY
The Angelus bells were ringing when she started across the muddy field towards the church.
She woke suddenly. The red glowing numbers on the bedside clock read 2:04. It took her a moment before she realized she had missed her flight.
He was going to be late for work again. Again.
All she wanted to do was rush home and be halfway through a quart of Java Chip ice cream before American Idol came on.
INSIDE/OUTSIDE
She pushed the porch door open and stood there a moment, drinking in the view and the crisp mountain air.
Jamie woke up cold and damp on the bare open ground.
I knew this place—the kitchen looked familiar and unpleasant.
Patty rubbed the condensation off the passenger-side window and looked out at the snowdrift. "How stuck are we?" she asked.
He put his fork down on the dining room table and grimly called the family to order.
The old barn stood alone on the hill.
The road gravel infiltrated her sandals, and she was limping and lost by the time he found her.
It was a lady's parlor, all dainty and tidy, and he didn't think he better sit down on any of the little chairs.
AIR
The barroom smelled of ground-out cigarettes and spilled beer.
She zipped up her parka and pulled on her gloves, took a deep breath, and stepped out the door into the howling Chicago winter.
From the lantern-lit park pavilion across the river drifted the lazy strains of a dance band.
The library was so overheated every breath felt like she was sucking in a blanket.
It was going to snow. She could taste it with every crystalline breath.
Not a breeze stirred the evening air, and she hesitated with her hand on the gate.
