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| Your Character Moves Through His World |
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| Now that your character has a name, voice, and body, we have to give him a place. Place is not only restricted to physical settings like home, workplace, or neighborhood. It includes historical settings, and where our characters live inside their heads. I�ll refer to that as the �inner environment.� More about that later.
Author Rebecca McClanahan (Word Painting) writes: �A character�s immediate surroundings can provide a backdrop for the sensory and significant details that shape the descriptions of characters.� Setting can also mirror a character�s emotional state. It�s not necessary to create long passages of description to reveal setting. To keep your story moving, reveal details through your characters� actions. Imagine a set for a stage play. The sets include just enough props that are relevant and necessary to the drama. (It�s also for purposes of ease of tearing down.) Time and place are also revealed through the action, dialogue, and lighting. So when you create your scenes on paper, use only relevant and specific details. If it doesn�t have a purpose, strike it out. Fiction writer and playwrite Anton Chekhov wrote that if you show a gun in the first act, it must go off by the third act. Pull out your character sketch and highlight anything relevant to time and place. Then answer these questions: what, when, where, how and why. What objects or possessions are present in your character�s life? What type of house does she live in? Is it a small, cramped apartment, or a spacious Victorian home? Is her home full of furniture, mementos, knick-knacks, or does it only include a bed and hotplate? List specific objects. Describe the lighting, smells, and sounds. You may not use everything you list here in your story. After you�ve finished listing all the �whats,� move to when. What era or year does this take place? If you�re working on a specific scene, also record the time of day and time of year. You can hone in and be more specific and list an event. For instance, �after Isabel receives a phone call from her estranged sister telling her about their father�s death,� or �before Sophie meets her mother-in-law to-be.� Next, answer the where. Is her home in a city or suburbia? Get specific. If she lives in a city, is it in an apartment above a deli? If it�s suburbia, is it in a gated community with a pretentious name? Finally, answer the how and why. Most likely this is your character�s conflict, if not part of it. Why does she live in an apartment above a deli? Is it for economic reasons or is she trying to hide? You can do the what, when, where, how and why for each main character. Your character will move from place to place, so the setting will not always be where she sleeps and eats. How she gets there is important as well. Does she walk, take a cab, ride public transportation? Drive a car? When she walks, does she break into a jog, avoid talking to neighbors? Why? Is it for safety reasons or does she hurry everywhere she goes because she�s a Type A personality? If she takes a cab or public transportation, is she chatty, or does she find a seat alone and far away from everyone? Does she read or stare out the window, stare at the passengers? If she drives, what kind of vehicle is it? Is she a careful driver, or does she roll through stop signs, pass other cars at every opportunity? Does she sing along with the music on the radio or does she prefer silence? How our characters move through their surroundings reveal how they move morally and psychologically. We must be specific in choosing the actions that represent her inner and outer environments. For instance I could write, �Sophie was reading.� It doesn�t say much about her character or state of mind. If I write, �Sophie flipped through the current issue of Vogue magazine, tearing out the pictures of the dresses she wanted,� this tells the reader more. Is Sophie flipping through Vogue at home or at the newsstand? This detail shows even more about her character. Avoid generalities when you include setting details. This is a mistake writers often make when they move into regional settings. Most of us can picture a small town, city, or a farm, but specific details bring the story to life. For instance, if your character is driving through a small town, mention the misspelling on the movie marquee or the strands of tinsel on the lampposts in March. Who or what does your character see in front of the corner store? �A group of people� is bland and generic. �Teenagers clad in leather and breakdancing on the sidewalk,� tells us more. Avoid adjectives like dirty and noisy. Show the bursting garbage bags in the alley, cars honking, sirens blaring. Observe details in your real world. Put your characters in different settings. With practice, writing these specific details will come naturally. |
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