Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Years ago, when my first husband and I were in the process
of buying our first house, I brought my architect father with me to check out
each possibility, well, the ones my husband and I both agreed were
possibilities. For him, the more modern, the more trendy, the better. For me,
the more vintage and within our price range, the better.
I learned a lot about fiction that way.
While I noted high ceilings, large rooms, sufficient
bedrooms for our current brood (three at the time) with room to grow that
family, whether or not such and such a room would need redecorating, and the
size of the yard so the kids would have room to play, my father was checking
out other things: the number of outlets in a room (should be one to each wall),
amps or breakers and their number (breakers preferred), if the electric was up
to current code, the amount of insulation in the attic, the heat source (He
sternly advised against gravity heat in a three-story house), the last well
test, and the location of the septic field. He'd even want to get up on the
roof.
Creating a plausible setting for your story is more than
simply describing the landscape. Setting has everything to do with your characters.
Most of us, perhaps without realizing it, do not just notice our settings, we
filter them, AND we react to them.
Suppose two of my sons - Christopher and Timothy - take me
to a cell phone store to buy a cell phone for me. Since I don't understand the
technology (even when it's explained to me), I usually let them do the sorting
out of possibilities, while I wander around.
Both boys have a solid understanding of current products and
can discuss cell phones for hours (Literally). Christopher, like his father,
veers towards the newest, the latest, the whistles and bells - the obtaining
of the most options for his money - and he will negotiate anything and
everything in order to get as much free stuff as possible. He will also zero in
on the sales person he will be most likely to "persuade" into those
things. Timothy wants to discuss battery life, memory storage, the pros and
cons of each brand and the specs of company that produces those phones, the
contract terms.
Both boys will agree on free upgrades and the necessity of
my phone fitting into pockets of chick jeans, which are notoriously teeny.
Apparently, clothing designers can't understand some women like their clothing
to be functional, as well as decorative.
So when describing a room, a landscape, a town, a person,
remember that it's usually from the point view from the character noticing it.
This will help you add the details and the ruminations particular to that
character.
Some examples from my books:
Her mother
parked in front of a dingy, squat-looking building, Sue’s Diner. Brian turned
and rolled his eyes. Melissa mouthed back, probably get food poisoning.
She fretted about the report all the way past Main Street,
which now split in two. One road led into the deeper part of the woods; the other
wound up the hill toward their new home. Brian wiggled and bounced to see
everything at once. The tops of the lush, profuse trees touched each other, but
the sun filtered through the leaves and formed lacy patterns on the asphalt.
Lake Munson, full of ducks and geese, rippled a clear blue-green.
Big deal, she thought, catching herself watching them,
determined to find nothing redeeming about her new home. Who cares about a
bunch of old birds?
The box-shaped cottage was too flat, too old, too gray, too
small, and most of all, too ugly. The Grover’s Park ranch, with grey-blue
siding, black shutters, and a manicured yard with a few perennials and tomato
plants, had been home. This could never be home.
She took three steps down the creaking stairs and glimpsed
an old furnace and a washer and drier. Melissa couldn’t imagine doing laundry
in that musty place, where snakes might lurk. She’d let Brian do it. He’d
probably find it fun.
A wrought iron sign hanging from a small one-story building
advertised homemade soaps, while the wood sign posted on the two-story home
next door promoted its hand-dipped candles, which reminded Melissa of the
candelabra on John’s desk inside Simons Mansion’s library.
One step inside Rudy’s, a large Queen Anne of reddish-brown
stone, and Melissa knew Jenny had understated its elegance. To one side of the
main lobby sat a concert grand piano, although not, Melissa thought smugly, a
Schwechten.
Two boys shouldering
matching blue-gray vinyl bags soon joined them. The taller boy had neatly
combed sandy hair, gold-wire glasses, bow-shaped lips, and a serious face. His
much thinner companion, with wispy brown hair and a scrawny mustache, winked at
Tracy, and she blushed, the first time Melissa had seen her even slightly
flustered. The boys unzipped their bags and removed shoes, several balls of
different styles and weights, wrist braces, and monogrammed hand towels.
“I think I’m in the wrong place,” Melissa said.
Julie set her own ball on the return and grinned. “You’ll do
fine. Let’s go find you a ball.”
An angry clicking sounded from the pond’s edge, and a cloud
of monarch butterflies shot from the purple milkweed, hotly pursuing the flower
sprites that preyed on their nectar. A hearty laugh broke through John-Peter’s
lips and fluttered away into the woods. Although reluctant to leave such
serenity, he stood, hungry now for something more than dandelions and ground
beetles. He chuckled to himself. Those butterflies would never catch the fairy
pack, especially with Aodhan leading it.
The oak trees surrounding him moaned his name, and the cool
breeze rippled their leaves, as well as the tender grasses, causing them to
dance about his feet. John-Peter, the
oaks' national hero, acknowledged their greeting with a detached nod. From
here, the earth sloped downward, but John-Peter saw the top of the thatched
roof of the tiny mud and grass cottage he forsook centuries ago. Even before he
reached his home, he spied the overgrown weeds of what used to be his garden
and decided he might have to hoe and plant before he brought the princess here,
just in case she didn’t hunt for her food. Still, he waded through the tall
greenery and stumbled upon a few cabbages and potatoes, entirely inappropriate
for an ancient, abandoned, Irish garden, but this wasn’t his fantasy, and,
besides, he was plenty thankful for their existence. He gathered an armful of
food and trotted back to the cottage. Today’s breakfast, at least, was assured,
thanks to the steward’s benevolence. He noted the cord of wood, as he pushed
through the grassy, rear doorway. What a surprise. That wood should have rotted
eons ago.
On Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation when Abbot was in
town, father and son attended High Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral, its
Federal-style architecture and plaster ceiling and walls resembling home: hard,
beautiful, and cold. As erect and immobile as the marble statues, but not
nearly so tall, Abbot stood beside his son, and, to the accompaniment of the
Erben organ, sang those majestic Latin hymns in a strong and powerful tenor
voice.
The outline of buildings came into view. John slowed his
pace. He couldn't avoid spending his summer as a chore boy, but he could delay
it. The white farmhouse, trimmed in dark gray, looked fresh and inviting in the
early morning light. The shutters were still closed, a sign that the aged
mistress of the farm, bound in the distance ancient sycamores, hadn't yet
stirred. He rode straight back to the barns. Despite their age, they, too,
appeared sturdy and well maintained, almost as if recently built. John hitched
the horse and went inside the first one, meandering through the large building,
gazing from side to side at the sleek thoroughbreds. The condition of the barn
was impeccable. How had a single, elderly woman managed it, and did the widow
really require his services?
Posted by Denise M. Baran-Unland at 5:54 AM
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