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jheti
...And other failureful attempts to conflate "preposterous" and "preposition".
I threatened you with this before, so here it is.
Jheti's thoughts on...that stuff that should be really simple, but it isn't, and in the bargain, it's tough to quantify. It's setting and tone, I guess, but that's not it. The...world-ness...of the world in question.
To start: be in your focal character's head. Know what they're thinking. Know what they're feeling. Know what they would eat for breakfast, and what they would RATHER have for breakfast, and so on.
This is vital. Spend awhile. Why?
Because.
The scene is most important from this character's perspective. In general, what they notice about the scene should be what you and your audience notice.
Also, tone does not come from the setting. Bold underline capslock netspeak one one one. It comes from the characters. You can have the prettiest room in the palace, but nothing's happening in it until the characters arrive.
A notable exception would be things like waterfalls and cliffs, which (necessarily so!) are dramatic unto themselves and are an instance of the scene--here, I would say, the environment--impacting the characters, rather than the other way 'round.
I don't know, for me tone is inherent to the setting--they're meshed, merged, the same thing.
Sometimes I start with a floor color. It's like Red Versus Blue.
"I see...walls. And...some ceilings? (Significant pause.) No, wait!...Only one ceiling!"
Picking the floor color can help you at least have some idea of "where" they are. It doesn't always have to be widescreen hi-def intense. It can convey outdoors or indoors, and then you can use that kernel of knowledge to your advantage.
I usually see lighting--I mean, I know whether it's day or night or morning outside, and probably that can impact characters' energy levels and such, though I don't ever think about timing unless I'm specifically trying to keep in order plot events that hinge on time. Or get magically lucky and the scene just appears that way.
Some scenery, I see clearly, as-it-happens, but that's rare. Most often I have dialogue-and-scenery. As people are saying things, I'm suddenly aware that they're leaning on a desk or sprawled on a sofa, so I put that in.
In revising, I pull tricks (read: pad sentences) to make it less jarring, but often in the alpha draft, there's just spontaneous attacks of floating sofa. Greed likes to go in for those. XD
And any time you have a smell or a taste or a noise, put those in. They make everything seem a billion times more real, just because most novels are all visuals and dialogue. Don't go overboard, but if, say, there is gut-wrenching eau-du-corpse on a battlefield at high noon, one sentence about that instead of the usual vast visual carnage will have a lot of impact. Some very strong smells have an aftertaste or even a physical texture to them--keep that in mind.
Remember: anything too ridiculous can always be taken out in successive edits.
I'm of the school that cliches are there for a reason--namely, they work, and if you can restrain yourself to perhaps one every-other or every third page or so, it's not too horrid. Especially not in Hypertext Land, where anything containing a little forethought and effort comes off like Tolstoy's Great Works with leather binding and gilded letters and the whole bit.
I did much angsting over the precise quality of Baraka's shirt, and then Leena settled it with a sentence. A purple sentence. She adores purple. So do I.
Actually, I have reached an important and vastly momentous decision.
"Effulgent" is my least favorite word in the English language, beating out "wrong", "nostril", and even "tummy". It just looks disgusting and sounds the same way, irrespective of its meaning.
Really. Effulgent. It's the sort of noise I'd imagine elephants make when they fart.
I threatened you with this before, so here it is.
Jheti's thoughts on...that stuff that should be really simple, but it isn't, and in the bargain, it's tough to quantify. It's setting and tone, I guess, but that's not it. The...world-ness...of the world in question.
To start: be in your focal character's head. Know what they're thinking. Know what they're feeling. Know what they would eat for breakfast, and what they would RATHER have for breakfast, and so on.
This is vital. Spend awhile. Why?
Because.
The scene is most important from this character's perspective. In general, what they notice about the scene should be what you and your audience notice.
Also, tone does not come from the setting. Bold underline capslock netspeak one one one. It comes from the characters. You can have the prettiest room in the palace, but nothing's happening in it until the characters arrive.
A notable exception would be things like waterfalls and cliffs, which (necessarily so!) are dramatic unto themselves and are an instance of the scene--here, I would say, the environment--impacting the characters, rather than the other way 'round.
I don't know, for me tone is inherent to the setting--they're meshed, merged, the same thing.
Sometimes I start with a floor color. It's like Red Versus Blue.
"I see...walls. And...some ceilings? (Significant pause.) No, wait!...Only one ceiling!"
Picking the floor color can help you at least have some idea of "where" they are. It doesn't always have to be widescreen hi-def intense. It can convey outdoors or indoors, and then you can use that kernel of knowledge to your advantage.
I usually see lighting--I mean, I know whether it's day or night or morning outside, and probably that can impact characters' energy levels and such, though I don't ever think about timing unless I'm specifically trying to keep in order plot events that hinge on time. Or get magically lucky and the scene just appears that way.
Some scenery, I see clearly, as-it-happens, but that's rare. Most often I have dialogue-and-scenery. As people are saying things, I'm suddenly aware that they're leaning on a desk or sprawled on a sofa, so I put that in.
In revising, I pull tricks (read: pad sentences) to make it less jarring, but often in the alpha draft, there's just spontaneous attacks of floating sofa. Greed likes to go in for those. XD
And any time you have a smell or a taste or a noise, put those in. They make everything seem a billion times more real, just because most novels are all visuals and dialogue. Don't go overboard, but if, say, there is gut-wrenching eau-du-corpse on a battlefield at high noon, one sentence about that instead of the usual vast visual carnage will have a lot of impact. Some very strong smells have an aftertaste or even a physical texture to them--keep that in mind.
Remember: anything too ridiculous can always be taken out in successive edits.
I'm of the school that cliches are there for a reason--namely, they work, and if you can restrain yourself to perhaps one every-other or every third page or so, it's not too horrid. Especially not in Hypertext Land, where anything containing a little forethought and effort comes off like Tolstoy's Great Works with leather binding and gilded letters and the whole bit.
I did much angsting over the precise quality of Baraka's shirt, and then Leena settled it with a sentence. A purple sentence. She adores purple. So do I.
Actually, I have reached an important and vastly momentous decision.
"Effulgent" is my least favorite word in the English language, beating out "wrong", "nostril", and even "tummy". It just looks disgusting and sounds the same way, irrespective of its meaning.
Really. Effulgent. It's the sort of noise I'd imagine elephants make when they fart.
