Setting the scene

When I do a draft i never bother with some of the parts of the story. For instance, scene setting. My draft is pretty shallow except for the dialogue and the flow. I go back to my chapters several time making revisions. The first revision is for scene setting. Especially now that the whole story is drafted I fell I have the time to actually spend on each chapter.

Scene setting. good gosh (and yes my friend H this is a good old american term. lol) I find this a little hard to do since it requires the author to actually, well, write. Prose is needed and a sense of space. The environment surrounding the scene. I have been playing around with scene setting and sometimes I think I have done well--the Black Bull Tavern for one example. Other times it seem contrived or shallow. Occasionally I go to far with it where a simple sentence will do! I think I am trying to hard to be a writer. lol

I know the experts say you need to set the scene with all five senses. I don't agree with that sometimes only 2 are needed. smells are good, sight is good, even touch is wonderful and hearing sounds works but how often do people taste things? Especially alone in the woods where you cannot kiss. I guess you could taste your saliva! lol I wonder how I could write that. here let me swallow. nothing. I haven't a clue how to write what saliva tastes like. I guess I could have them taste their salty tears but then I would have to write a scene that made them cry. lol

speaking of crying. It will be interesting to see if i ever get that kind of reaction from my readers. I rarely cry, its the British stiff upper lip I got from my ancestors from way back when. But when I do watch out. the dam busts. Now this is not to say I don't feel sad or think a story or chapter is sad. I do. but I just don't cry.

Back to the scenes. I discovered the scene setting can happen at any time during a scene. It does not have to start at the beginning. It can be thrown in the dialogue when I want to slow the pace down. It will definitely slow the pace.

using descriptive phrases are tough for me. Not having a sense of the literary world, I sometimes think all my descriptions are contrived. Unrealistic. boring. but then some kind reader will post a comment remarking on the description (granted it does not happen often) and I feel better. I continue to work on it with each chapter. I dread going back to my first 10 chapters. Egad. I know they must suck. I think I got better by the Goulding Farm visit and then with the Meryton tavern I felt more comfortable with writing description.

Now description is not the same as backstory. I do leak out the backstory in teeny tiny bits and pieces but soon I will drop the whole think in the readers' laps. lol Blake's story comes first and then Rawlings and then Kents. But there are chapters between them and my readers have not yet gotten to know Kent. His time is coming.

So I wonder if the dropping of backstory in dribs and drabs is not another way to set the scene. I suppose so. I have to spend some time studying this aspect. All things about writing have now grabbed my imagination and I am a tenacious bulldog once I get interest int something.

I created a whole online training program, mirroring college in some ways. Other ways just training centers. Did I go to school for this? NO. I spent hours upon hours doing research and most of it on the internet way back in 1995. Long before most people had even heard of it, well maybe a phrase here and there. Well, I designed a program so sophisticated that my cheap $1 million dollar project embarrassed the Dept. of Defense's program (and they had spent over $30 million.) lol In the end DoD had to take mine over and it was not a friendly takeover but it was my program that survived. Just now in DoD's hands. lol An uneducated single-minded single woman beat the division with loads of money and people.

It just takes being able to see the scene in your head. Once the scene appears, then go for it as I did with my vision for training.

Yes, I guess I have been setting the scenes in many areas. And now I am off to set the scene for company. It is MOnday and my day to cook.

lol

till tomorrow and I type out another bunch of silliness of thought.

gayle