How To Employ All Five Senses in Creating Your Setting.

Many writers swear that setting is the most important element of any fictional work. Whether or not you agree, you will want to spend some time considering your story's setting -- if you haven't already -- before you begin to write. It's especially important to use specific details, especially those that don't immediately spring to mind when people think of a place. You don't need a lot, just the right ones. Through this exercise, devote some time reflecting on your story's setting and conjuring the details to make your setting vivid for your readers. Difficulty: Easy Time Required: 30 minutes - 1 hour Here's How: 1. You might begin by reading part or all of a work with a strong setting. This can be a poem, such as Naomi Shihab Nye's "San Antonio" or an Elizabeth Bishop poem such as "At the Fishhouses" or a short story. Faulkner, Willa Cather, Jack London, and Katherine Mansfield are all writers known for their settings, for how the sense of place infuses their work. What in particular made you believe in this place and in the writer's knowledge of it? How did they make the place concrete? 2. Now take some time to think about your story's particular setting. If this is a place you have been, you might look at old photographs, maps, or diary entries. If you have not been there, check out some books or look online. 3. Start with sight, which is for many of us the most immediate sense. Write down every image that comes to mind, whether it pertains to your story or not. Free associate. It doesn't have to make sense or be grammatical. Just get down as much as you can. 4. Repeat the above for taste, smell, sound, and touch. Again, don't be afraid of unconventional answers. You never know what might end up in your final story. 5. Finally, in one line sum up the mood you hope to evoke in your readers through your setting. Is it a feeling of loneliness, menace, nostalgia, contentment? Look at the lists you've compiled. Which elements will contribute to this dominate mood? Which elements will complicate that mood? Which will distract from it? Tips: 1. This exercise can also work for imaginary settings. In fact, for science fiction and fantasy, it's even more important. What You Need

Paper Pen Books, photos, maps, letters, diary entries, or other memory-jogging artifacts THEME The typical definition of theme is usually something like this:

A theme is the central idea or ideas explored by a literary work. The problem with this type of definition is that it's not very specific or helpful when coming up with the theme of your work. It leads to weakly stating themes as concepts or ideas like "death", "justice" or "love". Stating your theme in this way is just too vague to be of use.

So what about themes such as "all men are liars", or "people are basically good"? This is a step in the right direction, and certainly more helpful. The problem with these kinds of statements as themes is that they are really just opinions. They lack power.

Take A Stand An alternate way of looking at theme, which I first encountered in the wonderful book Creativity Rules!by John Vorhaus, is defined in this way:

An instruction, strongly expressed as an imperative, is the story's theme. No one would argue that great, memorable stories have powerful themes. And powerful themes areinstructions. They include a call to action. Using an exclamation point is not out of the question when stating yours. What separates a powerful theme from the concepts and opinions above is that it takes a stand. A great theme tells people how to act and does so with authority: Embrace change! Be Strong! Destroy Evil!

Taking a stand thematically makes your writing clearer and more powerful. Once you really know what you want to say, it also makes writing easier. Remember that writing is an seemingly endless chain of decision-making. If you are clear about what your theme is then making those decisions is a lot less difficult. Anytime you have a choice to make, choose the option that supports your theme and you'll be building a powerful, cohesive narrative.

Won't This be Too Preachy? Just because you are choosing a powerful, instructive theme does mean you are preaching. Having a well-defined theme that takes a stand does not mean you are writing a polemic, or "hiding" a moral message in your fiction.

Your theme does not have to be profound to be clear and powerful. It does not have to reflect a "higher" purpose or try to fix the world's problems.

Consider a fun, entertaining comedy film like Home Alone. It's theme is "Protect your home!" It's crystal clear, powerful and takes a stand without being preachy at all. There are countless enjoyable thrillers with the theme "Seek Vengeance!", which certainly isn't a lofty moral message.

Can the Theme Change? Also remember that the theme you choose to start with isn't always what you'll end up with. If it changes organically as your story moves ahead, then feel free to adjust it. But by starting with a powerful theme in mind, you'll have a default to fall back on if necessary.

One way of coming up with a theme at the start of a writing project comes from John Vorhaus. He suggests asking yourself, "If you could teach one other person in the world one thing, what would that one thing be?" The answer to that question is your theme.

Choosing Not to Decide Remember that whether you consciously choose a theme or not, your stories will have one. It may be weak, it may not even be what you consider the point of your story, but it will be there. And readers will pick up on it.

Although the details of your story will fade over time in your reader's minds, the theme stays with people. So actively choose the theme you want to leave with your readers rather than leaving it to chance.

So next time you're stuck thinking of a story idea, try starting with a powerful, instructive theme and see what happens. You might be surprised. If, like many people, you labor under the idea that for "real" writers, plot comes effortlessly, dismiss that illusion now. While some writers were born with a sense of how to tell a story effectively, more of them do study the elements of plot and pay serious attention to how other writers successfully construct a narrative.

Playwrights have this stuff drilled into them, but fiction writers often get away without basic instruction in what makes something dramatic. It's not magic. The elements of a good story can be studied and learned.

In fact, you've probably already studied them in your high school literature classes. It doesn't hurt to review them now, from the perspective of a writer and not a student. They may seem simple, but without them, your other skills as a writer -- your ability to imagine believable characters, your talent with dialogue, your exquisite use of language -- will come to naught.

Start, of course, with a protagonist, your main character. The protagonist must encounter a conflict -- with another character, society, nature, himself, or some combination of these things -- and undergo some kind of change as a result.

"Conflict" is also known as the "major dramatic question." Gotham Writers' Workshop puts it this way in their guide Writing Fiction: The major dramatic question "is generally a straightforward yes/no question, one that can be answered by the end of the story." What will happen to King Lear when he divides up his empire and estranges himself from his one faithful

daughter? Will Elizabeth Bennet of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice get to marry for love, and will she or one of her sisters marry well enough to save the family from financial humiliation?

What sorts of changes do these conflicts bring about? Elizabeth Bennet learns the dangers of letting prejudice interfere with judgment. King Lear acquires humility and learns to recognize superficiality and sincerity. Both are wiser at the end of the story than they were at the beginning, even if this wisdom, in Lear's case, comes at a dear cost.

Elements of Plot A story will hit various landmarks on its way from the story's beginning to the fulfillment of the dramatic question. The introduction presents the characters, the setting, and the central conflict. Involve your protagonist in that conflict as early as possible. Today's readers will generally not wade through pages of exposition to get to the point. Don't make them wonder why they're reading your story or novel. Hook them in the first page or pages.

From there, the character will face various impediments to the achievement of his or her goal. Known as rising action or development, this is part of the story's satisfaction. Readers like to see struggle, like to feel as though the payoff at the end is deserved.

Again, Pride and Prejudice provides an excellent example. If Elizabeth Bennet and Darcy liked each other immediately, and their friends and family immediately approved, their marriage would be much less satisfying, and nothing much would have been learned along the way, except that it's great to fall in love.

Note how other writers build dramatic tension during this part of their narrative. How do they keep us interested in the outcome of the story? How many impediments are necessary to make the reader feel satisfied at the end? None of these decisions are necessarily easy. Part of your growth as a writer entails developing a feel for a successful story arc.

The rising action leads to the climax, the turning point in the story, which in turn leads to theresolution. The central dramatic question is solved one way or another. Peter Selgin provides a good example in his book By Cunning & Craft:

Climax is the resolution of conflict, the point of no return beyond which the protagonist's fate -- good or bad -- is secured. Romeo's suicide is the climax...not because it's the most dramatic moment, but because it seals his fate and determines the resolution by preventing him and Juliet from ever living happily ever after. In the denouement, the author ties up all the lose ends. Elizabeth and Jane Bennet get to live close to each other. Lydia stays far away in the North, where she can't bother them much, and Kitty's better qualities are drawn out by frequent visits to her sisters. Everyone we like lives happily ever after, and in a matter-of-fact three pages or so, we get all the necessary details. Likewise, the denouement for Lear takes only part of one scene: all the players of the main plot die, but under Edgar, England is reunited.

Two Disclaimers First, much successful fiction does not follow these rules exactly. But even works like Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, which seem focused more on language than action, introduce dramatic questions to keep us reading. (Will her party come off? What's up with her and Peter Walsh?) A lot of fiction that doesn't necessarily seem plot-driven turns out, on closer scrutiny, to depend on tried and true strategies we can trace back (in Western literature, at least) to Aristotle's Poetics.

Second, these basic elements may not occur in the order listed above. Try to identify them in your reading. Question why the writer decided to tell the story the way he or she did. Note the dramatic decisions. And, of course, think about all of this as you craft your own stories. At the end of the day, something has to happen. It seems elementary, but it can be quite complicated. By all means, experiment, but spend some time on the basics, too.

In setting out to write a short story, it doesn't hurt to know that the short story is a fairly young form, dating back only to Nathaniel Hawthorne and his 1837 book Twice-told Tales. For Edgar Allan Poe, who called them "prose tales," the fact that short stories could be read in a single sitting was key to the form. It allowed the reader to have an uninterrupted experience of the fictional world. As a recent genre, the short story has few formal elements that are not shared with the novel. The challenge for the short-story writer lies in developing the major elements of fiction character, plot, theme, point of view, etc. in about ten to twenty-five pages. (The cut-off for most journals is 10,000 words.) To meet this challenge, short-story writers generally follow, consciously or unconsciously, a pretty standard list of rules: 1. Use few characters and stick to one point of view. You simply will not have room for more than one or two round characters. Find economical ways to characterize your protagonist, and describe minor characters briefly. Having only one or two protagonists naturally limits your opportunities to switch perspectives. Even if you're tempted to try it, you will have trouble fully realizing, in a balanced way, more than one point of view. (Click here for information on choosing a point of view.)

2.

Limit the time frame when you write a short story.

Though some short-story writers do jump around in time, your story has the biggest chance of success if you limit the time frame as much as possible. It's unrealistic to cover years of a character's life in twenty-five pages. (Even a month might be a challenge.) By limiting the time period, you allow more focus on the events that are included in the narrative.

3.

Be selective.

As with poetry, the short story requires discipline and editing. Every line should either build character or advance the action. If it doesn't do one of these two things, it has to go. William Faulkner was right to advise writers to kill their darlings. This advice is especially important for short-story writers.

4.

Follow conventional story structure.

The standard rules of narrative we all learned in our high school literature classes apply to writers as well. Though you may not have room to hit every element of traditional plot structure, know that a story is roughly composed of exposition, conflict, rising action, climax, and denouement. However much you experiment with form, something has to happen in the story (or at least the reader has to feel as though something has happened). Things like conflict and resolution achieve this effect. Storytelling may seem magical, but the building blocks are actually very concrete.

As with any type of writing, the beginning and the end are the most important parts. Make sure your first and last lines are the strongest in the story.

5.

Know when to break the rules.

As with all rules, these are made to be broken. Alexander Steele points out in his introduction to the Gotham Writers' Workshop's Fiction Gallery that the short story lends itself to experimentation precisely because it is short: structural experiments that couldn't be sustained for three hundred pages can work beautifully for fifteen. And today, the lines between genres such as the short story and the poem are blurred in exciting ways. Keep in mind, however, that telling your story is still the most important thing. If breaking a rule allows you to tell your story more effectively, by all means, break it. Otherwise, think twice, or at least be honest with yourself if the innovation fails. Following these rules should help you complete your stories successfully. If you find that your story overflows these boundaries no matter what you do, consider expanding it into a novel. The short story isn't for every story or for every writer. For more on this, see Six Signs Your Short Story Wants to Be a Novel. Point of view is the perspective from which a story is told. We may choose to tell our story in

first person, using "I" or "we";

third person ("he," "she," "it"), which can be limited or omniscient; or second person, "you," the least common point of view. As a writer, you must think strategically to choose the point of view that will allow you to most effectively develop your characters and tell your story. First Person Point of View First person limits the reader to one character's perspective. With a book such as On the Road, for instance, the first person point of view puts us right there in the car with Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty; we follow Sal's every exhilarating thought as they careen across the country. First person feels more personal. What about unreliable narrators and first person? See an example of unreliable narrator from Chang-rae Lee's A Gesture Life.

Third Person Point of View

Though first person can be powerful, as the examples above illustrate, third person is actually the more versatile point of view. Third person allows you to create a much richer, more complicated universe. A book such as Anna Karenina, for example, could only have been written in third person. One reader, Wendy, put it this way: "When I write in first person, I tend to make the story more personal to me, which can limit how far I will go with a character. Third person isn't as much about me, and I can be much freer with theplot." Try a New Point of View Nevertheless, beginning writers tend to fall back on first person, either because it's easier or because they are indeed writing about themselves. Even if your story is autobiographical, consider trying third person. Doing this will actually help you to view your story more dispassionately and therefore allow you to tell it more effectively. It might also show you directions for the story you haven't considered before. At first, it may be easiest to use third person limited, which still adheres closely to one person's point of view. As your plots become more complicated, you may find you need more than one point of view to tell your story and begin to use omniscient. If you keep hitting a wall in a story or novel, consider switching point of view. For most people, this will involve going from first person to third. Beginning writers may groan at the idea of rewriting an entire story, but for professional writers, such experimentation is par for the course. If it's your first time to consider such a switch, this point-of-view exercise will lead you through it. You might also read a discussion on point of view from a blog post. In it, a number of writers share what's worked for them regarding point of view. Perhaps the most organic way to discover a novel idea is by writing a short story and realizing -- or having someone point out to you -- that what you're dealing with is bigger than a story. How do you know if a story is begging for a larger format? Here are some signs that your short story is actually a novel in disguise. 1. Is your novel idea truly novel? Have you seen this story before? Does it feel overly familiar or trite? Though Willa Cather was correct when she said, "There are only two or three human stories and they go on repeating themselves," you must tell the story so that it feels completely new to the reader. Avoid stereotypes in characterization and setting. Is your take on the story truly original? Ads Training MaterialsCorporateTrainingMaterials.comCustomizable training materials to teach soft skills workshops. Rolex Mentor and ProtgRolexmentorprotege.comInitiative, Professional Artists Writing for the Rolex Programme Want your book published?web.iguanabooks.com/We're accepting manuscripts. Up to 85% royalties to authors. 2. The short story is simply too long. Like poetry, there's a certain elegance to short story writing: space allows for only the essentials. A short story should run no longer than 10,000 words, and this is on the outside. (At 10,000 words, you're still pushing it with most journals.) If you've already pared the story down to what is absolutely necessary and it's still too long, you may be dealing with something bigger. 3. Too many characters are needed to tell the story. If the number of characters in your story makes it confusing, first check to see if any can be eliminated or combined. If too many people are still necessary, this is a sign that your plot is that of a novel, not a story. 4. The theme, or themes, have not been fully developed. If you're working with themes rather than a theme, this is already a good sign that you're craving a more generous format. Be very clear with what you're trying to communicate through the story, and whether or not you've been successful. Is the theme too big to explore in under 10,000 words?

5. The story encompasses too long a time frame. Although there are no hard and fast rules, a short story generally covers a brief period of time. With exceptions, most short stories cannot comfortably cover years of a character's life. If your plot involves an afternoon or a few hours, you're probably right to choose the story format. If your plot encompasses a year, or years, of people's lives, you've probably got a novel on your hands. 6. One of your readers has pointed out that this could be a novel. If someone has said to you, "Hey, I'd like to read more of this," it's a good sign that you've stumbled onto some rich material. Before embarking on something as time-consuming as a novel, you do want to be sure that you've chosen a topic or a story that will hold people's interest. It's not an easy thing to achieve, so if you've done it, pay attention. 7. You don't want to stop working on it. The most important thing in writing a novel is that the material can sustain your attention for the years it will take to finish the book. If the thought of living with these people for longer than a month makes you tired, don't torture yourself, no matter what your readers say. On the other hand, if this story has only whet your appetite, then keep working. If you're lucky enough to find something that inspires you to that degree, by all means, go with it.

voking a three-dimensional world on the two-dimensional page is no easy task. Even professionals have to work at description. These tips will help you cultivate your powers of observation and then turn those observations into prose. Learn to Observe the World. As one reader, Marilyn, noted, the role of a writer has certain things in common with that of a detective: "I keep reminding myself of Sherlock Holmes's complaint to Dr. Watson," she wrote. "'You see, but you don't observe.'" This is a good starting point for thinking about description. Before you can describe something, you must be able to see it. Ads Proposal WritingCorporateTrainingMaterials.com1 day workshop materials to teach Proposal Writing skills. Translation jobswww.translatorsbase.comFind freelance translation jobs for all language combinations. English Listeningwww.listen-and-write.comImprove your listening skills. It's all free. Be Specific. "Vagueness is often our first impulse when we're getting things down," writes Chris Lombardi in the Gotham Writers' Workshop's Writing Fiction: The Practical Guide from New York's Acclaimed Creative Writing School. But it's specificity that gives our descriptions power. Learn how to be more specific by studying Annie Proulx's descriptions of Quoyle in the first chapter of The Shipping News. Avoid Clichs. Avoiding clichs is part of being specific, as we observed above, but it's worth devoting more room to them and to their opposite, truly original writing. Stephen King offers these examples of what not do to: "He ran like a madman, she was as pretty as a summer day, Bob foughtlike a tiger . . . don't waste my

time (or anyone's) with such chestnuts. It makes you look either lazy or ignorant." However, when you discover a clich in your work, don't beat yourself up. Just think of it as an opportunity, a flashing neon sign: "Insert brilliance here." Ask Yourself Questions. Ask yourself the most nave questions possible to access the sensory cues that conjure the situation for a reader (and that in life we absorb subconsciously): What sounds evoke the scene for you? What smells? What images? What physical responses would you have to this situation? And if questions don't work for you, find some other way to visualize the scene. If you can't picture it, how will you enable your reader to do so? Practice. A journal is useful for this. When you have time, jot down notes about people and places you've encountered recently. Don't worry about plot, conflict, or character; just focus on description. And who knows? Your practice descriptions might come in handy later on, if you find yourself writing about the past. (For a more structured practice session, follow the link above to a description writing exercise.) Target the Description. In fiction, description should not only paint a picture for the reader, but also contribute to the plot and reveal something about character. Choose your details carefully. As Lombardi cautions, "There's a fine line between lush description and the kind that chokes the reader." If you fear you're in danger of crossing that line, consider which elements of your description serve the primary elements of your plot and which are gratuitous.