During this year of delving into the heart of your story, I’ve only touched a little on setting. I haven’t been ignoring the topic, although by now you may have been wondering about that. Setting is so important to your book, and all too often writers practically ignore it in their quest to unveil a great plot or take the reader on a character’s journey.
But stop and think for a moment about yourself and the world you live in. Each moment you’re alive, you are interacting with your setting. At times, where you are is inconsequential and unimportant to what is going on in your life at that moment. You could be in a coffee shop, at the top of a mountain, or waiting at the dentist’s office to get your teeth cleaned and it wouldn’t matter in respect to what you may be going through, feeling, thinking, or desiring at the time. Much of our lives we are in mundane places, doing mundane things.
But do readers want to read about that? Do you recall what I said months ago about books that portray ordinary people? I said ordinary people are boring—and so are mundane, boring settings. No one wants boring. Continue Reading…
