It was a dark and stormy night, not a creature was stirring. There was no light except for the glow from your computer screen as you stared at the blank page in front of you.
Sound familiar?
Even the best writers struggle to set the scene without tripping over clichés or developing terrible writer’s block. Here are some tips to help you create the backdrop for your story!
1. Establish a mood
No one said that a sunset has to just be a sunset. A sunset could be an important tool for establishing the mood of a particular scene. Mood is a little bit like the setting’s emotions. You wouldn’t want your characterization to be just physical description, so why should the setting be? Check out these tips for establishing a mood in your writing!
2. Ask yourself, what has changed/is changing?
According to Holly Lisle’s scene creation workshop, the best scenes move a story forward by describing small but significant changes. What is your scene changing in your story? Is the sun setting a sign of danger because something bad is going to happen at night? Or does it represent anticipation for a something that will happen later that evening?
3. Watch the world go by
We’ve recommended eavesdropping to find inspiration before, but now take this time to just watch, listen, and feel the world around you. Watch how people walk and pay attention to how the fall breeze makes them burrow into their scarves. Listen to the leaves crunch or the sound of a bus as it pulls up to a stop. Feel a cold bench in a park or taste the burnt coffee from your neighborhood coffee shop. Write down what you experience and put it away for another day. Remember, you don’t want to describe exactly what you experienced – you want to describe what your character is experiencing in terms that approximate how a real person would feel in that situation.
4. Throw out your Adverbs and Adjectives
Writing descriptive scenes can bring out the wordiness in all of us. It’s so tempting to slap a couple of adjectives (dark and stormy) in front of a boring noun (night) and call it a good setting description. To give your writing a breath of fresh air, focus on finding unique nouns and verbs. While you’re at it, read this blog post about other filler words to avoid!
5. Find Inspiration in a Different Genre
We love fiction. However, one of the common criticisms of genre fiction is that, well, it all sounds the same. Now, you could argue that the point of a genre is to lump together similar books, but it would be far better if you tried to stand out from the crowd. If you are writing a romance novel and all you’re reading is romance novels, there’s a good chance that your scene descriptions will start to sound very similar. Try reading a thriller to get a feel for how to add suspense to your scenes. Or, read a children’s book to add some whimsy!
What do you do to set the scene?
