Comments | fangs_fur_fey: "Setting" in your WIP

cheymccray in fangs_fur_fey

"Setting" in your WIP

Aug 23, 2008 06:52

Because I don't drive around too often it takes me a while to get through an audio book, so I'm still listening to one by James Lee Burke. The way he sets a scene is so well done. Between his character and setting descriptions--and how he executes them so flawlessly--he has me shaking my head and just thinking how amazing he is. And aspiring to be ( Read more... )

cheyenne mccray, writing craft

Comments 37

THE FIRST SIN cheymccray August 23 2008, 14:15:57 UTC

This is from a suspense novel that is going to be published in Feb. 2009. I like this scene because it shows my MC in her environment and the casualness of it all. It's just fun, a break from all the grit and action ( ... )

Re: THE FIRST SIN tom_gallier August 23 2008, 14:50:27 UTC

Great scene. It all came alive before my mind's eye.

Re: THE FIRST SIN cheymccray August 23 2008, 14:58:57 UTC

Thank you! :-)

satyrblade August 23 2008, 14:30:02 UTC

From my story "Ravenous" (Appearing in Weird Tales: The 21st Century):

I’ve got that just-before-the-cages-open feeling in my chest. Wipe my fingers. Check the tension in my strings. There’s a pack of drunken faces just beyond the stage. Stale beer perfume. Leather and sweat. Black tees with faded band names. Showtime ( ... )

Ravenous cheymccray August 23 2008, 14:38:50 UTC

I *love* this. So visual and so much sensory that makes you feel like you're right there!

Re: Ravenous satyrblade August 23 2008, 15:01:57 UTC

Thanks! :)

thegreatmissjj August 23 2008, 15:16:37 UTC

This is actually the opening of my WIP, a short paragraph setting the scene as my protagonist waits for her best friend to arrive.

Raphael was late.

The bells of St. Paul’s Cathedral were already faintly tolling in the distance, signaling the start of Saturday matins. Eva sat on the chapel rooftop and turned up the collar of Raphael’s jacket about her ears, tucking her cold hands further into the long sleeves. The morning sun had not yet burned off the acrid Londinium fog and the watery grey breezes from the Thamesis swirled about her face and hands with the pungent pong of industrial ice and rancid curry. Shivering, Eva hugged her knees to her chest and burrowed her nose into the lining of her best friend’s worn leather jacket. It smelled of him: warm linens and cozy treacle tart mingled with the faint musky tang of boy.

I have a lot of tidbits of setting I love, mostly because I wrote this while I was missing London terribly and my visceral memories of the city. (Curry and rain and sewage and damp.)

Eva wasn’t any fun ( ... )

cheymccray August 23 2008, 15:53:41 UTC

This made me hungry. LOL. I want some Indian food now! I've also never been to London and I'd love to go. I didn't know Indian food is big there. From what my dh has told me about the food in England, it's quite different than it is here. The traditional English breakfast sounds interesting, I think with a poached tomato?

Enjoyed both of these!

thegreatmissjj August 23 2008, 16:04:09 UTC

(Funny enough, people who read that chapter say it makes them hungry too!) It's the legacy of the Empire, actually. A lot of South Asians immigrated to England and brought their food with them. Mulligatawny, which is considered "English food" is actually Indian in origin. My novel actually deals with that imperial legacy (didn't intend to...just happened).

Traditional English breakfast is...greasy. And everything they say about English food being BAD is true. I ate much more Indian food living there then I ever have since. (Can you screw up spaghetti? Apparently you can in England!)

But I will say, the English know how make toast. And marmalade. Mmmmm.

English food... cheymccray August 23 2008, 16:24:42 UTC

Yeah, I have to admit my dh agrees with you on English food. I'll tell him next time to go hunt for Indian food, which he loves!

Sorry, a little long... templarwolf August 23 2008, 15:24:03 UTC

The opening from my WIP, "Love in the Time of Zombies ( ... )

Re: Sorry, a little long... cheymccray August 23 2008, 15:49:42 UTC

Ewwwww! I could so see it through my clenched eyelids. :D Zombie children--I've never heard of that or seen it used in a book or elsewhere. I could really feel this (while I flinched), like we were in the middle of all of that!

Re: Sorry, a little long... templarwolf August 23 2008, 16:17:34 UTC

Thanks. It probably helped a lot to have a picture to look at.

Jason Chan's zombie Playground (new window)

Re: Sorry, a little long... cheymccray August 23 2008, 16:30:31 UTC

The picture was definitely there in my mind! Too clearly! ;-) Can't get the image of all those little zombie faces and hands out of my head. Ewwwww.

Thread 7

jer_bear711 August 23 2008, 16:00:52 UTC

This is from THE REAWAKENED, which comes out in November. I like this selection because it's visceral and tense (she's escaping as soldiers are arresting her mother in the house above her), but also because it uses the non-visual senses.

---
Everything went dark. Sura swallowed hard and lowered herself to the floor of the tunnel. She began to crawl.

Her pack scraped the ceiling, triggering a rain of moist dirt that tickled her skin where her shirt had ridden above her waist. Earthworms and beetles skittered off her as well, and a distant part of her mind hoped none of them fell down her trousers.

She listened for a struggle in the house above her, though she knew she was too deep to hear. The only sounds were her own pounding heartbeat and the scrambling of tiny claws. A mole or shrew, no doubt.

She crawled faster. Pretend it’s another drill, she told herself. Pretend the walls aren’t closing in. She closed her eyes, since there was no light, anyway, and focused on keeping her breath steady ( ... )

THE REAWAKENED cheymccray August 23 2008, 16:21:54 UTC

This is excellent--you can easily put yourself in her place and imagine what it would be like!