Writing Active Setting Book 1: Characterization and Sensory Detail Read Online Free PDF Page B

he’s now taking charge of where he’s stashing her and they are moving to a new location [remember when you shift your characters you shift your readers and they need to become anchored in place all over again]. Look at what Joe Pike reveals about himself, and about his impressions of the girl, in this one paragraph of Setting .
     
    The girl was moody getting out of the car, making a sour face to let him know she hated the shabby house and sun-scorched street smelling of chili and epazote. To him, this anonymous house would serve. He searched the surrounding houses for threats as he waited for her, clearing the area the way another man might clear his throat. He felt obvious wearing the long-sleeved shirt. The Los Angeles sun was too hot for the sleeves, but he had little choice. He moved carefully to hide what was under the shirt.
    She said, “People who live in houses like this have deformed children. I can’t stay here .”
    – The Watchman – Robert Crais
     
    W e not only get a sense of Joe Pike looking for threats and assessing safety issues , he’s here not because the neighborhood is safe , but because he can keep her safe here. The house is anonymous. He doesn’t think about the people in the houses or the paint job or anything but security. This als o shows a lot about the intrinsic differences between him and the girl he’s g uarding by her response to the Setting and what he’s seeing of her response. A lot going on in one paragraph and it never stops the forward momentum of the story.
     
    Let’s look at a nother example , this time from an author I always study for her ability to make every word do double duty. In this description we’re about a third of the way into the story and the POV character is looking for a tenuous lead on her missing ex-sister-in-law. See if you can tell about what the POV character thinks about her ex-sister-in-law by what she observes of the surroundings and interior of the woman’s cabin.
    But first l et’s look as if the author was writing from First Draft to Finished Version.
     
    Note : Since I am using a published author’s work, I’m imagining a rough first draft. No telling how the author wrote initially or how many drafts the author used to get to the final product. What I want you to look at are the possibilities you can apply to your own work if you’re currently lacking in Setting detail and ways to add Characterization via that detail.
    [First Draft] I drove my vehicle into the hills to my sister-in-law’s house.
     
    Bland. No sense of location. All the writer did was get the character from Point A to Point B.
     
    [Second Draft] I drove my rig into the hills above Santa Barbara and when I arrived at my sister-in-law’s place , I stopped and checked it out.
     
    A little better. Now the reader knows where the POV character is , but we’re not experiencing any of what that character is experiencing or the interaction she’s having with what she’s seeing.
     
    [Final Version]
    The sun was flaring red in the west when I drove my white Explorer up a gully toward Tabitha’s house, past sandstone boulders and gray-green brush. The air smelled thick with mustard and eucalyptus. The view of the city, two thousand feet below, was spectacular. Santa Barbara lay like a velvet sash between the mountains and the Pacific, smooth and glimmering.
    The house itself looked neglected. Faded gray paint curled from the wood siding, and weeds spread across the lawn, humped and matted, like an overgrown beard. When no one answered my knock, I looked in the front window. The living room held some thriftshop chairs and a work table covered with pens, pencils, and drawings. In the dingy kitchen, shopping bags bulged with cans of creamed corn and SPAM. Was that what she cooked for Brian? No wonder he had requested sea duty .
    – China Lake – Meg Gardiner
     
    Notice the author uses contrast — between what the city — Santa Barbara, known to be one of the nicest and