Workshop: An Introduction to Writing for Children and Young Adults
A second strong category to influence your
setting with authenticity is the Interior. Even when your interior
details are backdrop only, they can be used to boost your main atmosphere in
your settings. The set-up can be used to affect different characters as well.
Is the location spacious or crowded? Is it a
private room or public? How could that impact your character if she is an
introvert or an extravert? Or possibly create a stress for a character short on
time that has to navigate a busy grocery store or post-office?
What does the floor plan look like and how
will that affect your characters’ actions? Is she facing a long flight of
stairs, or a crisscross of corridors in a hospital?
How does the color of walls or the lighting
affect moods? Are they dull or bright? Could something in the room be a silent
symbol? One author I know discovered at the end of her first draft that an
ordinary flower plant had become a symbol for her heroine’s story. It only
showed up a few times—at the beginning as part of the décor, in the middle with
leaves falling, a little later when she watered it while doing chores, and at
the epilogue when it fully bloomed again.
In a more intense situation an interior
setting can take on a heavier weight as in a normal school bus that has been
hijacked and buried. Now a normally spacious space has become claustrophobic.
After a first draft take a close look at all
your physical settings and see where a small detail here or there can enhance
one of your story threads.
Action Steps:
1.
Choose
one room that has an emotional attachment to your character and draw a rough
outline of it re space. Make a few copies.
2.
In
one copy make the contents few and in another make it a very cluttered room.
3.
Have
one version be light colors and another dark.
4.
Now
right a brief scene where your character goes into that room emotionally
distraught.
Share: How did she emotionally deal
with her situation in relationship to the atmosphere of that room?
Read deep, marcy
No comments:
Post a Comment