Writing Excuses notes: Season 7

Nearly finished with these notes, and who knows what I'll do with this blog afterward? I mean, my Writing Excuses course kind of usurped nearly the whole blog. Kidding. I'll definitely find something new to guide what to write about. Stay tuned for another review on a Brandon Sanderson book, by the way.

1. Linger on describing the aspects of the setting your character cares about.

This is kind of a follow-up to my last post, but I learned this a season later. When you're trying to pick unique details to use, try using ones your viewpoint character would most notice, the things they care about. It will help your description to do more work for you. Take this excerpt from Holes as an example:

Stanley Yelnats was the only passenger on the bus, not counting the driver or the guard. The guard sat next to the driver with his seat turned around facing Stanley. A rifle lay across his lap.
Stanley was sitting about ten rows back, handcuffed to his armrest. His backpack lay on the seat next to him. It contained his toothbrush, toothpaste, and a box of stationary his mother had given him. He’d promised to write to her at least once a week.

The details used here show us that Stanley cares that he's on his own, he feels threatened (there's a gun and he is handcuffed, making him also feel like a criminal), and he cares about what he happens to own at the moment, as well as about his mother, who was the last loving figure he saw, most likely.

There is a lack of details about the bus itself, meaning the author just wants us to fill in the blank ourselves. The bus is not what matters to Stanley, so it isn't described. We also don't see what Stanley is wearing, because at this point, he probably couldn't care less.

2. Protagonist should be passionate about something that does not have to do directly with the main conflict.

That would lead to two-dimensionality. Nobody cares about only one thing, so don't make your characters care about only one thing. Alternate things to be passionate about make for great subplots, and even if you don't use them to add another plot, they can make your character more interesting.

3. Make your protagonist proactive.

They should not only react to what the conflict throws in their direction. Let them fight for something instead of just against it. The Writing Excuses crew said this problem is often why villains are more interesting than main characters. I love Disney's villain songs. They are often given the best song of a Disney movie, it feels like. It may just be that they get the best tunes, but their songs also bring out more of a reaction. They are more than just loving and reactionary; they are singing about what they want and what they're going to do about it.

4. Try placing your story near actual landmarks, and refer to them.

This will lend your story some authenticity while still allowing you to use a fake location, if so desired. Sherlock Holmes lived in a real place, but with a fake house and address.

My thing with using real places is they seem less exciting. If it isn't that, I won't do it because I want everyone to feel like it could take place near them. That leaves me with a terribly generic setting. Other things I've tried include setting an entire story in one enclosed area, such as one room of a government facility. This allows me to define my space and work within it, building my box to think outside of, if you will.

If I can't make a story feel exciting when it's set in a real place, then it's a failed story. The location should enhance, but if a changed location makes it boring, then there is something wrong, I think. The reason why London, New York, L.A., Paris, all those big cities are used so often in books is that it is easy to hide a fake place in a busy urban area. It also works and is used so often because so many people are familiar with those places, including the authors themselves.

This is not to say you can't go creating your own worlds. But if you want to set it in the real world, or if you want a parallel world (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Harry Potter, Chronicles of Narnia), it's a good idea to give it some real-life landmarks as grounding. People won't immediately drop your book because you say it is set in Boulder, Colorado. The story will speak for itself, and if your reader has actually visited Boulder, then it will be that much more exciting for them.

Warning, though: Don't mess up your landmarks. People will not be pleased and they will drop your story if you say something about it being 115 degrees outside in June in Boulder (highest recorded temperature was 104 degrees, and that was in July, their hottest month, all the way back in the 50s). So do your research.