Category Archives: Setting and Milieu

Ah, the bane of writers everywhere—the joys of “setting the scene”. For the longest time, I admit, I had only the vaguest, unformed idea what that meant. I mean, I knew it was describing a setting or situation in which your characters are placed, but I kind of missed the important part. It’s the describing of a setting or situation where something is about to happen. It is a description that implies conflict and tension.

That critical bit about things getting ready to happen is the hard part, and in my opinion, viewpoint is probably one of the best tools for setting the scene when telling a story. Over and above word choice and setting and dialogue and all those other things we like to harp about when talking about technique and storytelling. Why’s that? Because, in my opinion, all those things come from your point of view.

It may be obvious, but point of view is one of the very first decisions on how to tell a story, so, for completeness sake, lets run down the differences real quick. We’ll keep to 1^st and 3^rd here as 2^nd person is so little and specialized in use that it deserves it’s own post (which you’ll get from Tracy Hickman, so stick around for that!).

With 3^rd person, we have the external narrator with varying levels of distance, from omniscient (furthest) to limited (closest) viewpoints. With omniscient, you get the “god” perspective. Objective is through an impartial observer, and limited traps us in the head of one character at a time.

With 1^st person, we have an extremely close narration that allows the reader to take on the experiences and personality of the narrator. The constant use of “I” reinforces this aspect, which makes empathy with the narrator an almost given.

Each has its uses and can be very effective in particular genres and situations.

To be honest, most of us will be doing 3^rd person limited or 1^st person these days. While omniscient viewpoint works for milieu tales, like Lord of the Rings or Dune where the setting and culture take precedence, it’s gone out of favor over the last few decades. Objective can work, too, but my favorites are when you’re in it with the person your supposed to sympathize with rather than hearing about it from someone else.

The real issue is: the further from the character’s personal viewpoint you get, the less the reader tends to care about them. If your story is about a the setting, like with Dune, distance works. Not so much for a character piece.

So, let’s take our prompt—two aliens walking into a bar.

With a 1^st person narrative, obviously, we have to pick a character. For simplicity’s sake, lets pick the human guy sitting alone in the corner who sees our aliens come in together. Say, our human is a drifter with a snarky personality, who’s had dealings with this particular species and tells us right off, they don’t get along. Instant tension. Our drifter gets uncomfortable, keeps his eyes on the newcomers, pushes his glass away and asks for the bill right quick. All the while, we’re getting the narrator’s snarky version of what’s going on. The scene is being set just by having the narrator get antsy in his own personal way. With 1^stperson, personality is key, and we’ve only got our narrator to tell us how to interpret what’s happening.

Third person gives us a little more leeway. What if the first alien, Bob, is from a culture where public inebriation only happens when someone dies, and there’s a birthday party going on. When he gets into the bar, he starts thinking about the funerals he’s been to. Suddenly, you’ve got tension with what’s actually happening around him and the somber mood he’s now in. Bob gives us information about his people and their ways by how he handles the situation. Maybe he’s upset that he’s mood got soured by the joviality. Maybe he finds humans obscene for using alcohol to celebrate a life rather than a death. Maybe Bob picks our drifter in the corner because of his uncomfortableness, thinking this lone human might agree with him.

Depending on the distance with 3^rd person, we could get as particular in limited perspective as with 1^st person—Bob’s been dying for a certain beverage, but it’s too sweet for the somber mood he’s now in—or more generalized with Bob’s recount of how his friend accidentally picked a fight with the drifter, if you want go more of an objective viewpoint. Both of these, of course, keep us in Bob’s head, so we open the scene up a bit to things that our drifter might have missed while we were so focused on his pithy turns of phrase. At the same time, we’re not buried under exposition as to why Bob’s people think parties are for the dead, because we’re right with Bob as he experiences things.

With 3^rd person omniscient, all bets are off. We can get information from Bob, his friend, the drifter, the bartender, the birthday party-goers. We can learn the history of Bob’s people, the trouble the drifter had with them, probably even a few facts about the bar even the owner didn’t know. We’re also often supplied with what it all means and why its important. We lose much of the detailed personal impressions that our characters might have for more of an overarching view of the point of the scene.

Setting the scene isn’t easy, but picking the right viewpoint from the start, can make it a lot easier in the end. Pick carefully, my friend.

Exploring Story Concepts Prior to Writing

August 28, 2013

Frank Morin

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This month we’ve discussed great games that inspire, games that highlight effective storytelling, or that identify pitfalls in the creative process. We’ve also discussed some of the dangers of trying to port game scenarios directly into book form (review that excellent post here).

I’m going to visit that topic from a slightly different angle and discuss the effectiveness of finding avenues for creative input. It’s hard to build a great story, and harder still if we try to do it in a vacuum. Utilizing creative input sources can prove effective in developing foundational concepts for your story. The goal is not to try writing a book directly from a game scenario, particularly if it pulls in any material that may be copyrighted elsewhere. However, it is possible to utilize a RPG or other creative input source to explore some of the general concepts you might be kicking around as the foundation of a story.

For example, if you want to flesh out a new magic system, inviting your gaming friends to utilize that magic system in a game scenario can really help. They’ll try to break the rules, and they’ll try to use it in ways you never expected. The experience will force you to think deeper and broader than you might have on your own, and lay down rules and boundaries you had not realized you needed. This is particularly useful if you don’t have someone who makes a good sounding board to brainstorm ideas and plumb the depths of your new concept.

You can also explore other aspects of the world building in a game. What are the nations and races that exist in this world? Do they get along? What motivates them? What do people eat? What kind of money do they use?

In my family we play a customized RPG that utilizes only one 20-sided die for all decisions. It removes a lot of the technical hassle of similar games and relies more on the storytelling skill of the person leading the game. It’s also an excellent creative workout routine. I rarely plan out the details of a game beforehand, so am forced to come up with each element in a just-in-time delivery sort of way. I’ve found it helps break down creative barriers and triggers some exceptionally creative moments.

I’ve used this process as a way to explore multiple story concepts. Many of them prove mediocre or uninspiring, so we drop those and try something different. A few have resulted in ideas with lots of potential. Those I set aside for later exploration, or launch secondary game scenarios to consider further.

Once I’ve got what I need, I throw away the specifics of the game, including the characters, and start building my story from scratch – drawing upon the foundational concepts we explored through the game.

Storyteller — The Boyhood of Raleigh by Sir John Everett Millais, oil on canvas, 1870

But RPG gaming is not the only creative input I use, and it’s not even my most productive. Even better is good old storytelling. In our family we tell a lot of stories, and I’ve used that verbal story time to develop magic systems and explore plot concepts with my kids. It’s proven highly effective. Kids (2 of mine are teen-agers now) provide instant feedback, and they are brutal critics. If an idea isn’t working, I know about it instantly. On the other hand, if a story generates lots of enthusiasm from them, I might be on to something.

The danger there, just as with using RPG games, is to recognize that the novel you write will not be the same as the game (or verbal story). A couple years ago, I spent a lot of time developing a story line with my kids. They actually came up with the original magic system idea, which I then fleshed out and used to launch into a series of stories where we explored many other aspects of the world building. The resulting story proved so engaging that I decided to write a book based on all the material we produced.

At first I tried to follow the story line we’d developed, since we were all so enthusiastic about it. However I quickly ran afoul of the hazards lurking down that road. After those hard-learned lessons, I threw away that unproductive plotline and made a hard break – the story would not be a novelization of our hours of storytelling. Instead, I would craft a novel from the ground up, building upon some of the foundational elements we explored in that storytelling, but the plot and characters were entirely new. The resulting novel is a YA fantasy titled Set In Stone, which is now in the hands of my agent. Hopefully we’ll find a home for it soon.

Take Away: Use any creative avenue available to you to explore creative ideas, but remember the limits of what you can accomplish. Take the foundational elements, strip out the rest, and go build a great novel.

Where else do you turn for creative input to explore story concepts as you begin working on a new novel?

World of Warcraft: The Fiction Addiction

August 26, 2013

Quincy J. Allen

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My name is Quincy Allen, and it’s been three days since my last login. Okay, okay, so that’s a lie. I logged in last night, but I won’t apologize for it.

Now that I’ve outed myself as one of those “lamentable” adults who dabble in MMOs, let me tell you why. Like a lot of writers, writing is not my only gig. I’m a tech-writer by day, operate a small but growing book design business by night, and do my writing in the wee hours as time permits. That means that I need to decompress from time to time. Slaying damn near any mob that gets in my way is a perfect way to accomplish it.

What can I say? It’s better than going Postal. Some people play golf. Some watch sports. I’m currently working my way towards the Pinnacle of Storms in order to slay Lei Shen who threatens all of Pandaria. Lei Shen’s power derives from ancient Titan technology, and the Titans were a race of elder gods who deemed the life of Azeroth unfit to breathe.

Over my dead body.

World of Warcraft has been a perfect environment to let off steam for someone who appreciates good storytelling and kilometers-thick back-story. WoW arguably has the most exhaustive canon of any game out there, and it creation goes all the way back to the game’s incept in 1994 in the form of Orcs and Humans. From those meager origins, a worlds-spanning history going back over 10,000 years has been born.

In many respects, that’s what has kept me playing WoW. There’s an almost never-ending sense of discovery as the main storyline unfolds for the players, and there are hundreds if not thousands of side-stories woven throughout the environment to keep someone like me intrigued.

There’s a lesson for all writers in what Blizzard has accomplished with their flagship product. History. If you’re writing contemporary fiction, then your history is written for you, and you can draw from that. If you’re writing alternate history, fantasy, or even future sci-fi, then you should do at least some work in creating your own canon. I can give one example that I use in the novel I just wrapped up.

It’s steampunk fantasy fiction set in the Old West. A half-clockwork gunslinger with magic-imbued mechanical limbs must protect a 15^th century vampiress from being sacrificed to raise a demon army. Simple enough, but the obvious question is, where the hell did the magic come from?

That part wasn’t as simple. I wanted to make the presence of magic in the Old West at least plausible in my head, so I had to alter history. Granted, this tidbit of data isn’t explained in the series I’m referring to, but it is revealed in another series I’ve started, which takes place in the same universe. Essentially, I had to assassinate a 13^th century Pope in order to have magic exist in the Victorian era.

Having done so opens up a wealth of possibilities in my writing and gives my rather critical notion of plausibility a leg up. Basically, I can believe in my own “invention” and build upon it as I see fit with cultures, characters, and histories that all have that single changed moment in history as their foundation. All roads lead to Rome, as they say.

This is a technique I recommend for all writers. While your story takes place “now,” you should have a strong understanding of “what came before.” Not only will this make your story richer, it will give you virtually limitless destinations that all have the same look and feel, because they all derive from the same point of origin.

If you’re writing the fantastic, then take some time to sketch out the timeline around your story. Know what’s going on in your world and have at least a moderate understanding of its history. Empowered with this knowledge, you’ll find that the depth of your storytelling increases by a factor of, and the creation of both sidelines and spin-offs is that much easier to write.

P.S. If you run on Kil’Jaeden, keep an eye out for a DK named Moondawg.

Promises, Promises, Promises

July 19, 2013

Leigh Galbreath

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Sure, the Avengers has its faults, but the weaker aspects of the film are more than made up for by aspects that worked unbelievably well. Pacing, the juggling of an ensemble cast, great dialogue, the list goes on and on.

The Writing Excuses podcast recently covered what the Avengers did right, which everyone should give a listen to, if you haven’t already.

One of the things I think this movie handles very well is the making of promises. Of course, this post is far too short to cover the subject exhaustively, so we’ll stick to just a few scenes.

The film starts out with an obvious promise. The Other’s voice-over promises an impending invasion, sets up the stakes a bit and asks “…and the humans, what can they do but burn?”

If that isn’t a loaded question, I don’t know what is.

That scene is followed by Loki’s arrival, which gives us all kinds of promises. It tells us what to expect from the film: lots of nifty effects (doorways to the other end of space are so pretty), quick pacing (things turn from bad [the Tesseract misbehaving] to worse [Loki running off with said Tesseract] in no time at all), snappy repartee (Whedon’s specialty that you have to hear to believe), and possible global annihilation (Agent Hill’s admonition that “there may not be a minimum safe distance”).

We also get all kinds of character promises. Fury’s willingness to be buried shows how far he’s willing to go. Hawkeye’s competence in this scene sets him up as a valid threat when he’s turned to the dark side and lets us easily accept him into the team when he gets his own personality back. Similarly, Dr. Selwig’s knowledge of the Teseract promises the capacity to create a stable door for Loki’s army to use, and his ability to sneak in a “kill switch” to turn it off again. Also, his mention of Thor, and Loki’s subsequent reaction, promises equal danger to Selwig himself somewhere down the line. And am I the only one who, upon seeing Loki’s first close up when he arrives, thought he was pulling a fantastic impersonation of the Joker’s signature grin? This immediately sets this Loki apart from the one we met in Thor, taking him in a darker direction while still promising some fun when he makes all hell break loose.

A little later, Fury states that he believes the Avengers just need the right push to do what they need them to do. That push turns out to be Agent Coulson’s death, and while we weep over the loss of such an entertaining and likable character, the death is not at all as meaningless as it would have otherwise been without the promise it helps fulfill.

But not all the promises are made at the beginning of the film. Almost halfway through the film, there’s a promise that, when fulfilled, is probably one of the most memorable moments in recent cinema. While at work in the lab, Stark says in an offhand way that Loki is “playing with Acme dynamite” and that he’s going to be there when it explodes in Loki’s face. Now, he says this to Bruce Banner, who we soon learn is the “Acme dynamite” in question. He’s the explosion Loki’s banking on using to get the Avengers out of the way. Anyone who’s seen the movie knows how that turns out, and while Stark isn’t there to see the Hulk toss Loki around like a rag doll, it’s still incredibly satisfying to watch. That unforgettable moment is also promised repeatedly with Whedon’s proclivity to knock Asgardians out of frame in the middle of saying something.

Now, I’ll admit that this film is cheating a bit. As part of a series of movies taking place within the Marvel universe, Whedon is able to lean on promises made in previous films to create a more fulfilling experience for the audience. He also has to make promises meant to be carried over to subsequent films.

Taking from this experience can be difficult depending on one’s style. People who heavily outline their books will have an easier time of planning these promises, as they know what’s going to happen. As a discovery writer, I have to go back to put these in after the fact, but I’m learning that my promises don’t have to be clustered in the first part of the story, nor do they call attention to themselves. Yet, if nothing else is learned from a close observation of Whedon’s use of making and fulfilling promises, it’s that taking the time to pay attention to the promises you make can allow easier handling of other aspects, like juggling a large cast of characters, and can make the story far more powerful and effective.

Got another favorite, or a movie you think does it better? Leave a comment and let us know.