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Writing
Assignment: Setting.....
This month’s Writing Assignment article is the second
in a series of how-to-write-fiction exercises designed to help new writers
become more familiar with fiction writing.
Last month the Writing Assignment focused on
characterization. In
fiction writing, one of the most important elements is characterization.
(See www.author-me.com/NewsOctober2000.htm.)
While character is central to a story, the writer must
also pay close attention to context. For a character, such as yourself, is
undoubtedly going to behave differently in different settings. (For example,
how you behave in a courtroom may differ from how you behave in a loud
disco.)
In the same way, once you have developed a character,
you need to place the character into a setting. And it is the combination of
these two -- character and setting -- which set your story on its path to
action.
Assignment – For Next Month
So your assignment is to create at least one setting before the end of the month.
The hard part -- and this will force you to focus on the setting -- is for
you to describe the setting without any reference to the character you plan
to plop down into it.
Good
luck!
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Internet
- Free Voice for Youth
Ask
yourself -- what do school administrators do when students use the school
newspaper to criticize the school or faculty? What about the school
broadcasting station, if one exists?
Take
it from us, firsthand. Almost universally, the reaction is 1) censorship,
2) discipline, and 3) denial.
That's
where the Internet comes in. In this week's Industry Standard, author
Lessley Anderson documents school resistance to student web sites in
"High School Confidential -- NOT!" (Industry Standard, 11/6/00.)
It's
one thing to critique someone or something on a personal website. But personal websites are seldom indexed by the major
search engines.
Check
out the writerly websites, if you have a legitimate beef. . Where
to look for writer-friendly sites? One useful listing is at dmoz.org (the
Open Directory Project). Click on Arts, then On-line Writing and then
Writers’ Resources.
Been
to church lately?...
If
not, check out our new all - immersion Life of Jesus (part 1) from David C.
Cook III. Visit www.galleyproof.com/religion.html.
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E-Book Update........................
New developments continue to invigorate (and
irritate) the fledgling
e-book industry.
A sober look at e-book : "Nothing is
selling," says John Feldcamp, co-founder and chief executive of
online publisher www.xlibris.com.
"Do e-books ultimately win?," he asks. "Yes, absolutely. Do they win this year or
next year? No This isn't even slightly cooked yet." ("E-Books'
Big Future Isn't Likely to Arrive at Any Point Soon," Wall Street
Journal, October 2, 2000.)
What about publishing the unpublished? After all, this
is the real dream of the e-book for aspiring writers and
authors. According to the above article, one company formed just for this
purpose is www.lUniverse.com. But
it saw the financial writing on the all, and now it's becoming a provider
of technology to traditional book publishers instead.
Another unique e-book opportunity is an effort by
Random House to release e-book versions of 100 literary classics. The plan
it appears, is to market these on writerly websites which haven't sold books
before. See "Random House Fires a Shot In E-Book Feud," Wall
Street Journal, November 1, 2000.
Also, it would be remiss of us to ignore the newly
emerging opportunity for publishers to print as few as 30 books per
author. (This would have been cost prohibitive in the recent past.)
Publishing New Writers, November, 2000 (no.105)
Editor Bruce L. Cook, P.O. Box 451, Dundee, IL
60118. Fax (847) 428-8974.
Submissions and comments to cookcomm@gte.net.
Links are welcome.
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