After my big scene changes and rewrites, the rest of my revisions have gone surprisingly quick--I'll be able to start on prose by the end of the week! Prose will take a lot of time and a lot of patience, but I'm eager to do it. To see if I really can morph my mediocre words into something publishable.
I read more of The Writer's Portable Mentor last night. Priscilla Long talks about making setting work double-duty. How can you describe the setting and have it reflect on the character? She gives some great examples, which I can't type up as I don't have the book with me. But one shows a dirty kitchen, the character cooking on a hot plate--the other shows a dining room with roses on the tablecloth and candlesticks. The first belonged to a convict, the second to a well-to-do woman.
This is something I especially want to focus on in chapter one. How can I show who Kylah is through his setting? How can I use the descriptions of his village to present his culture, and to show he's an outcast? I really want to up the ante on his social rejection.
And yes, I'll be sending out those annoying beta reader emails shortly. ;)
I read more of The Writer's Portable Mentor last night. Priscilla Long talks about making setting work double-duty. How can you describe the setting and have it reflect on the character? She gives some great examples, which I can't type up as I don't have the book with me. But one shows a dirty kitchen, the character cooking on a hot plate--the other shows a dining room with roses on the tablecloth and candlesticks. The first belonged to a convict, the second to a well-to-do woman.
This is something I especially want to focus on in chapter one. How can I show who Kylah is through his setting? How can I use the descriptions of his village to present his culture, and to show he's an outcast? I really want to up the ante on his social rejection.
And yes, I'll be sending out those annoying beta reader emails shortly. ;)
Wow, that kitchen on the left is gross. But I need to do what you're doing too. I need to pull everything together to put across one pic.
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