Writing What You Know: Setting

As a writer, I am pretty fortunate to have grown up in New York near Manhattan, and to have spent most of my life in and around it. New York City makes an excellent setting for a novel. It's always alive, always has a lot of action. There are interesting people, countless cultural influences. There's awesome pizza. Plenty of crime and lots of money--both good for some drama.

My grandparents had a summer bungalow. One of those towns where this is one Laundromat, a cannon in the center of town, and a volunteer fire department. And that's it. I can write slightly spooky and isolated in the country.

I've traveled. Pretty much from the top of Eastern seaboard to tip of Key West. I've been to L.A. and San Francisco. I've lived in Bermuda for three years. I've traveled to Nice, Milan, and Monaco. I've even been places I thought I would never go--like Knoxville, TN. And then there's Google.

For the most part, I have to say, I fall back on NYC as the setting for my novels though, because I can write it authentically. Because there are elements of writing what you know that get tricky when you try to fake setting without having visited a place.

Take Richmond, Virginia, my current home. You could drive through here, take vigorous notes, and still not know an awful lot about its unique culture. Like the fact that if there's a SNOWFLAKE hitting the earth anywhere within a three-hour radius of Richmond, Virginia, the entire city shuts down. Shuts down, schools closed, panic in the streets. To a New Yorker like me who once drove to NYU in grad school in a massive blizzard to take my final because NYU didn't cancel classes despite the 8-foot snow drifts, this is pretty astounding about living here. I mock it. Routinely. And here's the thing. If someone set a book here and there was a snow scene in which people actually drove CARS in this city without--and I kid you not--there being hundreds (!!) of fender-benders for less than an inch or two of snow, I would know the author had never lived here. And it might--I have to say might--ruin the book for me.

Now, with good journalism skills and Google, and research, sure you can fake it. But be careful . . . 'cause the folks who live there can spot a fake.

Thoughts? What considerations do you take into account when setting your books?

Blue

I was about ten when I discovered my cousin was color-blind. I recall it having to do with a shirt he wore that he was quite insistent was beige. It was green. He thought his pants were brown. They weren't.

At age ten, given my lifelong propensity for thinking too hard about things, I was launched into a brief existential crisis. I see a blue sky. But is it the SAME blue as the sky YOU see? I was firmly convinced unless I could climb inside someone else, viewing it through their eyeballs, that there was no way I could be sure that MY blue was YOUR blue.

I left age ten in the dust, but that reality has stuck with me. MY heartache is not YOUR heartache. My grief is not yours. What I find is funny . . . well, I don't laugh at YOUR jokes. As for me, I can't tell a joke to save my life.

My best friend in the whole world, Pammie, is one of those people who finishes my sentences. I've shared on the blog before how there are whole conversations starting with, "What did you think of . . ." (unfinished). "I hated . . ." "I know, he was miscast in that role . . ." "What were . . ." "I know . . . " "How did that get greenlighted?" All those dots? Never filled in. We don't have to. It's a little weird. And a lot wonderful. And yet . . . I don't know if HER blue is MY blue.

So it is with memories and writing and scene painting. For some reason, randomly, I thought of my grandmother this weekend. I think it's all the death and destruction stories over at Lurker Monkey's because my specific memory was of the "death watch weekend." The weekend we were sure was "it." In the Universe's collossal sense of the absurd, that was actually about seven years before the real end (which goes to show doctors should never assume . . . particularly when dealing with a stubborn Slavic woman).

Our entire beleaguered family stumbled from the ICU to our cars and descended on a Greek diner down the street from the hospital. All we wanted was a meal. And cocktails. And the Greek diner served both. The menus were thick as Bibles, and we ordered--eggs for me, meatloaf for someone else, a burger for my father. That's another great thing about diners in New York. And somehow, as we were eating, we shifted from grief to . . . a mini-Irish wake. We started telling stories about my grandmother, and before we knew it, we were laughing. And then we were struck, rather guiltily, that we were laughing when the poor woman was in the ICU. So then we got misty-eyed. And then we laughed again.

I don't know if a single other person at that table even remembers that night. Or remembers it was at a Greek diner. Or that I had eggs. And my mother a chablis. I don't know if they recall apple pie spinning in the pie display case. Or that the chairs were fake burgundy leather. Or that Greek music was piped in. I don't know if I prodded with my memory, if they would say, though it was over two decades ago, "Oh . . . YEAH . . . I remember that night."

But I remember things like a writer. My blue may not be their blue. And I am positive, or at least fairly positive, that I remember things in scenes. I think in scenes. When events happen now, it's as if I freeze the tableau and think, "I'll use that." I don't conciously think it. But it's how my mind works. It freezes on the pies in the display case. And you can bet I use it. When Billie Quinn stops in New Jersey at a diner in the first book book I wrote with her in it, there is pie. And menus thick as Bibles.

So do you think in scenes? When you write, are you trying to paint YOUR blue for your readers?

Objet d'art

I've posted pictures of my office before, but they're usually of my desk. This is one of my bookshelves. You can't see all of the details, but I can tell you that going from left to right across the top are: incense burner from my sister's trip to Greece; somewhere around there is the dog collar and tags of my much-loved dog, Honi; a vase my parents gave me; an artist's rendering of Oldest when she was 4; the low-lying green and yellow objet d'art is a lizard sculpted by one of my kids; behind it is a hand-painted photo of my mother when she was a girl, to the right in the smaller frame is a picture of Oldest looking JUST like her. There are Buddhas . . . way down on the end is my national Jefferson Medal for Public Service, one of my prized possessions, and a photo of the teen mom I mentored and her baby. On the next shelf down, far left is my Django Reinhardt album. In vinyl.

Ever read a book where the writer says the office was "nondescript"?

No so my office. It is full of assorted crap that I love, my object d'art.

And I think when setting scenes, it's these artifacts that can SHOW not tell what a character is all about. What is the ONE thing they keep on their desk. The one photo they have framed and sitting on the fireplace. The odd little item they keep in their wallet.

To me, scene setting is less about minute details of someone's office and furniture and their living room carpet, and all about what it says. WHAT does the objet d'art SAY about that person. If it says nothing, it doesn't belong in the description if you intend to write "lean."

At least that's my take. Thoughts? What do you have on your desk right now that says something about you? And what item is telling about your character?

What Blows Away

Blood spatter was artfully arranged.

This is the first line from my first Billie Quinn book. And readers come to discover that the eccentric Lewis LeBarge, Billie's boss, keeps crime scene photos and frames them as art. He also has a pet tarantula that he has a habit of losing. And he has a brains-in-formaldehyde collection. And posters of zombie films. But you find all that out later. For now, on the first page, it's enough to know about his crime scene art.

I was in a writers' group once with someone who insisted on starting her books with a long paragraph of scene setting down to wallpaper choices--none of which was important to the storyline. I've edited some books that went along with this type of scene setting--long descriptions with minute detail. I tend to not write from that camp. But you need to set the scene, right? So how?

With a nod yet again to a certain JVZ from my writers' group, I've learned to ruthlessly cut. But I also wasn't a very "wordy" gal to begin with. And when it comes to scene setting, I often put in nothing. It's usually the one thing I have to add to my second draft. In fact, dialogue--solid. Characterization--got that down. Setting the scene? Not so much.

But what I've come to conclude is scene setting is only important for what it shows. That's it. Scene setting should advance your story. That's ALL it's there for. Think about the movies. Two characters are screaming at each other in a confrontation. Is the camera panning the room letting us see the chintz-covered chairs? Not likely.

Thus when I set a scene, I think only of what it says about character. In my Billie Quinn books, Lewis LeBarge has blood spatter pictures. Ava and Tom in The Roofer . . . have ONE painting on the wall that has emotional significance to them--and a set of bookshelves, which, if you've read the book, you know the story behind THOSE. When she has to go on the run at the end of the book, she takes a SINGLE photograph in a frame.

I lived through four hurricanes before I left South Florida. In one, I had 11 extra people sleeping in my house, all of us hiding behind metal hurricane shutters, with no power, and the howling of the wind ripping palm trees up. When a hurricane comes, you bottom line your life pretty f*cking quick. What are the things that could fit in a suitcase that I would be devastated if I lost? For me, it was all about kids' photos and the little drawings they made me. A picture of my grandmother I can't replace. My furniture is nice. But I don't give a shit about any of it. It's the pieces of my heart I couldn't bear to lose.

THAT'S how I set a scene. What tells you what you need to know about the character who inhabits that room or office? Even if it's barren and cold and belongs to the villain--you need to know that. Other than that . . . most of it can be blown away by the hurricane. It doesn't matter and you're just bogging down your scene.

Right now, I'm looking around my office as I type this. It's cluttered with pieces of my heart. If I had to leave in five minutes, I'm taking the picture of my grandma in the NY Mets shirt I bought her, the picture of my grandma that she signed to her sweetheart (my grandfather), the cookie jar that was my grandmother's (sensing a theme here?), the picture of my dad when he was 6 or 7, as many loose photos as would fit in a gallon zip-lock bag. My kids' files (they have their artwork and cards they made me). That's it. That's all you need to know about me.

Thoughts?

More Editing How-To's--Life Speeding By

Since my blog post of two days ago generated so much discussion (and great tips and word lists for myself--thanks everyone!), I decided to post on another editing pet peeve.

There is nothing mroe satisfying to the secret, lurking English teacher in me than slashing a red line through an entire page. Whip out the pen and voila . . . the page is gone. I do it often when editing authors . . . and I know they cringe. But . . . sometimes I just have to. And one of the biggest things that will get me joyously slicing through a page is scene setting.

Why?

Scene setting has a time and a place. For instance, in THE ROOFER, when Ava went into John's bar, in a scene-setting, she discussed the nicotine-encrusted (and I DO mean encusted) walls, the moosehead above the bar that had turned sooty black from smokers, the Hiroshima cloud of smoke hovering above everyone, the single light bulb in the bathroom, the vague smell of vomit in the air. It was time to set the scene of Hell's Kitchen. Scene setting wasn't appropriate in chapter one--that was an Irish wake. The most important part of that scene was the Irish wake itself--as a writer can't assume everyone has been to one. That wasn't the PLACE to explore Hell's Kitchen. I had to exhibit patience, even though Hell's Kitchen was one of the most improtant features of the book. But the time for that was the "downtime" start of the next chapter when Ava and Tom went for a drink.

In general, the most common time I slice with red pen, especially, in scene-setting is when life is SPEEDING by. What do I mean? If a detective and her partner walk into a crime scene, and the book is written from her POV, and as they enter the building, its walls awash in blood from a serial killer, and a man is fleeing the building, and the cop and her partner give pursuit, I don't care HOW good her power of observation is as a detective, from 100 yards, she is not going to notice the most minute details of her suspect (like eye color if it's dark), and she is not going to take the TIME to notice the chintz chair, the magazines on the coffee table, the knick-knacks on the shelves of the dead person's home. It's just not going to happen because that detective will be out of there in less than five seconds. Her adrenaline will be rushing. It isn't time for scene setting, it isn't time for heavy description--all that will pull a reader out of the scene. It's time to MOVE. Life is speeding by and all the rest of that "stuff" that writers sometimes love to describe can come LATER.

Thoughts? Time and place?