Tuesday, May 19, 2015

SETTING—LIKE A BOX OF WATER COLORS

Maybe because I used to paint before I started writing fiction is the reason I love to write description.

Some experts teaching the craft of writing will give "description" a hard rap on the knuckles. Granted, we don't want to go back to the days of heavy-handed writing when the setting alone took up several pages.


But in much modern writing, we've gone too far to the other extreme. If there's not enough description, and only dialogue zinging back and forth, I tend to get bored. Quickly. 


For me a good book must have it all: character development, a ripping plot, but when I read a book for fun--I want to go somewhere. Show me the place!!! Let me feel the place!!!


I hail the great MM Kaye for teaching me about writing through the sheer enjoyment of her blockbuster novels loaded with description.
It's a delicate balance, combining your setting with what the characters are doing. This will break your description up into more appetizing chunks and stop you from writing "purple". It also makes your description ACTIVE. 
Here's an example of a snippet of description from my latest novel Veiled at Midnight. The sky is actually active.

Through the window the darkening Indian countryside sped by under a green sky with a crescent moon rising. 


~*~

Not all description has to be pretty. 
Closer to the front behind the engine, carriages lay smashed across the rails, nothing more than a pile of splintered wood and tangled steel. Twisted rails stuck out all over, while cars and coal tender straggled about the ballast stones. Indian passengers crept out from the broken matchbox of a train, in shock, blackened with smoke and grease. Cam heard and understood various dialects from people speaking all at once—Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu, and several others. Many sobbed, hunched over their wounds, while one Indian woman, seemingly uninjured, stood like a statue. Her sari fluttered in the scorching night breeze as she gazed about her at nothing.
~*~
I enjoy writing sensual scenes. As a Christian I hold back in writing sensuality between men and women for the sake of purity, but I will put it into the textures around a man and a woman falling in love. This description is broken up by Cam's reactions.
Velvet divans here and there, cushions of satin and silk in jewel colors—ruby, emerald, sapphire—were scattered over cool marble floors interspersed with Kashmiri carpets. Brass gods scorned Cam from various corners. Lush potted palms quivered in the stillness like the nerve at the side of his neck. A suite of rooms, private for a man and his wife to play with their children. A private place to hold a woman. 
~*~

Peace of mind returned as Cam watched beyond the edge of the roof. Light from the fast-sinking sun went out like a lamp over Calcutta. Duck-egg green shaded the sky, a backdrop to the carved, white, pavilion in Mogul design…the silhouette of a woman against the fretted stonework.

It took a moment to realize that she stood at the arched doorway. It was the rose-like perfume of Dassah’s presence he must have taken in. 


~*~

Writing about India these past ten years has been such a joy, satiating my own appreciation for the sensuality of God's creation. Now that my series Twilight of the British Raj is complete, I'll miss my research on that gorgeous, exotic sub-continent. Especially the scenes set in one of the prettiest places in the world, The Vale of Kashmir. 

Dassah's breathing resumed a normal rhythm as Cam pulled the car up to a mooring where a long, slim flat-bottomed boat waited, that Cam told her was called a shikara. He helped her into the shikara, and along with the young Kashmiri man, Cam packed the bags and boxes into the craft. Cam learned the driver’s name and passed it on to her—Asheesh—who took his position at the back of the shikara. At last, Cam sank onto the seat in the middle of the craft with her, a gaily colored canopy flapping above them. Asheesh dipped heart-shaped paddles into the water and pushed them forward.     
Trailing branches of willows whispered along the waterway as they glided past. For the first time since last night, Cam touched her by drawing her near to rest her head against his collarbone. She breathed in the clean scent of his cotton shirt as the sun set. Snow-packed peaks around them flushed like a ripe peach as their craft slid out to the openness of an immense placid lake, dotted with lotus blossoms.
Veiled at Midnight is the explosive and passionate finale to the historical trilogy Twilight of the British Raj.
For more information on Christine Lindsay and her books drop by her website www.christinelindsay.com and connect with her.


CLICK HERE TO READ 

5 comments:

  1. What's left to say, Christine, except "Wow!" You can really wield words.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree about the importance of setting -- it frames the story, sets the mood and acts almost like another character.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Christine, you have an amazing way with words.You help your reader visualise all that's going on as if they were watching it on the big screen. To me, this is so important. How often when I'm reading I stop and think, "Wait! That's in the wrong place!' because the scene hasn't been adequately set.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Christine, you have an amazing way with words.You help your reader visualise all that's going on as if they were watching it on the big screen. To me, this is so important. How often when I'm reading I stop and think, "Wait! That's in the wrong place!' because the scene hasn't been adequately set.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Christine, I loved your balance of description, dialog, and drama in this series. I felt like I had been there. Your words evoked color, detail and emotion. Wonderful examples. Each took me back to that moment in the book. Brava! and thank you for validating the use of description in our novel writing.

    ReplyDelete