Setting and how to make it work

How many books have you read where the only way that you know that you are in Greece is that olive trees are mentioned three times?

The beginning of every book should place empathetic characters in a setting and propel the story forward. But how to establish setting without burdening the reader with endless description or slow the story down with unnecessary detail.

I am trying a new approach with my next two books, both set in international locations. While I was travelling I recorded what I was feeling in each place under five headings – sight, smell, taste, touch, hearing. I have a page of handwritten notes on each place including airports, beaches, bedrooms etc.

What the character sees is the most common way that writers use to create setting. But smell is the most primitive of the senses and can be the most evocative. A single sentence on taste, touch or hearing can also be very powerful in establishing setting.

I am interested in hearing about how other people move past the ‘olive tree’ clichés and work on original and powerful ways of creating setting for their stories.

Cheers

Lesley Ann Smith

Is it good enough?

For me this is a question I ask myself often. Is my writing good enough? It is good enough to get published or am I wasting my time?

I love writing don't get me wrong, its probably the only other thing apart from my family that has kept me going when everything else screams at me to give up. And in the current publishing climate (when publishers are not taking anything from newcomers) it becomes a very valid question. Is my manuscript good enough to convince an editor to take a chance on me?

All writers would aspire to the bestseller lists as footballers would to the AFL. But how do footballers know if they're good enough? If they win games, kick goals, tackle well? For those reasons, in my non-sporty opinion, it is easier to distinguish great from average. If you can do all the above, it is reasonable to aspire to play in the big leagues. But what about the less than finite terms of the writing world. There are plenty of books out there that I don't like, don't read or don't think are good enough to get published. But they appealed to someone at some point and are judged to be excellent books. So how do I know if I am good enough? And where do I set my expectations based on that? The local game, a state level, national or the arena of the international world? And if I only get to play a backyard game, is that going to be good enough?

Sporting metaphors aside, all I know is that there can only be a certain more amount of time for me to turn down lunch or the movies in favour of writing for a pipe dream. Perhaps then I'll discover if life without writing is good enough.

Ramblings of a maudlin writer in the throes of a crisis...