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One of the finest aspects of fiction writing is the ability to set the scene. Characters act and react, but they don't do so in a vacuum. In their world, they meet, fall in love, solve problems, sometimes horrendous problems. Maybe it's a small town, maybe the big city, the green, humid jungle, dust-dry desert, a mountainous region. On the sea. Under the sea. In space!
Setting the scene is also done by using character dialogue to paint a picture of loveliness, danger, evil, trepidation, excitement, awe...
Setting the scene is also done by using character dialogue to paint a picture of loveliness, danger, evil, trepidation, excitement, awe...
Give us six sentences that set the scene. Set the Scene in Six Sentences - Sunday is a new opportunity on the Exquisite Quills! Blog to tout your talent. How have you set the scene in your books? How have you put the reader into the life of your characters?
Every Sunday, the blog will be open to six-sentence scene-setting. Just post your six sentences, your name, and one link in the comment box. We can't wait to read you!
Pass the word! Open to all!
Pass the word! Open to all!
8 comments:
This is from Galen, book 3 of the Hidden Breeds series. It releases Dec 1, 2013 at www.extasybooks.com
Hand on the door handle, Kendra was ready to push the door open when she heard voices growing closer.
“We’ll lock her in as soon as we get there.” It was the crazy Englishman she heard talking. “By my calculations, she should shift roughly fifteen minutes after we reach the lab.”
"Ha! She’s ready to shift herself out of this vehicle right now, you crazy bastard!"
A Soldier's Italian Christmas is the story of forbidden love between a soldier and a nun in war torn Italy in December 1943.
In this snippet, Captain Mack O'Casey has stumbled into a bombed-out village and come face-to-face with a beautiful nun. Sister Angelina puts him in his place when he gets too curious. What is she hiding?
A Soldier’s Italian Christmas on Amazon
“We are a small village, Captain. We raise olives, wheat, and the beautiful yellow roses that grow only on the mountain near the monastery. It’s not easy to find us, but we are a proud people. Father Tom understood that and died guarding our secrets.”
Mack pushed his helmet back on his head, smiling. That’s telling me to mind my own business.
My six today comes from Dreamscape. Written in homage to Agatha Christie, Dreamscape is a haunting, a murder, a thriller, a mystery, and a love story that transcends time. Above all, this sensual tale is a reader's Easter egg hunt in the truest sense. Not everything is as it appears. Peppered throughout are little clues suggesting a story running behind the scenes. Finding them isn't necessary to the telling of the tale, just one of the fun twists I like to insert into my writing. Can you find them all before the story ends? But more importantly, can a ghost find love among the living? http://www.amazon.com/Dreamscape-Siren-Publishing-Classic-Anderson-ebook/dp/B005HIL5MM
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Lainie and her best friend Lexie are cleaning out the junk-stacked cellar in preparation for the new cement floor. At this point in the story the pair have been going over the details as they have them. All fingers point to Dr. Jason Bowen being murdered 120 years before. They're about to find an awful surprise.
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Frustrated by a skeletal armchair with its rotted horsehair cushions and sharp uncoiled springs jutting out in every conceivable direction, Lexie asked, “How did Ben’s brother figure this cellar would be ready to go on Monday?”
Lanie answered from somewhere on the other side of the stack, “We’re almost done. Monday will be tight time-wise, but if I can get most of it out they can rake the floor before the cement comes. Remember, Ben said to leave the heaviest stuff for them.” Loaded up with two broken apple crates, a base to a kerosene lamp and the other leg of the footstool she found in the past hour, she set them on the top stair and said on her way down, “Why do you suppose it’s stacked with garbage like this?”
“I’m wondering that myself..."
From "A Promise at Dawn" at Siren
Faye Burke inhaled the rising steam from her morning coffee as she leaned against the corner post on her porch.
She loved watching the sun rise from the waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
For someone who dreaded the days, dreaded the length of them, dreaded the nothingness of them, she loved the beginning of them.
Gold and crimson and lavender streaked across the horizon, reflecting off the clouds poised low over the water.
Despite years of warnings, death had still come as a painful shock and had taken her breath away, made her feel like the loneliest person in the world.
Even though, at sixty-five, he’d been decades older than her forty-three, she hadn’t fully prepared herself for this, for the devastation of it.
http://amzn.to/10OaejZ
My sentences are from Studio Relations, my love story set in 1935 Hollywood. It is about a female director and a studio executive who find their happy ending.
Studio Relations
By
Georgie Lee
Hollywood 1935
Vivien Howard marched into Earl Holmes’s office and threw the script on his desk. “Storm of the South. This is it. This is the picture I want to direct next.”
Earl picked up the script and flipped through it, unfazed. “The Civil War? It’s been done, and badly.”
“Not the way I’m going to do it.”
“I read the script a couple of months back. It’s a war movie. A woman can’t direct a war movie.” He tossed the script onto his large mahogany desk and leaned back in his leather chair, his hands clasped over his round belly, his graying eyebrows knitted as his eyes bored into her. Earl’s imposing attitude would have cowed a lesser director, but Vivien had played this game too many times with the old studio head to be scared off now.
http://www.amazon.com/Studio-Relations-ebook/dp/B008RBSNYY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1370447490&sr=8-1&keywords=studio+relations
From my Christmas-y romance novella, which features Italy, Vespas, animal rescue and happy endings all around.
"Sigrid rounded the corner of the Via della Propaganda. Italians gave their streets such great names, she had noticed. She continued up one of the smaller streets near the Piazza di Spagna till she found a spot near the restaurant to park Guido. Guido was what she called her Vespa.
*****
Christmas Eve found Sandro and Sigrid off on their bikes, Sandro leading the way on a tour of his family’s estate and vineyard. He had a picnic basket attached to the back of his Vespone, and Sigrid and Guido la Vespa followed behind until they reached what looked like a farmhouse in the middle of the vineyard."
http://www.amazon.com/Amore-Pinot-Grigio-BookStrand-Publishing-ebook/dp/B00GG1C71C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1384277207&sr=8-1&keywords=amore+and+pinot+grigio
Though she heard the slight crunching sound of her sisters’
footsteps as they trailed behind her, she didn’t turn around or acknowledge them. The sight ahead captured her full attention.
She gulped hard, recognizing the tall, muscular man
strutting down the road. She’d danced with him about a year ago. A hot shiver hit her as she gazed at his chiseled, sun-tanned face and shiny black hair.Without tearing her gaze from him,she came to a stop.
http://www.ellorascave.com/ever-so-bonnie-a-vampire.html
This scene is from my brand new holiday release, A SANDCASTLE CHRISTMAS.
She waved goodbye to Juan and went down the exterior walkway toward the condo. The wind bit at her face and whipped her hair. She stopped near her door and set her hands on the sturdy metal railing, gazing out to where the gray skies met the even grayer water. The surf churned up whitecaps, rolling them in to batter the beach. Somehow, she even found beauty in this winter seascape. The pounding surf always thrilled her, awakened her senses, and inspired her to jump in, get involved.
Chloe filled her lungs with the damp and cold winter air and blew it out in a stream. Straightening her shoulders, she was determined not to let a troll like Mrs. Henderson get the better of her.
She went inside her snug home, the heat rushing to embrace her.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GWRQ95K
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