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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 sets up the unexpected. It's also done by using character dialogue to paint a picture of loveliness, danger, evil, trepidation, excitement, awe...
Setting the scene sets up the unexpected. It's 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 or the lead-up 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!
20 comments:
“Are you carrying out some wager at my expense?” she challenged, eyes sparking with fury.
“You, too, are very free with your assumptions. I am risking my personal reputation by engaging in this activity...”
“And mine, sir. May we not conclude that you would have been better employed keeping your feet on the cobbles and bid each other good-night?”
“I wonder, ma’am, whether your aristocratic upbringing has been short on discipline?” Lindsay asked with quiet intent. Bella stepped away from his large frame, but her slippered feet caught in the woollen blanket sliding from her shoulders, and she stumbled.
http://goo.gl/5RBzIm Bella's Betrothal amazon UK
Don't know why that link isn't live. Wonder if this one works:
http://goo.gl/5RBzIm
It has something to do with HTML, Anne. Don't worry, people can highlight and right click their mouse to follow our links.
From Enchanted Sky by Rose Anderson - a story about an ancient and potentially deadly love charm and the Selkie caught in it. http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004XDGWL6
Here, Jenna is about to get locked in with a very handsome man who just happens to have a secret. He's a Selkie.
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Jenna gasped. Oh no! Ducking into the nearest room, she quickly closed the door behind her and pressed her ear to the wood and listened.
***
Startled, Alex spun around. A woman had just barged into his room and slammed the door closed as if she’d been chased inside. That was something all unto itself, but she also held a small towel to the front of her body, leaving the back exquisitely bare. He suddenly felt odd, the same odd feeling he’d felt at the lighthouse earlier that day.
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Read chapter samplings of this story and more for FREE
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/333971
Visit my main blog for updates and more. Today is Funday Sunday and all this week - a symbol series http://calliopeswritingtablet.com/
Thanks, Rose. I'm often confounded by the technical aspects of things. Anne
Here's the opening six sentences from SILVERHAWK, a story about a knight who is everything a proper lady should never want, and a lady a bastard mercenary can never have. http://www.amazon.com/Silverhawk-Barbara-Bettis-ebook/dp/B00E4WJ1YQ/
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His pillow smelled like horse dung.
Squinting through swollen eyelids, Giles of Cambrai saw why. He lay a scant arm’s length from a fresh pile. Pebbles poked his neck. Clods of dirt and a small stick gritted into his rapidly numbing cheek.
Why did he lie face down in the dirt?
From the opening chapter of my time travel romance, Thoroughly Modern Amanda.
Excerpt:
He’ll be along soon.”
Amanda nodded.
"Should I leave and come back?”
Miss Carson shook her head, sending her carefully arranged bun bobbing. “Oh, no. You can wait here.
http://www.amazon.com/Thoroughly-Modern-Amanda-ebook/dp/B00AQAIHHW/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1355948640&sr=1-1&keywords=Thoroughy+Modern+Amanda
From This Time for Keeps, book 3 in my Doctors of Rittenhouse Square Trilogy:
Later, Luca would recall seeing the red Porsche parked in front of Bella’s house and thinking it looked out of place. Not the sort of vehicle that belonged in a genteel neighborhood of dignified old homes. More like the kind of toy an aging playboy with middle-aged spread and a receding hairline might buy in order to troll for ever-younger and more expensive women.
The man who answered Bella’s front door did not fit that profile. He looked about Luca’s age, with a full head of hair, and not an ounce of fat on his well-muscled six foot two inch frame. And he was naked, or very nearly so. Droplets of water trickled down his bare chest and sculpted stomach, darkening the sea-green towel wrapped around his hips.
“Can I help you?” he said.
-Jill
This Time for Keeps
Hi Jill, another Bella, but separated by a century or two. Anne
A tidbit from my LGBT contemporary, Seeing Red:
The Flower District was named for what many men lost there—that moment when the lily white of a pure man’s soul turned red with his first taste of carnal lust. This was not my case, however. I’d lost the purity of having an untouched body years ago, and to a man I didn’t even love…or want.
I sat in the district’s most renowned bar, Divano Messia. I could practically feel eyes cruising over me, but I paid them no mind. I felt bad for the first guy who’d offer to buy me a drink, because I was that one-in-a-million man who wasn’t looking to get laid in a place meant for people looking to get laid. I just wanted to be left alone and drink.
It can be found here with the blurb:
http://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Red-E-L-Esch-ebook/dp/B00DZ3SXQW
Excerpt from Mist – A Romantic Suspense Thriller
Contorted coastline trees stoop lower under a rush of wind. The stench of rotting sea kelp leaks in around the window seals. A bumper sticker on the rusted red and white pickup in front of me says, “Honk if you’ve been rude to a tourist today.” I haven’t, but I laugh and toot my horn anyway.
Around here, we locals have a love/hate relationship with out-of-towners. It’s true they propel our coastal economy, and for that the chamber of commerce folks are grateful, but tourists spend too much time gawking at the ocean instead of paying attention to their driving.
Danita’s author page: http://www.amazon.com/Danita-Cahill/e/B009NF74I4/
Character study from Face the Wind and Fly. Career-woman Kate has rushed home late from a crisis at work and is changing to go to her stepson's engagement party:
Kate – slim, energetic and well organised – was mistress of the quick change. All she ever needed was a minute to assess her mood, because her mood dictated which scarf she would wear. In the male-dominated, frenetically busy world she inhabited, the scarf was a small but defiantly feminine gesture and what had started as a quirk had become an addiction. She hoarded scarves with a passion. Her collection nestled in a special section of her wardrobe, outnumbering her clothes by a factor of twenty – she needed nothing more than a couple of well-cut suits and some neat shift dresses in black, or white, or a plain, bold colour, because the chosen scarf set any outfit off to perfection. Draped, wound round and round her neck, knotted, tied, looped through itself or thrown over her shoulders as the mood took her, Kate’s scarf was her weather vane and her security blanket.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Face-Wind-Fly-Jenny-Harper-ebook/dp/B00HJBTCKC/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1392580114&sr=1-1&keywords=Jenny+Harper+Face+the+Wind+and+Fly
Pandora’s Box, Book 5 of the Golden Dolphin Series (The Alaska Cruise) by Skye Michaels
Release date 2/19/14
http://www.bookstrand.com/pandoras-box
Jackson McClinton’s cabin in a clearing about twenty miles north of Juneau.
Casey looked around with interest. The sunlight was reflecting off the large expanses of glass in the walls of the spacious log cabin style homestead which was situated in the middle of a field of wildflowers. Some outbuildings that looked like an airplane hangar, a small barn, a generator shed, and a smokehouse were located at the back of the clearing. The cabin overlooked a rocky beach and the water below with the mountain range behind. “Well, this is the McClinton homestead. I’ve got about a hundred acres give or take. It runs up into the mountain aways and backs up to State lands. I thought I’d cook us some dinner here; you can get restaurant food anywhere. The grub on that boat is pretty fabulous, but I bet you get tired of all that rich food after a while.”
From RESCUE MY HEART, released 1/19/14. Rory Sampson's New York City studio apartment.
Unlike Felicia’s obsessively neat, stark, black and white place, Rory’s was messy, filled with creative doodads, ceramic bowls and artwork. Her white walls were covered with original oil paintings and prints. Beautiful, hand-crafted ceramic pieces were on display in her wall unit. The colors were warm colors, melon, gold, soft browns. Earth tones, earthy, like her. A raspberry crocheted thrown lay folded over the arm of the sofa. Where have I seen that before?
The aroma of perking coffee mixed with her lilac scent floated to his nostrils. The sofa, the same color as Baxter, was soft and comfy.
All retail links here: http://jeanjoachimbooks.com/rescue-my-heart-manhattan-dinner-club-1/
Chained by Desire
Charity Parkerson
She died on this corner. It seemed strange it would be right here where she caught the bus each morning and evening. She couldn’t recall why she had been there at that exact time but it didn’t change the outcome. She was dead.
She had been brought up to believe things would be different when this day came. There would be light, trumpets…peace. Kylie had none of those things.
http://www.amazon.com/Chained-Desire-2-Seven-Levels-ebook/dp/B00HYZ06YE/ref=sr_1_30?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1392606306&sr=1-30&keywords=charity+parkerson
From the opening chapter of my chick lit novel, A Heat Of The Moment Thing
Next New Year’s there would be no resolutions, no good intentions, and if I had to drink soda water all night to avoid Liz’s pinkie promises, then so be it. Seriously—swimming? What the hell kind of New Year’s resolution was that?
Warning bubbles fizzed past my cheeks. I lifted my head and stared as some lane-hogging idiot approached in a mess of arms and churned-up water. Was he doing—oh, for goodness sake—butterfly?
The blurb and a longer excerpt can be found here:
http://amzn.com/B00BUCJV70
(Blast. Links not working. Sigh. I thought I had it sorted...)
From Were-Devils' Curse http://www.bookstrand.com/simone-sinna
It was already getting dark at 5pm. Fingers of mist were reaching out of the water and snaking down the alleys, sending a shiver through Rebecca Morton even though she had dressed with the cold in mind. The market was almost packed up, the slowest of the stall holders putting the last boxes of treasures in the back of small trucks and station wagons where they would sit until the following Saturday. Because it was winter some hadn’t bothered turning up at all. Sitting in the cold and often wet conditions was bleak and it wasn’t as if the tourists came out in big numbers at this time of year.
Knickers and bras!” I shouted the words at the walls of my empty kitchen. I had just got off the telephone. Not an unusual occurrence, but this was the first invitation I had had since becoming a widow. Widow. Hateful word that swirled around constantly in my head.
The Machinations of Matilda by Stella Sykes
www.amazon.co.uk
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