Location, Location, Location!

Do you love New York?

             Or would you hate it, even on a spring day in Central Park?
 
What about your characters? 

We know how important is to describe where your story is taking place: if it could happen anywhere, you miss a huge opportunity to create a meaningful story world for your reader. But have you ever considered the importance of setting to each of your characters? How does each one feel about it? And how does that affect what they do in your story?

Setting can  enrich a character's behavior by causing them to react in ways that move the action forward. In other words, setting can create conflict.  There are two kinds of conflict: Internal and External. 

Internal conflict is what happens inside a character - and it can change the dynamics of any setting.


If your hero loves the beach, she'll be relaxed there. It will be the ideal setting to slow down the pace and let a romance build. Then again, if she hates the beach - whether she refuses to be seen in a swimsuit, or if her brother drowned in the ocean - that first date could be a nightmare before the picnic basket is unpacked. 



Popular "fish out of water" stories use the setting to create inner conflict through contrast. Put a city gal in a country setting for the first time, and the humor will write itself. Send her home to the small town she escaped, and drama will infuse every scene.

External conflict is something that happens right there on the outside when your characters have other business to attend to. The romantic couple at the beach could get rained out, or distracted by a lifeguard rescue, or lose the car keys in the sand.  The gal in the country could experience her first tornado, or a flirty sheriff, or a lack of cell phone signal. Pile some external conflict on a scene already rife with internal conflict and you get a double whammy - a scene so exciting there is no way the reader can resist.

The point is, when we talk about setting, anything can happen - and should.  Where we are and how we feel about it makes a big difference in our lives. Where your characters are and how they feel about it can make a big difference in your story.
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Leslie Lehr is a prizewinning author, essayist, and screenwriter. One of her favorite settings is at book festivals where she gets to discuss her new novel, What A Mother Knows.

You can follow Leslie at www.facebook.com/authorleslielehr
Tw @leslielehr1
or email her at lesliejlehr@gmail.com

Housekeeping with Clarabel

By Laura Spinella

I come from the before-moms-went-to-work generation, so keeping house is what my mother did.  She was damn good at it, still is at 84. At my house, on any given day, you could eat a meal off the floor of your choosing. During the deep cleaning rituals of spring and fall, this perpetual state of spotlessness reached a new threshold. They are scrubbed clean slivers of time that I remember well. It’s also something I couldn’t imitate if you threatened to dunk my head in a bucket of bleach. On those two days of the year, we’d come through the front door to a nose full of Windex, every Electrolux attachment on duty, and Mother poised on a step ladder. She wasn’t wearing pearls, but she surely wouldn’t have stood in front of an open window without makeup on or her hair done. By the time we got home, she’d worked her way to the changing of the curtains—kind of like the changing of the guard, only more formal. Years removed, the memory of that gold-tweed fabric evokes the crisp scent of fall, the same way a blooming cherry tree makes me think of bright white sheers. We had beautiful curtains (Mother sewed them all) along with Sunday roast beef dinners and a no-nonsense, “Drink some orange juice, go to school, you’ll feel better,” approach to life. It wasn’t the touchy-feely, my kids are the center of universe, attitude we often see today, but it did manage to get my sisters and me to here.

Bayport, New York, circa 1965. Cherry tree, pre-blossom.

Mother and I are not kindred spirits, which is not a problem, just the way it is. We get along fine, but it isn’t the relationship I have with my daughters. Although, on the right day, my daughters would probably tell you that we don’t see eye-to-eye on everything either. Bill O’Reilly, Nicholas Sparks novels, tiny china teacups and pantyhose are just a few of the things that I can’t get my mind around. Mother, on the other hand, takes exception to my lackadaisical politics, supersize glasses of wine, and often crass sense of humor.  Here, however, is where we sync perfectly: when I think of the way Mother kept house, I think of the way I write. Cleaning was just a broad term for every minute task that went into the maintenance of her home. She would purge and polish, refresh and review with a relentless eye. Dinner was an event, complete with an ironed tablecloth, dessert included, served precisely at 5:30 p.m. on weeknights. On summer Tuesdays the wash hung outside and on Thursdays bathrooms were scrubbed clean—period. Mother did everything she could to make her space—our space—the absolute best it could be. Admittedly, the book writing process is not Mother’s forte, why it takes so long, or why I invest insane amounts of time writing, researching, editing and rewriting. I mean, seriously, isn’t the wash piling up somewhere? But I do have an answer when she questions my all-consuming nature, a dogged insistence on my optimal performance. I remind Mother, “I’m only doing exactly what you taught me.” 

Laura Spinella is the author of the award-winning novel, BEAUTIFUL DISASTER and the upcoming novel, PERFECT TIMING. Visit her at www.lauraspinella.net.