Creative Writing Week One: Setting The Scene

Week One: Setting the Scene

One of the most important tasks a writer has is to set the scene. Readers want to know about the world that your characters inhabit, and when writing an exam, it s a good opportunity to show off some great descri ptive language. When we read a great book, we often talk about being transported that should be your aim! To write a scene so well that whoever is reading can imagine themselves in the world you have created.

I have given some examples of particularly good scene-setting from books below. If you don t know what a word means, look it up in the dictionary! The best way to improve your vocabulary is reading.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain

Mark Twain is famous for writing in the voices of his characters. In this case, we see the natural world through the eyes of Huck Finn, a young boy travelling down the Mississippi river on a raft.

We slid into the river and had a swim, so as to freshen up and cool off then we set down on the sandy bottom where the water was about knee deep, and watched the daylight come. Not a sound, anywhere perfectly still just like the whole world was asleep, only sometimes the bull-frogs a-cluttering, maybe. The first thing to see, looking away over the water, was a kind of dull line that was the woods on t other side you couldn t make nothing else out then a pale place in the sky then more paleness, spreading around, then the river softened up, away off, and warn t black any more, but gray and you see the mist curl up off of the water, and the east reddens up, and the river, and you make out a log cabin in the edge of the woods, away on the bank on t other side of the river then the nice breeze springs up, and comes fanning you from over there, so cool and fresh, and sweet to smell, on account of the woods and the flowers.

Sometimes we d have that whole river to ourselves for the longest time. Yonder was the banks and the islands, across the water and maybe a spark which was a candle in a cabin window and sometimes on the water you could see a spark or two on a raft or a scow you know and maybe you could hear a fiddle or a song coming over from one of them crafts. It s lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky, up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened.

The author doesn t use very many adjectives, but by describing what Huck is seeing, hearing, feeling and smelling, it is as though we too are experiencing the sights and sounds of life on the river.

I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith

In contrast to Huck Finn, the narrator (Cassandra) in I Capture the Castle enjoys using descri ptive language, with lots of adjectives and adverbs.

I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. That is, my feet are in it the rest of me is on the draining-board, which I have padded with our dog s blanket and the tea-cosy. I can t say that I am really comfortable, and there is a depressing smell of carbolic soap, but this is the only part of the kitchen where there is any daylight left. And I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be very inspiring I wrote my very best poem while sitting on the henhouse. Though even that isn t a very good poem. I have decided that my poetry is so bad that I mustn t write any more of it.

Drips from the roof are plopping onto the water-butt by the back door. The view through the windows above the sink is excessively drear. Beyond the dank garden in the courtyard are the ruined walls on the edge of the moat. Beyond the moat, the boggy ploughed fields stretch to the leaden sky. I tell myself that all the rain we have had lately is good for nature, and that any moment spring will surge on us. I try to see leaves on the trees and the courtyard filled with sunlight. Unfortunately, the more my mind s eye sees green and gold, the more drained of all colour does the twilight seem.

The contrast of the matter-of-fact details Cassandra includes (writing in the kitchen sink, the drips from the roof) and the adjectives and adverbs she uses to describe her surroundings give us not only a vivid image of the castle grounds, but an insight into how she sees the world, and the kind of person she is.

The Secret Garden, By Frances Hodgson-BurnettHere, the author is setting the scene, rather than a narrator. Hodgson-Burnett is describing Mary Lennox, an orphan girl, discovering a hidden garden.

It was the strangest, most mysterious-looking place anyone could imagine. The high walls which shut it in were covered with the leafless stems of climbing roses, which were so thick that they were matted together. Mary Lennox knew they were roses because she had seen a great many roses in India. All the ground was covered with grass of a wintry brown, and out of it grew clumps of bushes which were surely rose-bushes if they were alive. There were numbers of standard roses which had so spread their branches that they were like little trees. There were other trees in the garden, and one of the things which made the place look strangest and loveliest was that climbing roses had run all over them and swung down long tendrils which made light swaying curtains, and here and there they had caught at each other or at a far-reaching branch and had crept from one tree to another and made lovely bridges of themselves. There were neither leaves nor roses on them now, and Mary did not know whether they were dead or alive, but their thin grey or brown branches and sprays looked like a sort of hazy mantle spreading over everything, walls, and trees, and even brown grass, where they had fallen from their fastenings and run along the ground. It was this hazy tangle from tree to tree which made it look so mysterious.

Hodgson-Burnett writes very beautifully, with rich metaphors and similes. This means she doesn t have to rely on adjectives and adverbs to paint a picture she describes roses as climbing and running and swinging.

Task:Set a timer for fifty minutes. During that time, write about someone (it can be yourself or a character you have created, it is up to you!) walking across an island, and describe your surroundings in a lot of detail. You can have another character with you, or even write a bit of action but your main focus should be on describing the island itself.

Some things to think about:

1. Use your senses. What can you see, hear, think, feel even taste?

2. Language. Techniques such as alliteration and onomatopoeia are very effective when describing a scene. Great writers use the sounds of words to paint a picture.

3. Use exciting adjectives and adverbs but remember, quality is more important than quantity! Use a thesaurus if necessary.

4. Try and include some metaphor and simile. This can seem daunting with similes, you can use the structure: As (adjective) as or (Adjective), like . Metaphors are a bit trickier, but just think of pairing words that might not usually go together! Think of dancing waves, or blushing flowers. Then try pairing metaphor and simile for example: The stars were embroidered on the night sky, like sequins on an evening dress.

Below this exercise is a list of synonyms for common descri ptive words. If you are stuck for good words to use, you can consult the list and see if one of them would work.

After the fifty minutes are over, read your work aloud, either to yourself or to someone in your family. Think about what you like, and what you would change.

List of Synonyms

Basic Word

Rough

Calm

Lonely

Wild

Shining

Dull

Cold

Pleasant

Bitter

Sweet

Synonym

Coarse, rugged, gnarled

Tranquil, serene, placid, docile

Isolated, desolate, sequestered, forsaken

Savage, feral, ferocious, snarling

Gleaming, glistening, brilliant, iridescent

Leaden, wearisome, sombre, lustreless

Frigid, piercing, glacial, bleak

Captivating, congenial, amiable, delightful

Acrid, pungent, sharp, malign

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