Setting (Paint Your Picture Continued)

Where are you? What does that place look like? What feeling does it convey? Is it essential to the story? Did something significant occur there?

When you are selecting settings for your story, the reader must know where the story is taking place. More importantly, they want to ‘see’ it and ‘feel’ it. You may have just read the previous sentence and said, “Well, duhhh.” I kid you not. There are some writers out there who don’t pay enough attention to their setting. It leaves the reader scratching their head. I’ve read books where I have had to back track because the setting wasn’t paid its due diligence. I don’t know about you, but I picture in my head what I’m reading. It plays out like a movie. If I can’t see it, the story lacks that flow. Once you hook the reader on the first page, you want to keep them.