And they said I didn't have a creative bone in my body. Elephant's Child shares her creative journey thus far/

Hello everyone!

We asked the winner of the Spectacular Settings challenge to share her writing journey with us today. It is with great joy we welcome Elephant's Child to the WEP blog as our first winner guest poster.

Take it away, EC!

Over fifty years ago I was told firmly that I didn't have a creative bone in my body.  I have carried that label ever since.  Sometimes I barely noticed it, and at other times it weighed heavy.   As a consolation prize I was assured that everyone has a special talent - and mine would emerge.

So I waited for that talent to appear.  And waited some more.  And the years went by.

A few years ago I had an epiphany.  I am an appreciator.  I am a beauty addict and find it almost everywhere.  In nature, and in many man-made creations.  Books are a prime favourite and I guzzle them.  Across genres.  Quirkiness and whimsy too.

Painting, pottery, sculpture, architecture, crafts...   A little later I realised that not only am I am appreciator, I like to share the joy and the magic.

When I found the blogosphere about four and a half years ago it was like coming home.  I was invited into people's lives, educated and entertained.   I laughed with other bloggers, I wept with and for them.  I wrote about some of the things which move me, and took photographs to share the wonder.  And made friends.  Good friends, even though I will probably never meet most of them.

As I explored my vastly expanded world I was introduced to a writing meme 'Words for Wednesday'.  Each week a selection of words, a phrase, or an image go up and we are encouraged to play.  Some people create incredible stories.  I content myself with a paragraph or two.  And marvel at the very different things triggered by the same prompt.

When I came across Write Edit Publish I knew I would be back to revel in other people's creativity.  Some gentle encouragement pushed me out of my comfort zone. No quick paragraph, but a considered piece.  Something I have never done.

When I put my entry up, it was with intense trepidation.  I was awed at the creativity and beauty of the other contributions I read, and felt out-classed.  When very generous comments started to appear the welcoming and supportive attitude was so very welcome.

AND LOOK WHAT HAPPENED!!!  I won!!! Surprise doesn't begin to cover it.  Shock.  Disbelief.  It is too soon to say that I can (finally) discard that label I have dragged though life, but its shackles are looser than they were.

I am so very grateful that Denise and Yolanda set this challenge up - and for the support and encouragement that everyone has provided.   I love this diverse, rich, exciting community.

Thank you EC. We are humbled by your humility. Thank you so much for sharing with us today!

If you haven't read Elephant's Child's poetic entry, Memories. Magic. Mystery. please click here for a visceral treat.

Stay tuned everybody. Next Wednesday we present a post on Copyright. Please join us.

And keep your creative juices running. Our October Halloween challenge will be here before you know it.

Help us Celebrate Creativity!

We'd love if you'd Tweet one of these:

Elephants Child is guest posting about her creative journey #WEPFF Write…Edit,,,Publish @YolandaRenee & @DeniseCCovey http://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2015/09/and-they-said-i-didnt-have-creative.html

Have they said you aren't the least bit creative? #WEPFF They were wrong. @YolandaRenee & @DeniseCCovey http://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2015/09/and-they-said-i-didnt-have-creative.html

Celebrate creativity with us and Elephants Child at #WEPFF Write…Edit…Publish. @YolandaRenee & @DeniseCCovey http://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2015/09/and-they-said-i-didnt-have-creative.html

WEP First Challenge -- SPECTACULAR SETTINGS -- sign up here!

August 19 - SPECTACULAR SETTINGS.

This first challenge has two parts. You may do both parts or just one. Your choice.

For this challenge you will:

1.    Firstly share a paragraph from a novel, or an extract from a poem, or a photograph that stopped your heart with a spectacular setting etc. 

2.    Describe how your chosen 'setting' spoke to you. Why did you like it?

3.    Then you have the option to:

     a)     write your own 'setting' piece in any genre, or share a ‘setting’ from your WIP, or…

     b)     write your own poem which highlights 'setting', or 

     c)     share a photograph that blows you away every time you look at it and tell us why.

     d)     share an artwork that shows a 'setting' you love and tell us why you love it.

     e)     write a small playscript which highlights 'setting'.

Here is the InLinkz code if you want to paste onto your blog:

<!-- start InLinkz script -->

<script type="text/javascript" src="//www.inlinkz.com/cs.php?id=549556"></script>

<!-- end InLinkz script -->

Don't forget to share the Challenge

We'd love it if you'd Tweet one of these:

Spectacular Settings Flash Fiction Challenge Link is up Join us! @DeniseCCovey & @YolandaRenee join the fun  http://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2015/08/wep-first-challenge-spectacular.html #WEPFF

 Time to get serious about the Spectacular Settings Challenge Sign up now!  @DeniseCCovey and @YolandaRenee http://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2015/08/wep-first-challenge-spectacular.html #WEPFF

Link to Spectacular Settings Flash Fiction Challenge August 19 - Prizes awarded @DeniseCCovey & @YolandaRenee http://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2015/08/wep-first-challenge-spectacular.html #WEPFF

Spectacular Settings mean Spectacular Reads

Hi there!

This week I'm introducing our first challenge with Yolanda and me at the helm. We will be taking it in turns to host challenges and this first one is one that I've been wanting to do for a long time.

Spectacular setting at the tip of New Caledonia

Writers have their strengths and weaknesses. Writing a story, especially a full-length novel, requires many components to make it work. There's the story idea which develops into the Premise, there's those characters that pop up into your head, introduce themselves, and help you tell their story, then there's conflict, because things can't go easy for these characters or the story will be boring to most--so this leads to plot points where there should be at least 3 in a novel. But all of these pale if we forget one thing--the setting. There has to be a backdrop to add more intrigue, exoticism, beauty or terror to your story. This is my favourite aspect of writing--I come up with the setting first, then the characters people this setting.

So, does it matter where your story unfolds? Yes! Here are some points about setting:

1. Your setting can help reveal your characters and plot (think Harry Potter and friends--the settings add so much to the plot)
2. Setting is far more than place--it establishes a story's mood, feeling and historical era. 
3. Setting gives your story veracity--the truer your setting, the more believable the fictional world you invite your reader to enter. (The old write-what-you-know thingo.)

Now that we have the theory out of the way, how about we look at some different aspects of setting.

SETTING AS STORY

We need to choose details that are right for our particular story. Think Scout Finch in the opening pages of Harper Lee's classic To Kill a Mockingbird (TKAM).

Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square. Somehow, it was hotter then; a black dog suffered on a summer's day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o'clock naps and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.

In this brief paragraph, Lee sets the stage for all that follows by her accuracy of setting.

SETTING AS MOOD

Reading the above paragraph, we can see how Lee sets the mood for her novel. It's going to be full of slow, hot days, during which even the slightest of movements will take effort.

Let's look at Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep to see how a different mood is created.

It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid-October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie, and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved, and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.

You might disagree that Chandler's excerpt is about setting. Maybe you just think it's about his wardrobe of the day. But there's the precise time (11am, mid-October), the weather, Marlowe's voice, character and point of view, and the setting (Marlowe's calling on four million dollars). It sets us right in the scene.

SETTING AS MYSTERY
Even if your story's not a mystery, you can establish questions in a reader's mind via your setting. Check this excerpt from a short story by Lisa Lenard-Cook entitled 'Wild Horses.'

Neighbors watched for her little pickup along the country road. Sometimes Althea would pull over, or not pull over, and stop. Janet Kendall once found her sitting on her tailgate in the middle of the road just over a rise, had slammed on her brakes and skidded to a dusty halt just short of the rear bumper. 

We get that something's not quite right with Anthea, but we don't yet know.We see that it's a country setting and we expect to find out what it is about Anthea as we read on.

SETTING AS COMFORT ZONE

Think just about anything by Stephen King. He lulls readers into a false sense of security by his every-day openings. Also, re-look at TKAM where Lee practically rocks us to sleep.

SETTING AS TIME PERIOD

Setting includes time as well as place. Don't you get a sense of Maycomb being sometime in the past, and Chandler's dressed-to-the-nines private investigator being in a more elegant time period?

Here's a few lines from Judith Freeman's Red Water.

We landed at the port of Boston and traveled across country by train, in boxcars fitted out with special seats, reaching Iowa City on July 5th. With the help of the Perpetual Emigrating Fund, which advanced us much-needed money for our journey, we were able to secure a place with the Willy Handcart Company, and although it was late in the year to begin the crossing of the plains, our party was anxious to set out, for nothing less than Zion awaited us in the mountains in the west.

This selection establishes voice (nineteenth-century phrasings) and mood (anticipation, fear, longing), as well as its historical period. 

SETTING AS VIEWPOINT

Setting is enhanced through a point of view character's eyes, creating an immediate connection with the reader.

Two examples: George Eliot's Adam Bede and Shield's Unless.

1. It is a very fine old place, of red brick, softened by a pale powdery lichen, which has dispersed itself with happy irregularity, so as to bring the red brick into terms of friendly companionship with the limestone ornaments surrounding the three gables, the windows and the door-place...

2. On a December morning I went walking hand in hand with Tom in the Orangetown cemetery...The cold weather had broken, and the tops of the old limestone monuments, sun-plucked in their neat rows, were shiny with melting snow.

1. The setting is reported as if it were a gift from author to reader. This is accomplished by using vague adjectival clauses ('very fine'), 'happy irregularity' and lacklustre verbs like 'is', 'has'.

2. The vivid point of view first person narrative, we are looking at one thing, rows of gravestones. Even the limestone seems clearer to the reader.

Setting is always clearer when viewed from one pair of eyes, rather than an omniscient third person point of view.

So, when you're creating a setting, don't settle for the tried and trite. Make your setting work for you and for your story.

I'm hoping this blog post sets the scene nicely for our upcoming challenge on August 19th!

Couldn't resist reading the first chapter of Harper Lee's 'To Set a Watchman' available here online if you missed it!

Here's the first paragraph. Check out the setting. Don't we get a similar feel as the familiar voice of Harper Lee draws us into the landscape:

Since Atlanta, she had looked out the dining-car window with a delight almost physical. Over her breakfast coffee, she watched the last of Georgia’s hills recede and the red earth appear, and with it tin-roofed houses set in the middle of swept yards, and in the yards the inevitable verbena grew, surrounded by whitewashed tires. She grinned when she saw her first TV antenna atop an unpainted Negro house; as they multiplied, her joy rose.

Here is a link to a Writers Digest article on SETTING.

So watch for August 5th, when the link-up for our inaugural challenge, Spectacular Settings, will fire up!

Don't forget to share the Challenge

We'd love it if you'd Tweet one of these:

Spectacular Settings Flash Fiction Challenge for August 19 @DeniseCCovey & @YolandaRenee join the fun #WEPFF http://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2015/07/spectacular-settings-mean-spectacular.html

Do you know an unbelievable place or a Spectacular Setting. Share it with us @DeniseCCovey and @YolandaRenee #WEPFF

http://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2015/07/spectacular-settings-mean-spectacular.html

Join the Spectacular Settings Flash Fiction Challenge August 19 - Prizes awarded @DeniseCCovey  & @YolandaRenee http://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2015/07/spectacular-settings-mean-spectacular.html #WEPFF