“Huh? Oh no, the vacuum of doom! You can’t even tell that they exist in time and space.”

It’s not a well-kept secret that settings challenge me. More than a few times when writing, I marvel at how my characters can exist in a vacuum. My characters just cease (or never began) to interact with the environment around them.

And descriptions! I’m definitely not one to write long, flowery sonatas about the scenario, and I know that doesn’t make me a bad writer. Just that when I do try to write about settings, I try to describe something in my head and there’s no words. I don’t know what that detail is called, nor how to find out what it is called, or how to describe in less jarring and humourous terms as “thing-a-ma-jig.”

A recent #ufchat on Twitter reminded me just how much I’ve neglected setting. Not simply just the buildings, but as came up during the chat, the history of the place. The feel of the place. What makes that place unique and different from any other place. How that feel lends itself to shaping the plot and atmosphere so that readers can’t imagine it ever happening anywhere else.

(I am getting better at having my characters interact with a space – but that’s a lesson for another post.)

So, in an effort to rectify this, I hereby dedicate part of my Europe trip to setting. Where better to learn about atmosphere, places and differences than in four different countries?

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I love historical dramas, like Rome, The Tudors and The Borgias. Canterella is why I started watching The Borgias in the first place. And Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel’s Legacy series? It may not be precisely historical (but so close, complex and realistic that it seems real),  but it has the same tight, twisting plotting as those other series.

So much interpersonal drama! People in the past led such complicated lives. One comment from one person could change everything. One decision could remake the entire world. Carefully laid plans crumble and new realities arise. Every moment could add a new twist. Any action, foolish or best-made or calculating, could ruin the hardwork of another.

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Lately, I’ve been reminded to be careful about what I put on the Internet.

Before a new person begins at work, we Google them. Of course we do – and we can figure out who doesn’t expect it. When our newest Account Rep started, we Googled her and found her blog. A week or so after she started, she told us a story about her “blanket burrito” to thwart the Body Snatchers. It all sounded familiar and then it clicked – I had read her blog post about it.

Thus, she discovered that we knew about her blog.

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If you write about writing, blog about writing, or list about writing, one thing that must be talked about is using “said”. It’s the piece of advice that everyone gives: 99% of the time, use “said” (except when appropriate, to use “ask”). Don’t spend half of your time looking up alternatives in the thesaurus.

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