setting

Katherine Harms–writer aboard S/Y No Boundaries

When I first began writing, I wanted to write, because I wanted to have published something.

In 2000, I started writing, because I had something to say.

In 2000, during Lent I studied the life of Hannah, the mother of Samuel as a model for making sacrifices.

By the autumn, I was working on a novel about Hannah.

I had discovered that her faith journey in ancient Israel had many parallels with the faith journey of a woman in the twenty-first century, despite the three millennia that separated Hannah and me.

In 2004, my book, Hannah’s Journal, placed third in a field of 270 entries in the Christian Writers Guild First Novel Contest.

That book is still unpublished, but my success in the contest invigorated me.

I soon tackled two more novels, which are at present unfinished. The reason is that I continued to develop a better sense of direction as a writer.

In the beginning, I almost dismissed my non-fiction writing as busy work, something to do when I couldn’t think of any stories.

I wrote meditations, prayers, worship guides, articles and teaching plans.

While I struggled with the problems of plot, character development, setting, dialogue and so forth that are part of the craft of a fiction writer, I wrote commentary and background spontaneously, as a natural outgrowth of my research.

One day I had the mind-boggling revelation that it was possible to be a successful writer without selling a novel.

Katherine Harms–writer aboard S/Y No Boundaries Read More »

Of Setting, Change, Action, and Dilemmas…

What creates setting, both physical and emotional?

And what goes into creating a setting that stimulates a reader to feel?

What is the challenge of creating a formative and transformative setting?

What needs to remain static and constant in a setting?

And what needs to cry out for change?

These questions point out the importance of setting and the challenge of meeting the needs that setting addresses in a story or novel.

John Truby, author of The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Masterful Storyteller, advises that the setting of a novel needs to include 2-3 separate and distinct places.

His belief debunks the idea that a good story needs to have a list of settings in order to sustain interest and hold the reader’s attention.

Of Setting, Change, Action, and Dilemmas… Read More »

Motion, Identification and The Inertial Frame of Reference…

“Everything moves. Everything …motion is just a manifestation of going from one spot to another spot in space. When we are trying to understand motion all of the things that we measure from have to come from an inertial frame of reference. An inertial frame of reference is a reference frame that is moving at a constant speed and not changing direction.”

–Motion and Relativity, Dr. Charles Liu, Research Associate @ the Department of Astrophysics, American Museum of Natural History

The backbone of a story, particularly an entertaining and engaging one is motion, movement from one place in conscious and consensual reality to another.

Amplifying the reader’s engagement with the internal movement of the story, the emotional thread requires clarification of setting and displaying the subtle shifts that take place and occur in perception of setting reflective of one’s internal changes.

These changes are usually transmitted, or rather shown through the eyes and physical senses of the protagonist who is also the point-of-view character.

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Of Time, Plot and Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity…

When we think about time, we automatically link it with motion. The most constant things in human history have been the motions of the objects in the universe. So we first figured out how to measure time by figuring how long it took for the various astronomical motions in our solar system. If you move through space you are also moving through time.
Time is the 4th dimension in our universe.
–Dr. Charles Liu, Research Associate,
Department of Astrophysics,
American Museum of Natural History

Albert Einstein’s gift to the 20th century through his postulation of the Special Theory of Relativity was recognizing the existence of a 4th dimension in our universe.
This 4th dimension is our experience of time.

Human consciousness of time plays an important role in the crafting of story.
Time directly relates to plot regarding fiction.
And as plot is the backbone of story it can be said that time forms the frame and an essential dimension of story.

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Of Pawns, Rooks, Knights and Bishops…

This weekend I played my first game of chess.

My eldest now 23 learned the game from my husband. Like the cello, I have always admired people who played chess.

It truly is a game of thought, forethought and reasoning. Unlike the game of checkers that I learned as a child and play with my youngest who is eleven, chess pieces have names and characters.

Like the elements of fiction, these characters or pieces have 1 or 2 directions in which you can move them, defined tasks that propel the plot of the game.

Of Pawns, Rooks, Knights and Bishops… Read More »

Of Romance, Truth, and Purging the Hidden Pools of Consciousness…

Many things can happen during the approach towards the heart of a story, or novel, both for the protagonist, and the writer.

The blossoming flower of romance provides a mainstay in many stories that tug and keep open the hearts and minds of readers, wherein new possibilities enter for them to ponder both in the narrative line of the story, or novel, that perhaps offers a mirror into their own lives.

We come to books, and read not only to know that we are not alone, but also to solidify, validate and unconsciously prepare ourselves for the one constant in all of human living–change.

Of Romance, Truth, and Purging the Hidden Pools of Consciousness… Read More »

Of Clarity and Understanding, Guide and Map, Epiphany and Plot…

Reaching that point where the protagonist has made the change, we, as writers feel differently.

We see the world of our novel from another level.

Ideally we come to hold those dimensions of personality regarding our central character(s) come in greater clarity and understanding.

And yet this is also a place where we can get to know ourselves better as individuals, not simply as persons who write.

Of Clarity and Understanding, Guide and Map, Epiphany and Plot… Read More »