Setting The Scene

One thing I like about winter-- the opportunity to bust out my awesome boots and cool hats and scarves. Basically-- entire wardrobe change. Not entirely bad.


Just looked outside and suddenly I live inside a snow globe. Very pretty. I'd never give up living somewhere with all four seasons, even if sometimes it's so cold your lips become too rubbery to enunciate properly. Maybe that is how our giant Fargo-ish accents formed.

Anyway-- today has been another writing day. I revamped the opening of #1 (if anyone wants to be a beta reader hit me up with an email), and have been hard at work on #2- "munched" (for now). Today I got one of my characters into a setting I've been wanting to write for about two years now. Here's an excerpt:

The fence was still visible. She was still along the back-side of the compound, assuming it was square. She kept to the cover of the forest’s hem and moved silently and quickly, keeping the chain link in sight. A break in the fence was too much to hope for. She could tell she was weaker now, from lack of food and water. Her head throbbed but the feeling of being chased, even if the man had not yet appeared, distracted her from the pain. She scrambled along and prayed to her silent God for a miracle.

That was when the drowned forest came into view.

At first she was certain the shimmery patches of blue in the distance would dissipate if she blinked hard enough, but they remained. It was water. As she drew close she lost sight of the fence. She crouched in the shelter of a sumac grove and surveyed the marsh that lay across an expanse of open prairie. If she went for it she’d be completely exposed until she made it across the field. But there was water, and possibly a way under the fence, and cover.

Giant bleached root systems fanned from the surface like exotic sculptural coral formations. Tree trunks lay toppled like timbers from a massive building collapse, half-submerged. There were a lot of places to hide there-- in the murky water.

Anyway- We're still in rough, rough draft territory, but I'm psyched about getting closer to finishing this sketchy version and going back through to fill it out. Revision right now makes Sarah McLaughlin's "Building a Mystery" fire up in my head. That's kind of what it's like for me. Anyways...

Do you guys have any settings from your own writing, or even other books / movies you've found really compelling? Manderly was always one of mine, and the warehouse from Citizen Cane, anywhere haunted of course... Comment it up!