Wednesday's Writer's Tip - More on Defining the Basic Conflict #MFRWauthor

The character's environment has a lot to do with how they react to other characters and helps the plot progress. Last week five were mentioned. Here are five more.

The character is placed in an environment he wants to escape. I can think of a number of places. Some are evident and some not. Right now I'm working with a hero who wants to escape the hospital. He was shot and he wants to make light of his reason for being there. A patient could want to escape prison. In all genres there can be a character who wants to escape a particular environment and each will go about this in their own way. Think of some disaster like a forest fire. The character might want to escape poverty or a dozen other reasons for the character to want to escape.

What about the character who finds him or herself in a place where he or she isn't wanted. This could conjure a number of kinds of stories. The girl who wants to play baseball and is good. Imagine her on a boy's team. The debutante who must help in a soup kitchen. Think about putting your character where no one wants them and how do they act or react?

How about one for which the character is unsuited? The character must come to grips with things he doesn't understand. How will he act or react to the situation and to the people who are suited to this particular environment?

A change in the character's status quo in an environment could be the basis of a good story. This is usually based on a decision by the character to act in a different manner. Refusing a promotion could be one. Not wanting to continue on the path the character has taken. Take the dancer who decides she or he can't dance any longer. Why was this decision made? How will the change sit with the other people in their environment?

A change in the status quo of the environment. An earthquake, a war, some disaster could change the environment and thus the characters who exist in that time and place.

So study the character's environment and use one or more of the environmental situations and you'll have the seeds for a good story.

Tuesday's Inspiration -John D MacDonald - Environment #amwriting #amlearning

This quote really hit me since settings and creating the environment of a story is one place where I can go wrong. Sometimes I put in too much and sometimes too little. Mr. MacDonald put it all in caps. Makes is easy to remember but hard to accomplish. Does this hint resonate with you? No caps but it's advice to remember.

"And when the environment is less real, the people you put into that environment become less believable and less interesting."

How true this is. Years ago, when I began writing, I sent my first mss out again and again. Each time the story came back with comments from an editor. One of these comments struck me. "Your characters are operating in a vacuum." So I went back and rewrote the story describing where the characters were placed in great detail. The first attempt said things like she got into the car. The second went on to describe the car in living detail. The response I received went sort of like this. "You're bogging me down in details. This slows the story." So I went back and tried to figure where I went wrong each time.

What happens when you make the environment right means giving the reader enough detail for them to fill in the rest in their imagination. Every reader will see the environment a bit differently but they will be drawn into the story because you've engaged him or her. The characters in your story real to the reader. This is description at its best. Specific detail that allows the reader to invest their imagination in the story.

What about you, do you create a generic environment, or do you pile on detail after detail until the reader is bogged down? Do you strive to find the right way and pull the reader's imagination into becoming an equal partner with you?

Writing Tip - The protagonist and the environment

So just what is the environment of the story. The most evident part is the setting, the places your protagonist inhabits or visits. The home, the work space, things like this. Environment is more. No one exists in a vacuum, even those on a space ship have an environment. A second part of a protagonist's environment is the social or cultural area of life. Big city, small town, a foreign country, a particular social group like a social class, wealth, poverty, educational status, job choice, all of these make up part of the environment for the characters in the story. Often one or more of the characters moves from one environment to another. the city slicker on a farm or a ranch, the patient in a hospital, these are the sort of things that make for a dynamic to the story.

How can the environment be used when writing. The setting can be used to set the mood of a story. Think of Gothic novels and the spooky house, or a hospital in medical stories, especially those of suspense, the seashore in a light hearted romance. By choosing bits of a setting to emphasize the mood a writer wants to infuse their story through and the setting becomes an important part of the story.

The social environment can add depth to a story. Rich versus poor, rebel against establishment. These things do play a role often in the characteristics and motives of the protagonists.

There is another way. Suppose your character just loves their entire environment. There's no real story there. Maybe some scenes but there's no conflict. A protagonist can be dissatisfied with his environment all or part of the time. This is how stories are built. Suppose there is a change in the character's environment. In Murder and Mint Tea, the protagonist's son finds her a tenant who changes the dynamics of a neighborhood. This is a devise I've often used. Perhaps the protagonist experiences a change in their environment. In my latest, the Warrior of Bast, the heroine is sent into another environment and must deal with the changes.
Perhaps a stranger comes into the protagonist's environment and makes changes. There are many ways to use the environment in developing characters. Just let your imagination roll and add changes in the environment and see what develops.