Okay, so, deciding to do this setting activity backfired a little; instead of just procrastinating on my WIP revisions, I also procrastinated on blogging.

In any case, I’m back now, and here’s the first of three setting exercises!

Exercise: Choose several settings and write short, opening descriptions that tell the reader when and where the action is taking place.

Setting #1:

The trees clustered like the black lines of a bar code, rising up as the pale morning light squeezed down between them. Their large, waxy leaves had captured rain drops from last night’s storm—and, quite honestly, the storm before that and the storm before that—and every so often, a drop would spill over the edge of its quivering leaf. It would land on the dewy earth below with scarcely a sound, but at this hour, with no creature’s movement to drown out the gentle plunk, it seemed to tick away the minutes until the forest would wake.

Setting #2:

A low rumbling rolled off the mountains and settled in the basin, cracking, finally, before a flash illuminated the entire valley. Locals’ American flags beat against their stucco houses as the wind picked up, carrying dust with it and promising rain. A bolt of lightning split the dark sky just before hard droplets began to pummel the valley, and when the flash floods began, the already swollen cacti threatened to burst.

I’m doing Writing Forward’s “Fiction Writing Exercises for Developing Setting” to get better at writing settings. Stay tuned for the next challenge, “Setting as Backdrop: Too Much vs. Not Enough.”