July 17, 2023 • 25 mins
Episode 29
In this craft topic episode, I'm talking about different ways to begin your book, scene, or chapter: 'In media res' or with a wide-lens view.
Have you ever thought about the opening scenes of movies? If you pay attention, you will start to notice how they often begin with a sort of wide-angle view of the world in which the story takes place.
A QUICK LOOK AT MOVIES, BOOKS, and COURSES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
- Star Wars, Episode IV
- Flour in the Attic (https://amzn.to/3pQZxpN)
- Ender's Game (https://amzn.to/46W3P02)
-
Murder in Devil's Cove (Pippin Lane Hawthorne) (https://amzn.to/3raRg0q)
- Pleating for Mercy (Harlow Cassidy/Magical Dressmaking Mysteries) (https://bit.ly/MagicalDressmakingMysteries)
- Kneaded to Death (https://amzn.to/3tQCLNE)
- Gone with the Wind (https://amzn.to/3Dg50JU)
- Ready, Set, WRITE! Self-paced writing course (https://bit.ly/ReadySetWRITE)
Please like and follow this podcast, and subscribe to the WriterSpark newsletter at https://writersparkacademy.com/newslettersignup/
✨ Share the love! Forward this podcast to your writer friends. ✨
Resources
- WriterSpark Website: http://writersparkacademy.com
- Sign up for the WriterSpark newsletter: https://writersparkacademy.com/newslettersignup/
- Grab WriterSpark Swag! https://www.teepublic.com/stores/writerspark/share
- Learn more about the host, Melissa Bourbon: http://melissabourbon.com
- Subscribe to WriterSpark on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnKN2ZVZwjoAOeHlBO-cRIw/videos
- Follow WriterSpark on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheWriterSpark
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheWriterSpark
- Instagram: http://instagram.com/bookishly_cozy and http://instagram.com/writer_spark
- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@bookishly_cozy
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Give the reader something concrete to kind of hold onto to bring them into the story without that much effort before you get into the action.
Hello.
Hello,
I'm Melissa Bourbon and this is the Writer Spark podcast where business creativity and the craft of writing converge.
(00:22):
Welcome.
15 years ago,
I was an avid reader but not a writer.
I didn't know anything about the actual craft and I knew next to nothing about the publishing industry,
but I had a dream to become a published author and I set out to learn everything I could.
Now,
I'm a number one Amazon and national bestselling author of more than 35 novels I've published traditionally and I recently plunged into the world of indie publishing and I teach people like you how to grow in their craft and find success in this ever changing industry.
(00:54):
I'm an ordinary person,
a wife,
a mom,
a daughter,
a teacher living in a small North Carolina town through writer Spark.
I am doing what I love more than anything in the world which is teaching and helping others on their writing journeys.
I'm here as your partner,
as you navigate your own writing journey.
I'm here to help you understand the essential elements of the writing craft,
(01:17):
to build your confidence and to help you find the success you desire.
Welcome to the Writer Spark podcast.
Have you ever thought about how a movie opens?
If you pay attention,
you'll start to notice how they often begin with a sort of wide angle view of the world in which the story takes place in Star Wars.
(01:43):
Episode four,
a new hope we get text first of all scrolling,
which gives us back story.
But then we see a planet,
then two,
then the edge of a planet up close and personal.
Then wow,
we get to see the ship fly by,
then it's firing and right away,
we know that this story is set in outer space and that there is a battle or a war going on.
(02:07):
We get a wide angle view of the setting and the situation before it cuts to C three po and R two D two in the corridor inside one of those ships.
So we get a really good sense of the world before anything is actually even started before there's any action in true grit.
(02:28):
We get voiceover which gives back story as the camera starts from a distance,
then slowly moves in and gains focus on the porch of the house.
Then we see a fallen man and learn that he was shot down.
We see the girl from the voiceover in a train car and then we pan out again to see the train station and the old West town.
(02:51):
So the setting has been clearly conveyed before we get to the first interior scene or any of the actual action.
We get a wide angle view of what is happening.
There are so many ways to begin a story and there is not one right way you can drop into a scene in media race,
which is the middle of the action already in play.
(03:13):
This is how I began flower in the attic,
which is book four in my bread shop mystery series.
There is no setting to,
to create a scene.
There's no set up.
Just bam,
we're smack in the middle of the scene that I want to drop the reader in here.
It is Elaine Davis and I stood side by side awed by the choices before us.
(03:33):
So it's happening tonight.
I asked,
she nodded her expression becoming a compilation of nervous excitement at the beach.
I cocked an eyebrow at em,
sheriff of Santa Sofia,
a small coastal destination spot in California and my best friend.
He's pretty perceptive,
he doesn't suspect.
(03:54):
And there we go.
Dropping a media race is essentially what Orson Scott Card also does in Ender's game,
he begins with straight dialogue giving no context at all.
Then there's a page break and we are dropped into a scene where Ender is having his monitor removed.
Here we go.
(04:14):
I've watched through his eyes.
I've listened through his ears and tell you he's the one or at least as close as we're going to get.
That's what you said about the brother.
The brother tested out impossible for other reasons.
Nothing to do with his ability.
Same with the sister.
And there are doubts about him.
(04:35):
He's too malleable,
too willing to submerge himself in someone else's will not if the other person is his enemy.
So what do we do surround him with enemies all the time?
If we have to.
I thought you said you liked this kid.
If the buggers get him,
they'll make me look like his favorite uncle.
(04:58):
All right,
we're saving the world after all.
Take him.
All right,
that's the opening right into a scene taking place and then we move into the other scene.
The monitor lady smiled very nicely and tussled his hair and said,
Andrew,
I suppose by now you're just absolutely sick of having that horrid monitor.
Well,
I have good news for you.
(05:19):
That monitor is going to come out today.
We're going to just take it right out and it won't hurt a bit and or nodded,
it was a lie,
of course,
that it wouldn't hurt a bit.
But since adults always said it,
when it was going to hurt,
he could count on that statement as an accurate prediction of the future.
(05:39):
Sometimes lies were more dependable than the truth.
Ok.
So we have two scenes where we're dropped right into things and we,
we don't have a wide view of the world.
We're just right into two different parts of the action.
So those are close ups,
those are in media race,
we're dropping into something already happening and we don't have a broader picture.
(06:03):
But we can look at the other method used to begin a story,
a scene or a chapter which is to open with a wide angle lens.
You start by giving context about a character or characters or setting and then you move in close and transition to your main point of view,
character.
This is a really effective way to paint a picture of the world in which the story takes place or to give key story or backstory information before zeroing in on the story itself.
(06:36):
I'm always learning.
I'm curious and interested in honing my craft and as a teacher,
I know how important it is to have structure to my learning.
I created the ready set,
right course as a way to share a ton of what I have learned over the past 15 years with you.
It's a comprehensive course that teaches you how to create your protagonist,
antagonist and your supporting characters.
(06:58):
It has lessons on conflict story structure and the hero's journey as well as what I call the essential elements of writing,
setting point of view,
dialogue,
mood,
and tone and voice.
Plus,
there are lessons on scene,
scene and sequel and motivation reaction unit.
It took me a long time to truly internalize all of this.
(07:18):
And my courses are a way to help you jump the line.
They will guide you through the writing process so you can take the bull by the horn,
so to speak and write with real confidence.
You can find out more about the writer spark courses and ready set,
right at writers spark academy dot com forward courses.
I'll see you in the classroom.
(07:39):
Here's another example in Murder in Devil's Cove,
which is the first Pip and Lane Hawthorn book Magic Mystery.
That's exactly what I did.
I started with a wide angle view of devil's Cove itself painting a picture for the reader of where the island is,
where it's situated on the outer banks of North Carolina.
And then moving in closer to show the colorful beach houses in the small town and the charm and then finally moving into the sidewalk where Pippin and her twin brother Gray Hawthorne are standing here we go.
(08:14):
The island of Devils Cove lay between the mainland and the barrier islands on North Carolina's outer banks.
Smack in the middle of four ocean channels.
Albermarle Sound was to the North Rowan Oak Sound,
flowed to the East Croat and Sound was on the west side of the island and to the south was the inlet of Pamlico Sound.
(08:35):
It was connected to the mainland with a single swing bridge,
a ferry carted people in their cars back and forth.
It wasn't the easiest of the islands to get to,
but it was perhaps the most special colorful beach houses overlooked the water.
A protected cove was a favorite spot for kayaking and swimming.
(08:58):
The quaint town welcomed tourists but generations of families called devil's Cove home.
The island drew fishermen,
treasure hunters who charted boats to explore the graveyard of the Atlantic and sun worshipers.
And now Pippen and Gray Hawthorn siblings born 73 seconds apart were back after being gone for 20 years,
(09:22):
they stood on the sidewalk in front of a decrepit looking house that sported a combination of cod and old southern coastal architecture complete with a million pained windows,
a screened porch on the left side of the house and a wide sitting porch and a look out at the top of the structure with a view straight to the harbor.
A widow's walk.
(09:43):
Pippen thought where a wife could keep watch as she waited for her husband to return from the sea.
Behind it was Rowan Oak Sound body Island with its light house.
And beyond that,
the Atlantic,
the house was so much bigger than Pippen remembered and she remembered it as huge in its heyday.
It had to have been a spectacular house.
(10:04):
Now,
it sat neglected,
longing for fresh paint,
new shutters and some tender loving care.
A shiver passed over Pippen and her hand moved to her neck.
She looked up at the widow's walk.
Had her mother stood up there steering toward the horizon while she waited for Leo to come home to her pippen.
(10:25):
Let the thought pass.
She was hypnotized by the overgrown property as much as the house itself.
Although both were in dire need of repair and upkeep.
Her gaze skidded over the lawn.
That was little more than a map of weeds over the walkway leading to the wraparound porch,
more weeds grew between the red bricks over the flower beds that had probably once bloomed with hydrangeas,
(10:50):
hyacinth daisies and who knew what other plants,
but which was now filled with an abundance of yet more weeds.
Ok.
So with that opening,
we start wide with an overarching view of the outer banks,
the Island of Devils Cove,
then the town,
then the house and then we get to Pippin's point of view.
So we have a very clear idea of the setting before we get started.
(11:14):
Alternatively,
you can begin in your book's point of view character,
but begin your story with a wide angle view.
So for example,
in Pleading For Mercy,
which is the first in the Harlow Cassidy Magical Dressmaking mystery series,
I begin with a wide angle view of the Cassidy women and their connection to Butch Cassidy with my alternate history.
(11:38):
So it's not a scene overview.
We're not getting a wide angle view of the setting,
but of the story about the point of view character.
After several paragraphs,
I move in close to Harlow's current situation and then begin back in bliss Texas by doing it this way.
I'm giving real context to the character and this is a first in series book which really helps paint the picture of who Harlow is and who these women are.
(12:03):
Here's the opening rumors about the Cassidy women and their magic had long swirled through bliss.
Texas like a gathering tornado for 100 and 50 years.
My family had managed to dodge most of the rumors brushing off the idea that magic infused their handy work and chalking up any unusual goings on to coincidence.
(12:25):
But we all knew that the magic started the very day.
Butch Cassidy,
my great great great grandfather turned his back to an ancient Argentinian fountain,
a gold coin into it and made a wish.
The Cassidy family legend says he asked for his first born child and all who came after to live a charmed life.
(12:46):
The threads of good fortune talent and history flowing like magic from their fingertips that magic spilled through the female descendants of the Cassidy line into their handmade tapestries and homespun wool,
cruel embroidery and perfectly pieced and stitched quilts and into my dress,
making it connected us to our history and to each other.
(13:09):
His wish also gifted some of his descendants with their own special charms,
whatever me mom,
my great grandmother wanted,
she got my grandmother,
Nana was a goat whisperer.
Mama's green thumb could make anything grow yet,
no matter how hard we tried to keep our magic on the down low.
So we wouldn't wind up in our own contemporary Texas version of the Salem witch trials.
(13:34):
People noticed and they talked,
the towns folk came to Mama when their crops wouldn't grow.
They came to Nana when their goats wouldn't behave.
And they came to me when they wanted something so badly,
they couldn't see straight.
I was 17 when I finally realized that what Butch had really given the women in my family was a thread that connected them with others.
(13:58):
But Butch's wish had apparently exhausted itself before I was born.
I had no special charm and I'd always felt as if part of me was missing because of it.
Moving back home to bliss made the feeling stronger.
Mima had been gone five months now.
But the old red and yellow farmhouse just off the square at 2112 Mockingbird Lane looked the same as it had when I was a girl,
(14:26):
the steep pitch of the roof,
the shuttered windows,
the old pecan tree shading the left side of the house.
It all sent me reeling back to my childhood and all the time I'd spent here with her,
I'd been back for five weeks and had worked nonstop,
converting the downstairs of the house into my own designer dress making shop,
(14:48):
calling it buttons and bows.
The name of the shop was in honor of my great grandmother and her collection of buttons.
OK.
So I use the same technique and needed to death.
The first bread shot mystery,
I gave one paragraph about the setting,
painting a picture of Santa Sophia before moving close into Ivy Co Pepper.
(15:10):
Her point of view and her reason for being back home.
Here we go.
Here's,
here's that example.
Santa Sofia is a magical town nestled between the Santa Lucia mountain Range and the Pacific Ocean on California's central coast.
I've always seen it as the perfect place.
Not too big,
not too small,
(15:30):
historic and true to its commitment to remain a family oriented place to live.
They accomplish this goal by having more bikes than people concerts in the park and a near perfect 70 degrees almost year round.
I had been gone from my hometown since college but had come back when a horrible accident destroyed our lives as we knew them,
(15:53):
taking my mother far too young and leaving my father,
my brother and me,
Bereft and empty.
We were still struggling to make sense of what had happened and how a nondescript sedan had backed right into her as she walked behind it in the parking lot at the high school where she taught.
So again,
(16:14):
we started with a wide angle view of the town before getting into anything specific and into the story itself.
Margaret Mitchell uses this wide angle lens approach also at the beginning of gone with the wind instead of setting,
she uses an omniscient point of view to paint a picture of Scarlett o'hara,
(16:35):
both external and internal.
The Charleston boys life in North Georgia as compared to the more refined Savannah and Charleston,
the niceties of life and what's valued which also foreshadows all that Scarlett is going to lose later in the book and the fact that Scarlett doesn't have a care in the world.
(16:59):
So we're setting up her ordinary world before she gets into the new world.
And all of this comes before we get directly into Scarlett's point of view with the dialogue between her and the Charlton boys.
Margaret Mitchell starts with a wide angle lens before moving in close to really begin the story.
Here's the opening,
Scarlett o'hara was not beautiful,
(17:20):
but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Charlton twins were in her face were two in her face were two sharply blended,
delicate features of her mother,
an Aristocrat of French descent and the heavy ones of her Florid Irish father,
but it was an a resting face pointed of chin,
square of jaw.
(17:41):
Her eyes were pale green without a touch of hazel starred with bristly black lashes and slightly tilted at the ends above them,
her thick black brows slanted upward,
cutting a startling oblique line into her magnolia white skin,
that skin so prized by Southern women and so carefully guarded with bonnets,
(18:03):
veils and mittens against hot Georgia sons,
seated with Stewart and Brent Charlton in the cool shade of the porch of Tara.
Her father's plantation that bright April afternoon of 18 61 she made a pretty picture.
Her new green flowered muslin dress spread its 12 yards of billowing material over her hoops and exactly matched the flat heeled green Morocco slippers.
(18:33):
Her father had recently brought her from Atlanta.
The dress set off to perfection.
The 17 inch waist,
the smallest in three counties and the tight fitting bask showed breasts well matured for her 16 years,
but for all the modesty of her spreading skirts,
the demureness of her hair netted smoothly into a and the quietness of small white hands folded in her lap.
(19:00):
Her true self was poorly concealed.
The green eyes in the carefully sweet face were turbulent,
wilful,
lusty with life distinctly at variance with her decorous demeanor.
Her manners had been imposed upon her by her mother's gentle admonitions and the sterner discipline of her mammy.
(19:22):
Her eyes were her own on either side of her,
the twins lounged easily in their chairs,
squinting at the sunlight through tall mint garnished glasses as they laughed and talked.
Their long legs booted to the knee and thick with saddle muscles crossed negligently 19 years old,
6 ft,
two inches tall,
long of bone and heart of muscle with sunburn faces and deep auburn hair.
(19:48):
Their eyes merry and arrogant.
Their bodies clothed in identical blue coats and mustard colored breeches.
They were as much alike as two bowls of cotton.
Outside the late afternoon,
sun slanted down in the yard throwing into gleaming brightness.
The dogwood trees,
the dogwood trees that were solid masses of white blossoms against the background of new green.
(20:13):
The twins horses were hitched in the driveway.
Big animals red as their master's hair and around the horse's legs quarreled the pack of lean nervous possum hounds that accompanied Stewart and Brent wherever they went,
a little aloof as became an aristocrat lay a black spotted carriage dog muzzle on paws patiently waiting for the boys to go home to supper between the hounds and the horses and the twins.
(20:39):
There was a kinship deeper than that of their constant companion's hip.
They were all healthy,
thoughtless young animals,
sleek,
graceful,
high spirited the boys as meddlesome as the horses.
They rode meddlesome and dangerous.
But with all sweet tempered to those who knew how to handle them.
(20:59):
Although born to the ease of plantation life waited on hand and foot.
Since infancy,
the faces of the three on the porch were neither slack nor soft.
They had the vigor and alertness of country.
People who have spent all their lives in the open and troubled their heads.
Very little with dull things in books.
(21:20):
Life in the North Georgia County of Clayton was still new.
And according to the standards of Augusta,
Savannah and Charleston,
a little crude,
the more the date and older sections of the south,
look down their noses at the up country Georgians.
But here in North Georgia,
a lack of niceties of classical education carried no shame.
(21:42):
Provided a man was smart in the things that mattered and raising good cotton riding.
Well,
shooting straight dancing,
lightly squiring the ladies with elegance and carrying one's liquor like a gentleman were the things that mattered in these accomplishments.
The twins excelled and they were equally outstanding in their notorious ability to learn anything contained between the covers of books.
(22:11):
Their family had more money,
more horses,
more slaves than anyone else in the county,
but the boys had less grammar than most of their poor cracker neighbors.
It was for this precise reason that Stewart and Brent were idling on the porch of Tara.
This April afternoon,
(22:32):
they had just been expelled from the University of Georgia,
the fourth university that had thrown them out in two years.
And their older brothers,
Tom and Boyd had come home with them because they refused to remain at an institution where the twins were not welcome.
Stewart and Brent considered their latest expulsion a fine joke.
(22:54):
And Scarlett who had not willingly opened a book since leaving the Fayetteville Female Academy the year before thought it was just as amusing as they did.
I know you two don't care about being expelled or Tom either she said,
ok,
I'm gonna end that there.
So when you write the opening scene of your book or transition to a new setting at a new scene or chapter opening with a wide angle view,
(23:18):
whether that's about setting or character before you zoom in can be really,
really effective with Margaret Mitchell.
We get such a great idea,
understanding of who the Charlton boys are of who Scarlett o'hara is.
We understand their position in the South in 18 61 before any bit of dialogue is spoken before anything happens.
(23:43):
We understand so much because she started Margaret Mitchell started with this wide angle view and in this case,
a little bit of setting and mostly of character.
So starting with that wide angle view can be such an effective way again to open a book,
a scene,
(24:03):
a chapter.
However,
you want to do it to really give the reader something concrete to kind of hold onto to bring them into the story without that much effort before you get into the action.
Now there is a time and a place for dropping in media risk just like I did in flower in the attic.
So there again,
(24:23):
there's not one way to do things,
but this is an overview of why the wide angle lens really works and can be very,
very effective.
I hope that gives you something to think about.
That's what the Writer Spark podcast and the youtube channel are all about tidbits or tips or ideas about craft that can help you grow in your skill as a writer.
(24:48):
Thanks for joining me and until next time.
Happy writing.
Thank you so much for listening and spending your time with me today.
Everyone.
I'm Melissa Bourbon and this is the Writer Spark podcast.
Take a moment to visit our website at www dot riders spark academy dot com.
(25:09):
Check out our courses,
our resources and all the content there and I will see you next time until then.
Happy writing.
Give the reader something concrete to kind of hold onto to bring them into the story without that much effort before you get into the action.
Hello.
Hello,
I'm Melissa Bourbon and this is the Writer Spark podcast where business creativity and the craft of writing converge.
(00:22):
Welcome.
15 years ago,
I was an avid reader but not a writer.
I didn't know anything about the actual craft and I knew next to nothing about the publishing industry,
but I had a dream to become a published author and I set out to learn everything I could.
Now,
I'm a number one Amazon and national bestselling author of more than 35 novels I've published traditionally and I recently plunged into the world of indie publishing and I teach people like you how to grow in their craft and find success in this ever changing industry.
(00:54):
I'm an ordinary person,
a wife,
a mom,
a daughter,
a teacher living in a small North Carolina town through writer Spark.
I am doing what I love more than anything in the world which is teaching and helping others on their writing journeys.
I'm here as your partner,
as you navigate your own writing journey.
I'm here to help you understand the essential elements of the writing craft,
(01:17):
to build your confidence and to help you find the success you desire.
Welcome to the Writer Spark podcast.
Have you ever thought about how a movie opens?
If you pay attention,
you'll start to notice how they often begin with a sort of wide angle view of the world in which the story takes place in Star Wars.
(01:43):
Episode four,
a new hope we get text first of all scrolling,
which gives us back story.
But then we see a planet,
then two,
then the edge of a planet up close and personal.
Then wow,
we get to see the ship fly by,
then it's firing and right away,
we know that this story is set in outer space and that there is a battle or a war going on.
(02:07):
We get a wide angle view of the setting and the situation before it cuts to C three po and R two D two in the corridor inside one of those ships.
So we get a really good sense of the world before anything is actually even started before there's any action in true grit.
(02:28):
We get voiceover which gives back story as the camera starts from a distance,
then slowly moves in and gains focus on the porch of the house.
Then we see a fallen man and learn that he was shot down.
We see the girl from the voiceover in a train car and then we pan out again to see the train station and the old West town.
(02:51):
So the setting has been clearly conveyed before we get to the first interior scene or any of the actual action.
We get a wide angle view of what is happening.
There are so many ways to begin a story and there is not one right way you can drop into a scene in media race,
which is the middle of the action already in play.
(03:13):
This is how I began flower in the attic,
which is book four in my bread shop mystery series.
There is no setting to,
to create a scene.
There's no set up.
Just bam,
we're smack in the middle of the scene that I want to drop the reader in here.
It is Elaine Davis and I stood side by side awed by the choices before us.
(03:33):
So it's happening tonight.
I asked,
she nodded her expression becoming a compilation of nervous excitement at the beach.
I cocked an eyebrow at em,
sheriff of Santa Sofia,
a small coastal destination spot in California and my best friend.
He's pretty perceptive,
he doesn't suspect.
(03:54):
And there we go.
Dropping a media race is essentially what Orson Scott Card also does in Ender's game,
he begins with straight dialogue giving no context at all.
Then there's a page break and we are dropped into a scene where Ender is having his monitor removed.
Here we go.
(04:14):
I've watched through his eyes.
I've listened through his ears and tell you he's the one or at least as close as we're going to get.
That's what you said about the brother.
The brother tested out impossible for other reasons.
Nothing to do with his ability.
Same with the sister.
And there are doubts about him.
(04:35):
He's too malleable,
too willing to submerge himself in someone else's will not if the other person is his enemy.
So what do we do surround him with enemies all the time?
If we have to.
I thought you said you liked this kid.
If the buggers get him,
they'll make me look like his favorite uncle.
(04:58):
All right,
we're saving the world after all.
Take him.
All right,
that's the opening right into a scene taking place and then we move into the other scene.
The monitor lady smiled very nicely and tussled his hair and said,
Andrew,
I suppose by now you're just absolutely sick of having that horrid monitor.
Well,
I have good news for you.
(05:19):
That monitor is going to come out today.
We're going to just take it right out and it won't hurt a bit and or nodded,
it was a lie,
of course,
that it wouldn't hurt a bit.
But since adults always said it,
when it was going to hurt,
he could count on that statement as an accurate prediction of the future.
(05:39):
Sometimes lies were more dependable than the truth.
Ok.
So we have two scenes where we're dropped right into things and we,
we don't have a wide view of the world.
We're just right into two different parts of the action.
So those are close ups,
those are in media race,
we're dropping into something already happening and we don't have a broader picture.
(06:03):
But we can look at the other method used to begin a story,
a scene or a chapter which is to open with a wide angle lens.
You start by giving context about a character or characters or setting and then you move in close and transition to your main point of view,
character.
This is a really effective way to paint a picture of the world in which the story takes place or to give key story or backstory information before zeroing in on the story itself.
(06:36):
I'm always learning.
I'm curious and interested in honing my craft and as a teacher,
I know how important it is to have structure to my learning.
I created the ready set,
right course as a way to share a ton of what I have learned over the past 15 years with you.
It's a comprehensive course that teaches you how to create your protagonist,
antagonist and your supporting characters.
(06:58):
It has lessons on conflict story structure and the hero's journey as well as what I call the essential elements of writing,
setting point of view,
dialogue,
mood,
and tone and voice.
Plus,
there are lessons on scene,
scene and sequel and motivation reaction unit.
It took me a long time to truly internalize all of this.
(07:18):
And my courses are a way to help you jump the line.
They will guide you through the writing process so you can take the bull by the horn,
so to speak and write with real confidence.
You can find out more about the writer spark courses and ready set,
right at writers spark academy dot com forward courses.
I'll see you in the classroom.
(07:39):
Here's another example in Murder in Devil's Cove,
which is the first Pip and Lane Hawthorn book Magic Mystery.
That's exactly what I did.
I started with a wide angle view of devil's Cove itself painting a picture for the reader of where the island is,
where it's situated on the outer banks of North Carolina.
And then moving in closer to show the colorful beach houses in the small town and the charm and then finally moving into the sidewalk where Pippin and her twin brother Gray Hawthorne are standing here we go.
(08:14):
The island of Devils Cove lay between the mainland and the barrier islands on North Carolina's outer banks.
Smack in the middle of four ocean channels.
Albermarle Sound was to the North Rowan Oak Sound,
flowed to the East Croat and Sound was on the west side of the island and to the south was the inlet of Pamlico Sound.
(08:35):
It was connected to the mainland with a single swing bridge,
a ferry carted people in their cars back and forth.
It wasn't the easiest of the islands to get to,
but it was perhaps the most special colorful beach houses overlooked the water.
A protected cove was a favorite spot for kayaking and swimming.
(08:58):
The quaint town welcomed tourists but generations of families called devil's Cove home.
The island drew fishermen,
treasure hunters who charted boats to explore the graveyard of the Atlantic and sun worshipers.
And now Pippen and Gray Hawthorn siblings born 73 seconds apart were back after being gone for 20 years,
(09:22):
they stood on the sidewalk in front of a decrepit looking house that sported a combination of cod and old southern coastal architecture complete with a million pained windows,
a screened porch on the left side of the house and a wide sitting porch and a look out at the top of the structure with a view straight to the harbor.
A widow's walk.
(09:43):
Pippen thought where a wife could keep watch as she waited for her husband to return from the sea.
Behind it was Rowan Oak Sound body Island with its light house.
And beyond that,
the Atlantic,
the house was so much bigger than Pippen remembered and she remembered it as huge in its heyday.
It had to have been a spectacular house.
(10:04):
Now,
it sat neglected,
longing for fresh paint,
new shutters and some tender loving care.
A shiver passed over Pippen and her hand moved to her neck.
She looked up at the widow's walk.
Had her mother stood up there steering toward the horizon while she waited for Leo to come home to her pippen.
(10:25):
Let the thought pass.
She was hypnotized by the overgrown property as much as the house itself.
Although both were in dire need of repair and upkeep.
Her gaze skidded over the lawn.
That was little more than a map of weeds over the walkway leading to the wraparound porch,
more weeds grew between the red bricks over the flower beds that had probably once bloomed with hydrangeas,
(10:50):
hyacinth daisies and who knew what other plants,
but which was now filled with an abundance of yet more weeds.
Ok.
So with that opening,
we start wide with an overarching view of the outer banks,
the Island of Devils Cove,
then the town,
then the house and then we get to Pippin's point of view.
So we have a very clear idea of the setting before we get started.
(11:14):
Alternatively,
you can begin in your book's point of view character,
but begin your story with a wide angle view.
So for example,
in Pleading For Mercy,
which is the first in the Harlow Cassidy Magical Dressmaking mystery series,
I begin with a wide angle view of the Cassidy women and their connection to Butch Cassidy with my alternate history.
(11:38):
So it's not a scene overview.
We're not getting a wide angle view of the setting,
but of the story about the point of view character.
After several paragraphs,
I move in close to Harlow's current situation and then begin back in bliss Texas by doing it this way.
I'm giving real context to the character and this is a first in series book which really helps paint the picture of who Harlow is and who these women are.
(12:03):
Here's the opening rumors about the Cassidy women and their magic had long swirled through bliss.
Texas like a gathering tornado for 100 and 50 years.
My family had managed to dodge most of the rumors brushing off the idea that magic infused their handy work and chalking up any unusual goings on to coincidence.
(12:25):
But we all knew that the magic started the very day.
Butch Cassidy,
my great great great grandfather turned his back to an ancient Argentinian fountain,
a gold coin into it and made a wish.
The Cassidy family legend says he asked for his first born child and all who came after to live a charmed life.
(12:46):
The threads of good fortune talent and history flowing like magic from their fingertips that magic spilled through the female descendants of the Cassidy line into their handmade tapestries and homespun wool,
cruel embroidery and perfectly pieced and stitched quilts and into my dress,
making it connected us to our history and to each other.
(13:09):
His wish also gifted some of his descendants with their own special charms,
whatever me mom,
my great grandmother wanted,
she got my grandmother,
Nana was a goat whisperer.
Mama's green thumb could make anything grow yet,
no matter how hard we tried to keep our magic on the down low.
So we wouldn't wind up in our own contemporary Texas version of the Salem witch trials.
(13:34):
People noticed and they talked,
the towns folk came to Mama when their crops wouldn't grow.
They came to Nana when their goats wouldn't behave.
And they came to me when they wanted something so badly,
they couldn't see straight.
I was 17 when I finally realized that what Butch had really given the women in my family was a thread that connected them with others.
(13:58):
But Butch's wish had apparently exhausted itself before I was born.
I had no special charm and I'd always felt as if part of me was missing because of it.
Moving back home to bliss made the feeling stronger.
Mima had been gone five months now.
But the old red and yellow farmhouse just off the square at 2112 Mockingbird Lane looked the same as it had when I was a girl,
(14:26):
the steep pitch of the roof,
the shuttered windows,
the old pecan tree shading the left side of the house.
It all sent me reeling back to my childhood and all the time I'd spent here with her,
I'd been back for five weeks and had worked nonstop,
converting the downstairs of the house into my own designer dress making shop,
(14:48):
calling it buttons and bows.
The name of the shop was in honor of my great grandmother and her collection of buttons.
OK.
So I use the same technique and needed to death.
The first bread shot mystery,
I gave one paragraph about the setting,
painting a picture of Santa Sophia before moving close into Ivy Co Pepper.
(15:10):
Her point of view and her reason for being back home.
Here we go.
Here's,
here's that example.
Santa Sofia is a magical town nestled between the Santa Lucia mountain Range and the Pacific Ocean on California's central coast.
I've always seen it as the perfect place.
Not too big,
not too small,
(15:30):
historic and true to its commitment to remain a family oriented place to live.
They accomplish this goal by having more bikes than people concerts in the park and a near perfect 70 degrees almost year round.
I had been gone from my hometown since college but had come back when a horrible accident destroyed our lives as we knew them,
(15:53):
taking my mother far too young and leaving my father,
my brother and me,
Bereft and empty.
We were still struggling to make sense of what had happened and how a nondescript sedan had backed right into her as she walked behind it in the parking lot at the high school where she taught.
So again,
(16:14):
we started with a wide angle view of the town before getting into anything specific and into the story itself.
Margaret Mitchell uses this wide angle lens approach also at the beginning of gone with the wind instead of setting,
she uses an omniscient point of view to paint a picture of Scarlett o'hara,
(16:35):
both external and internal.
The Charleston boys life in North Georgia as compared to the more refined Savannah and Charleston,
the niceties of life and what's valued which also foreshadows all that Scarlett is going to lose later in the book and the fact that Scarlett doesn't have a care in the world.
(16:59):
So we're setting up her ordinary world before she gets into the new world.
And all of this comes before we get directly into Scarlett's point of view with the dialogue between her and the Charlton boys.
Margaret Mitchell starts with a wide angle lens before moving in close to really begin the story.
Here's the opening,
Scarlett o'hara was not beautiful,
(17:20):
but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Charlton twins were in her face were two in her face were two sharply blended,
delicate features of her mother,
an Aristocrat of French descent and the heavy ones of her Florid Irish father,
but it was an a resting face pointed of chin,
square of jaw.
(17:41):
Her eyes were pale green without a touch of hazel starred with bristly black lashes and slightly tilted at the ends above them,
her thick black brows slanted upward,
cutting a startling oblique line into her magnolia white skin,
that skin so prized by Southern women and so carefully guarded with bonnets,
(18:03):
veils and mittens against hot Georgia sons,
seated with Stewart and Brent Charlton in the cool shade of the porch of Tara.
Her father's plantation that bright April afternoon of 18 61 she made a pretty picture.
Her new green flowered muslin dress spread its 12 yards of billowing material over her hoops and exactly matched the flat heeled green Morocco slippers.
(18:33):
Her father had recently brought her from Atlanta.
The dress set off to perfection.
The 17 inch waist,
the smallest in three counties and the tight fitting bask showed breasts well matured for her 16 years,
but for all the modesty of her spreading skirts,
the demureness of her hair netted smoothly into a and the quietness of small white hands folded in her lap.
(19:00):
Her true self was poorly concealed.
The green eyes in the carefully sweet face were turbulent,
wilful,
lusty with life distinctly at variance with her decorous demeanor.
Her manners had been imposed upon her by her mother's gentle admonitions and the sterner discipline of her mammy.
(19:22):
Her eyes were her own on either side of her,
the twins lounged easily in their chairs,
squinting at the sunlight through tall mint garnished glasses as they laughed and talked.
Their long legs booted to the knee and thick with saddle muscles crossed negligently 19 years old,
6 ft,
two inches tall,
long of bone and heart of muscle with sunburn faces and deep auburn hair.
(19:48):
Their eyes merry and arrogant.
Their bodies clothed in identical blue coats and mustard colored breeches.
They were as much alike as two bowls of cotton.
Outside the late afternoon,
sun slanted down in the yard throwing into gleaming brightness.
The dogwood trees,
the dogwood trees that were solid masses of white blossoms against the background of new green.
(20:13):
The twins horses were hitched in the driveway.
Big animals red as their master's hair and around the horse's legs quarreled the pack of lean nervous possum hounds that accompanied Stewart and Brent wherever they went,
a little aloof as became an aristocrat lay a black spotted carriage dog muzzle on paws patiently waiting for the boys to go home to supper between the hounds and the horses and the twins.
(20:39):
There was a kinship deeper than that of their constant companion's hip.
They were all healthy,
thoughtless young animals,
sleek,
graceful,
high spirited the boys as meddlesome as the horses.
They rode meddlesome and dangerous.
But with all sweet tempered to those who knew how to handle them.
(20:59):
Although born to the ease of plantation life waited on hand and foot.
Since infancy,
the faces of the three on the porch were neither slack nor soft.
They had the vigor and alertness of country.
People who have spent all their lives in the open and troubled their heads.
Very little with dull things in books.
(21:20):
Life in the North Georgia County of Clayton was still new.
And according to the standards of Augusta,
Savannah and Charleston,
a little crude,
the more the date and older sections of the south,
look down their noses at the up country Georgians.
But here in North Georgia,
a lack of niceties of classical education carried no shame.
(21:42):
Provided a man was smart in the things that mattered and raising good cotton riding.
Well,
shooting straight dancing,
lightly squiring the ladies with elegance and carrying one's liquor like a gentleman were the things that mattered in these accomplishments.
The twins excelled and they were equally outstanding in their notorious ability to learn anything contained between the covers of books.
(22:11):
Their family had more money,
more horses,
more slaves than anyone else in the county,
but the boys had less grammar than most of their poor cracker neighbors.
It was for this precise reason that Stewart and Brent were idling on the porch of Tara.
This April afternoon,
(22:32):
they had just been expelled from the University of Georgia,
the fourth university that had thrown them out in two years.
And their older brothers,
Tom and Boyd had come home with them because they refused to remain at an institution where the twins were not welcome.
Stewart and Brent considered their latest expulsion a fine joke.
(22:54):
And Scarlett who had not willingly opened a book since leaving the Fayetteville Female Academy the year before thought it was just as amusing as they did.
I know you two don't care about being expelled or Tom either she said,
ok,
I'm gonna end that there.
So when you write the opening scene of your book or transition to a new setting at a new scene or chapter opening with a wide angle view,
(23:18):
whether that's about setting or character before you zoom in can be really,
really effective with Margaret Mitchell.
We get such a great idea,
understanding of who the Charlton boys are of who Scarlett o'hara is.
We understand their position in the South in 18 61 before any bit of dialogue is spoken before anything happens.
(23:43):
We understand so much because she started Margaret Mitchell started with this wide angle view and in this case,
a little bit of setting and mostly of character.
So starting with that wide angle view can be such an effective way again to open a book,
a scene,
(24:03):
a chapter.
However,
you want to do it to really give the reader something concrete to kind of hold onto to bring them into the story without that much effort before you get into the action.
Now there is a time and a place for dropping in media risk just like I did in flower in the attic.
So there again,
(24:23):
there's not one way to do things,
but this is an overview of why the wide angle lens really works and can be very,
very effective.
I hope that gives you something to think about.
That's what the Writer Spark podcast and the youtube channel are all about tidbits or tips or ideas about craft that can help you grow in your skill as a writer.
(24:48):
Thanks for joining me and until next time.
Happy writing.
Thank you so much for listening and spending your time with me today.
Everyone.
I'm Melissa Bourbon and this is the Writer Spark podcast.
Take a moment to visit our website at www dot riders spark academy dot com.
(25:09):
Check out our courses,
our resources and all the content there and I will see you next time until then.
Happy writing.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.