In Anticipation of Wednesday

Wednesday, as you know, is my designated “Face off with Wordsmith.org” writing challenge day. While I love, love, love the word of the day challenge (really, I do), I’m taking a break this week.

The purpose of Wednesday’s Word of the Day challenge is more about a commitment to write – without a plan, on the spot, even when I don’t feel like writing – than on being a die-hard fan of Wordsmith.org. Though Mr. Garg’s theme this week – words on food and drink – will be tough to ignore, another exercise awaits me (and you) on Wednesday. And, the hope is that you will be inspired to participate as well.

Back in October, I wrote a post wondering how other writers develop a sense of place in their stories. Do they simply visualize the place or actually draw it out? In that post, I referred to an article in The Writer, by Linda Lappin, called “See with Fresh Eyes.” Linda wrote that creating a “deep map” of the setting not only draws more material for the story, but also gives the story a deeper level of meaning.

I am honored to host Linda here tomorrow, at Writing Under Pressure.

Linda will explain how creating a map of a place can help the writer discover the spirit of that place. She will also share a writing exercise from her new book, The Genius Loci: A Writer’s Guide to Capturing the Soul of Place.

For someone like myself, who’s in the middle of a novel rewrite, Linda’s visit comes at a perfect time. While writing this introduction, I thought back on a post by Mary Campbell about treating setting as another character, about how a well-developed setting is critical to the success of a story.

Tomorrow, Linda shows us how to bring setting to life.

Come back, read her guest post, try her writing exercise, and add another dimension to your story.

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