Enhance Your Fiction with the Power of an Active Setting! Setting is one of the most underutilized and misunderstood elements of the writing craft. And when writers do focus on setting, they often pull readers out of the narrative and jolt their attention from the action on the page. A Writer's Guide to Active Setting will show you how to create vivid, detailed settings that bring your story to life. You'll learn how to deepen character development, anchor readers to a specific time and place, reveal backstory without slowing things down, elevate action sequences, and more. Drawing upon examples from authors writing across a variety of genres, Mary Buckham will illustrate exactly how the proper use of setting can dramatically improve your story. You'll learn what's effective about each passage and how you can use those techniques to make your story shine. "Takes an all too often overlooked technique, and elevates it to a next-level game changer for powerful fiction."--Cathy Yardley, author of Rock Your Plot "A powerful combination of fresh insights, practical examples, and how-to advice on the often overlooked but critical element of setting ... written in a quick-to-read and easy-to-understand style, and packed with useful application exercises." -- Kelly L. Stone, author of Thinking Write: The Secret to Freeing Your Creative Mind "If you're a writer, then Mary Buckham's book is a must-have tool for your writer's toolkit. Creating settings that are rich and believable is not an easy task, but with this book, I found that each chapter gave me great tips that I could immediately implement in my manuscript." -- Laurie G. Adams, author of Finding Atticus.

Enhance Your Fiction with the Power of an Active Setting! Setting is one of the most underutilized and misunderstood elements of the writing craft. And when writers do focus on setting, they often pull readers out of the narrative and jolt their attention from the action on the page. A Writer's Guide to Active Setting will show you how to create vivid, detailed settings that bring your story to life. You'll learn how to deepen character development, anchor readers to a specific time and place, reveal backstory without slowing things down, elevate action sequences, and more. Drawing upon examples from authors writing across a variety of genres, Mary Buckham will illustrate exactly how the proper use of setting can dramatically improve your story. You'll learn what's effective about each passage and how you can use those techniques to make your story shine. "Takes an all too often overlooked technique, and elevates it to a next-level game changer for powerful fiction." --Cathy Yardley, author of Rock Your Plot "A powerful combination of fresh insights, practical examples, and how-to advice on the often overlooked but critical element of setting...written in a quick-to-read and easy-to-understand style, and packed with useful application exercises." --Kelly L. Stone, author of Thinking Write: The Secret to Freeing Your Creative Mind "If you're a writer, then Mary Buckham's book is a must-have tool for your writer's toolkit. Creating settings that are rich and believable is not an easy task, but with this book, I found that each chapter gave me great tips that I could immediately implement in my manuscript." --Laurie G. Adams, author of Finding Atticus

"Writing Active Setting is a powerful combination of fresh insights, practical examples, and how-to advice on the often overlooked but critical element of setting ... written in a quick-to-read and easy to understand style, and packed with useful application exercises."--Back cover.

Now get all three books of the WRITING ACTIVE SETTING series together, plus a bonus additional section on HOOKS! Have you tried to take your writing skills to the next level but don’t know where to begin? Do you dread the thought of writing narrative description because as a reader you skip over it when you read novels? Or are you a writer who ignores Setting description totally in your novel writing—but know your story needs it? You just don’t know where. Active Setting, explained in comprehensible bites with clear examples from a variety of published authors can help YOU breakthrough with your writing skills. Readers usually remember the plot and characters of a story, but setting is every bit as important in creating a memorable world. Novel writing can be enjoyable once you’ve mastered a few of the writing skills necessary to bring a story to life. If you’re tired of your Setting descriptions being ho-hum and are ready to create a compelling story world, regardless of what you write, or your current level of writing skills, keep reading. In the WRITING ACTIVE SETTING series you will: • Discover the difference between Ordinary Setting that bogs down your story, and Active Setting that empowers your story. • See how to spin boring descriptions into engaging prose. • Learn to deepen the reader's experience of your story world through sensory details. • Notice how changing characters’ POV can change your setting. • Explore ways to maximize the setting possibilities in your story. • Learn to use Setting to quickly anchor the reader into the world of your story. • Use Setting as movement through space effectively. • Explore Setting in a series. • Learn the most common Setting pitfalls. These books go straight to the point, putting theory in plain language, adding examples from authors in a variety of genres, and finishes each section with exercises designed to help you work with your Setting in a way that will excite you. . .and your reader.

Making readers care and feel like they’re part of the story should be the number one goal of all writers. Ironically, many storytellers fail to maximize one of fiction’s most powerful elements to achieve this: the setting. Rather than being a simple backdrop against which events unfold, every location has the potential to become a conduit for conveying emotion, characterizing the cast, providing opportunities for deep point of view, and revealing significant backstory. Inside this volume, you will find: • A list of the sights, smells, tastes, textures, and sounds for over 120 urban settings • Possible sources of conflict for each location to help you brainstorm ways to naturally complicate matters for your characters • Advice on how to make every piece of description count so you can maintain the right pace and keep readers engaged • Tips on utilizing the five senses to encourage readers to more fully experience each moment by triggering their own emotional memories • Information on how to use the setting to characterize a story’s cast through personalization and emotional values while using emotional triggers to steer their decisions • A review of specific challenges that arise when choosing an urban location, along with common descriptive pitfalls that should be avoided The Urban Setting Thesaurus helps you tailor each setting to your characters while creating a realistic, textured world your readers will long to return to, even after the book closes.

The best resource for getting your fiction published! Novel & Short Story Writer's Market 2017 is the only resource you need to get your short stories, novellas, and novels published. As with past editions, Novel & Short Story Writer's Market offers hundreds of listings for book publishers, literary agents, fiction publications, contests, and more. Each listing includes contact information, submission guidelines, and other essential tips. Novel & Short Story Writer's Market also includes valuable advice to elevate your fiction: • Discover creative ways to conquer writer's block. • Wield exposition and summary effectively in your story. • Amplify your author brand with 8 simple ingredients. • Gain insight from best-selling and award-winning authors, including Garth Stein, Patrick Rothfuss, and more. You also receive a one-year subscription to WritersMarket.com's searchable online database of fiction publishers, as well as a free digital download of Writer's Yearbook, featuring the 100 Best Markets: WritersDigest.com/WritersDigest-Yearbook-16. Includes exclusive access to the webinar "Create Edge-of-Your-Seat Suspense" by Jane K. Cleland.

Describes various techniques for creating a setting that allows a mood to develop and a plot to grow

No matter what genre you write, this second manual on the Deep Point of View technique should be kept as a vital reference in every writer's toolbox. This in-depth guide offers specific, practical tools for creative fiction writers on how to craft realistic settings, visceral responses, and lifelike characters. Crammed with even more examples and ways to eliminate shallow writing, this book provides the necessary techniques to master describing facial expressions, body language, and character emotions. This resource of endless inspiration will reveal how to dig deeper to "show don't tell," which is essential to crafting compelling dialogue, vivid scenes, and deepening characterization.

Have you tried to take your writing skills to the next level but don't know where to begin? Do you dread the thought of writing narrative description because as a reader you skip over it when you read novels? Or are you a writer who ignores Setting description totally in your novel writing--but know your story needs it? You just don't know where. Active Setting, explained in comprehensible bites with clear examples from a variety of published authors can help YOU breakthrough with your writing skills. Readers usually remember the plot and characters of a story, but setting is every bit as important in creating a memorable world. Novel writing can be enjoyable once you've mastered a few of the writing skills necessary to bring a story to life. If you're tired of your Setting descriptions being ho-hum and are ready to create a compelling story world, regardless of what you write, or your current level of writing skills, keep reading. In WRITING ACTIVE SETTING Book 1: Characterization and Sensory Detail you will: Discover the difference between Ordinary Setting that bogs down your story, and Active Setting that empowers your story. See how to spin boring descriptions into engaging prose. Learn to deepen the reader's experience of your story world through sensory details. Notice how changing characters' POV can change your setting. Explore ways to maximize the setting possibilities in your story. This book goes straight to the point, putting theory in plain language, adding examples from authors in a variety of genres, and finishes each section with exercises designed to help you work with your Setting in a way that will excite you. . .and your readers!