Introducing Our First Creative Writing Challenge
And It’s Open to All
Our first creative writing challenge takes place March 6 - March 27, and it’s all about crafting an imaginative sense of place in your novels and short stories. It’s free to participate and you can join in anytime during the challenge.
Setting is not simply where the action takes place. It’s much more than that. The best setting descriptions depict the context in which the story takes place and as such they can convey mood, atmosphere, time period, and more. Good setting descriptions evoke readers’ feelings and encourage them to imagine themselves in the world of your characters.
In this upcoming four-week challenge, we’ll cover three types of settings that appear in novels and stories.
Types of settings we will explore –
Immediate settings - the immediate area where a scene takes place such as a room, a house, or a city street.
Environmental settings - the larger geographical area in which a scene or story takes place–a town, a state, a country.
Temporal setting - the time period in which the story takes place. Examples are the roaring twenties, the Great Depression, the modern era, or an imagined time in the distant future.
Settings generally unfold gradually over the course of a novel or story. When a place first appears it is usually described in more detail as the author attempts to set the mood, the tone, time period. As the writer gets deeper into the story, if the setting has previously been defined, the description can become more brief or subtle. Newly introduced or changed settings may call for more vivid descriptions.
For this challenge you will describe settings as you would when they are first introduced to the reader. You should be detailed, inventive, creative. This is an area in your novel or story where you really get to let your imagination loose.
Following are brief summaries of the exercises you can expect each week of the four-week challenge–
Each exercise below will include an introduction in the form of an essay or lesson to guide you in creating your setting description for that week.
Week 1 - You will be asked to choose from one of two paintings or drawings that I provide and to describe it as if you were a fly on the wall or a bird buzzing about in the sky. This will be an immediate setting and the description should convey the mood and time period.
Week 2 - You’ll add a main character to the setting you used the previous week and describe the setting from the viewpoint of the character’s thoughts and feelings.
Week 3 - You’ll be instructed to come up with your own immediate setting–real or entirely from your imagination–and then craft a creative, impactful description.
Week 4 - Your task in the final week will be to craft an environmental and/or temporal setting description. It can spring from one of your previous immediate setting descriptions or you can craft something entirely new.
Here’s more detail on how the challenge will unfold.
For four consecutive weeks, beginning on Wednesday, March 6, you’ll get an essay or lesson from me along with an assignment based on the essay. The essay will be delivered by email and will also be available on the Creativity for Fiction Writers Substack page.
For the weekly assignments, you’ll be encouraged to use your imagination to craft vivid, creative setting descriptions of no more than 150 words. You’ll be encouraged to keep up weekly; however, feel free to write at your own pace. The exercises will remain on the Creativity for Fiction Writers page at the end of the challenge.
You will be encouraged to share your work each week in the comments section of Creativity for Fiction Writers. That way others can benefit from my comments as well as the comments of other challenge participants.
If you are ever unclear on exactly what to do, feel free to ask in the comments section. I’ll do my best to respond. I will encourage everyone to ask questions online so that others who may have the same question can benefit from the discussion. We’re all here to share and learn.
You will be encouraged to provide considerate, constructive commentary on the setting descriptions of other participants.
Don’t expect your writing to be perfect but do look for it to improve as we go along. As mentioned earlier, we are here to learn and grow as writers. At the end of the challenge, you should have one or more creative, compelling scene descriptions that you can use in a novel or short story. Or you can simply hold onto your work and continue improving it in the future.
This challenge is open to all. You can get each of the four weekly exercises delivered straight to your inbox if you subscribe to Creativity for Fiction Writers, even as a free subscriber! Future challenges will be available only to paid subscribers so try not to miss out on this one-time opportunity.
I’m really looking forward to getting started in this activity with you! If you have questions at this point I’m happy to answer. Just post them in the comments or respond via email. And please, share this newsletter/post with anyone you think might like to join the challenge!
To get started with Exercise 1, head here.