When your first draft is done, save a copy of it named "Setting." Either go through and highlight all areas of description or delete everything but chapter headings and description passages.
Look for excessively long passages. Note when there are chapters where description is missing.
Each scene needs to be set. Each character needs to be described upon entering the story. Occasional brief reminders or additional descriptions keep things fresh in the reader's mind, but delete repetitious descriptions that don't further the plot. Once you have noted they have blue eyes, you don't need to keep referring to them. Once you have described a place, only add descriptions that add to the mood or tone or reflect changes.
1. What do your readers need to know and when do they need to know it? Are the passages of description where they need to be? Are they jammed too close together or spaced too far apart?
2. How do the mechanics of your story world create conflict and address theme? Of the myriad details, which details most impact that particular moment in the story setup and conflicts?
3. How do they express tone?
4. What is the general mood: peaceful, bucolic, spooky, bright, new, bustling, dying, decaying, and how does it change from scene to scene?
5. What threatens the cast’s existence: disease, creatures, asteroids, weather, etc.? Have you reinforced the threats with descriptions?
6. Who and what can save them? Have you built the foundation for it or pulled things out last minute?
7. What details make your story stand out from other stories of a similar nature? Highlight them. Sprinkle them throughout for impact.
8. How does the setting for each scene add atmosphere? Does it support, contrast, or conflict with emotions? Does it create complications? Have you utilized the setting for each scene to its fullest potential in the scene?
9. Are there continuity errors? You can't start out in the early morning and have a twenty minute drive then it is suddenly midnight.
10. Are there places where there is too much or too little description of setting? Is setting being used as filler? Fill in the missing pieces and cut the extraneous bits.
11. Have you changed names at any point? Have they been revised everywhere?
12. Is it clear when and where each scene takes place?
13. Especially when moving back and forth through time, have you kept to the timeline and is it clear to the reader? This is critically important when you intentionally shift timelines.
14. Have you illustrated the setting sufficiently for your reader? This is where a critique group or beta readers are invaluable. Have you put your world on paper or is it mostly in your head? Did your vision translate to print?
Reading through the story with only the descriptions in place helps you locate areas that need more foundation work. You can compare what you intended to portray with what you wrote. Other readers may pick up on things you missed or have questions you still need to answer.
For advanced world-building, the SBB Build A World Workbook is available in print and e-book.
Other titles in the series:
Story Building Blocks: The Four Layers of Conflict available in print and e-book takes you from story seed to conflict outline. The fourteen companion Build A Plot Workbooks, in print and e-book, offer step by step development prompts: Comedy, Con, Heist & Prison Break, Fantasy, Gothic, Historical, Horror, Literary (Drama), Mystery, Road Trip, Romance, Science Fiction, Team Victory, Thriller & Suspense, Western.
SBB II Crafting Believable Conflict in print and e-book and the Build A Cast Workbook in print and e-book help you build a believable cast and add conflict based on the sixteen personality types.
Free story building tools are available at www.dianahurwitz.com.
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