Here's some #writingadvice: Characters in a #story must interact with the place a #scene is set in.

All too often, I've read the work of aspiring authors and felt like the story was simply talking heads. Nothing more than a script. The setting had all the dimension of a matte painting, and served only as a #background. It's a newbie error to not have your #characters interact with their surroundings.

#Conflict is something that gets pounded into our head from the instant we first let someone read our work. Conflict occurs when characters interact with one another. A "sense of place" requires your characters to interact with their environment, to do something. It's the difference between talking to a friend on the phone in contrast to talking with a friend while shopping together.

I did a lot of thinking about this because I added many of these interactions while revising the initial draft of a chapter. It's always best to avoid anything that causes you to exit the zone, to stop writing. Writing dialog and action in this case was most important. Nevertheless, some of the most interesting stuff happened when I added the environmentals.

Briefly, my character is annoyed as she's leaving a bakery, feeling stood up. Another male acquaintance shows up. He blocks the doorway. Another patron stops confused just outside. She almost runs into the friend and briefly thinks he smells of cinnamon. She likes cinnamon and has a chance to smile in a way the acquaintance misinterprets. She remembers she's in a bakery, listing cinnamon, butter, and yeast smells, and chides herself. She further remembers and returns to the counter to pick up her pastry box, seeing it wrapped with twine by the baker. The acquaintance puts his arm around her shoulders. #BeingThere, in this case, in a bakery.

Even walking on the street is an opportunity to interact, to get crowded into a boxy newspaper rack, to walk around slow pedestrians into the street putting a foot into the wet gutter, to smell where a dog has recently been, to wait for a light to turn green at a crosswalk while looking nervously at a watch, or to wave to a neighbor while talking to a companion.

Even a meal is an opportunity to clatter silverware against a plate, to gesture with a drink in hand to eject liquid to avoid or to apologize about, or to wipe mustard off of a chin that might be your character's, a boyfriend's, and a child's.

#setTheScene
#interactions
#fivesenses