Posted in Scenes

Scenario: The Theater

Theater is the physical location where an event or a scene unfolds. It’s the container, the box. Each scene can have a different scenario and may even mutate or evolve over the course of the story. There may be many different scenarios in the same setting. If we were to take a photograph of the characters, it would be the section in the background. It’s usually restricted and limited to the immediate vicinity of the characters. A static scenario serves as an introduction and then a few new references can be made. On the contrary, it becomes a resource to demonstrate that characters are in motion, describing the interaction with elements of a changing scenario.

The scenario is where you should follow the phrase of “show, don’t tell”. This means to expose the reader to a scene that engages the senses by means of the letters. You are transporting them to a specific time and inserting them right in the middle of that place. It’s about creating a three-dimensional site instead of just giving a summary of what is visible.

Posted in Genres

Literature Genres

The literature genres, mentioned in my previous post, are usually combined with specific worlds or stages in order to create the following.

Genres based on place / time or “rules” of the world

  • Allows the existence of the supernatural. Stephen King’s Carrie, William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist.
  • Fantasy: parallel worlds in which magic and intelligent beings of other species exist and live along humans. Example: J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling.
  • Science Fiction: an exploration of the future of humanity and other possible worlds in the universe. The Foundation (series) by Isaac Asimov, Dan Simmons’ Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion.
  • Vampires: Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

It is possible then to mix the goal of stopping a threat with a science fiction stage, the way it is done in many works of the genre.

When mixing romantic stories with a world in which vampires exist, books like Stephanie Meyer’s Eclipse are created.

To search, read and write

If we want to write it is important to identify the kind of books we enjoy reading, read more of those, learn more about the genre and finally write stories with our own personal touch.