Dinnertime!

I attended a writing conference last year and got to participate in a session put on by Miriam Forster, author of CITY OF A THOUSAND DOLLS and coming this fall, EMPIRE OF SHADOWS.  She writes fantasy, and her workshop was on world building.

I'm going to steal something she talked about in her workshop, and that is: World building is important no matter what kind of novel you're writing.  Sure, everyone looks at fantasy writers when you mention world building because they are creating their whole world in their novel, but world building is just as important for non-fantasy.  If you're writing historical fiction, for instance, you need to keep your details true to the time period.  Your character can't go jump on a bike if bikes hadn't been invented, yet.  Even contemporary novels will feel more real with good world building.  A character in London, England is going to have a very different setting than one in Guatemala.

Miriam talked about two different kinds of world building.  There is World Building - where you decide on/create the setting - and world building - the little details that cement  your character in the world you've created.  What are they walking on?  Dirt paths? Pavement?  A yellow brick road?  What kind of house do they live in?  An apartment? A mansion? A hobbit hole?  What are they wearing?  Eating? All of these little details build the world around your character and help your reader to visualize it.

So, the prompt this week is: Dinnertime!  What is your character eating?

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My response:

My hammock swayed gently in the breeze, and now that the sun had dipped down below the mountains, the oppressive heat had lifted.  I was finally starting to think I might actually enjoy camping.  Then Mom called me back to reality.  It was dinnertime.

I dropped my tablet back into the hammock, vaguely wondering how long the battery would last and hoping it would be long enough to finish my new book.  A few trees away, my mom had set up the card table.  A wrought iron grill straddled half of a fire in a pit surrounded by stones.  I still didn't understand why people would choose to leave their homes and head up into the hills to sleep on the ground and cook our dinners over fire.  Wasn't that disrespectful to the men who invented central air conditioning and glass top stoves?

"Here Jenna!  Enjoy!"  Mom handed me an aluminum plate with a lump of tin foil on it.  "Take the hot pad, too, it's been in the fire."

I hated to admit I had almost tried to take the plate without it, but as I sat down, I could feel the heat radiating through the thick pad.  Mom had all the cooking stuff set up on the table, so I sat in one of the chairs set up around the fire.  Dad and Brax were already there.  Brax had covered his mystery meal in ketchup, and Dad's was covered in barbecue sauce.  I used my fork to peel back the tin foil.  The first thing I spotted was cauliflower.  That wasn't very promising.  It looked like my mom had taken a bag of frozen, chopped vegetables, slapped a hamburger patty on top, and left it at that.  I poked the meat, and a small rivulet of red juice slipped out, pooling at the bottom of the veggies.  Great.  Even if they had been edible before, they definitely weren't now.

I looked up.  Brax was shoveling the food into his mouth.  From the looks of his hiking boots, which had been brand new this morning, he'd really worked up an appetite.  I sighed and set my plate across my knees.  Lounging in a hammock didn't take a lot of effort, but I was still hungry.  Not hungry enough, though, to settle for this mess.  I picked at a few of the vegetables, then stood up.  Quickly, so neither of my parents could see what was left on my plate, I swept it into the garbage sack Mom had tied to the table.  I headed towards the car, and the stash of food in the trunk.

"Mom, didn't you say you brought stuff for S'mores?"