Changing rooms

Everywhere, no matter how mundane, has an atmosphere. Learn to tune into this in order to create a threedimensional, multi-sensory world.

‘Doctor Who’ used to scare the pants off me. But all it took to drag me back rudely to the real world was for a rock to wobble as an advancing Dalek sidled into it. You need to bring your setting to life. You have to breathe enough magic into those descriptive words to transport a reader into another world, another place and time. This means not only writing well, but also seeing well. Whatever the location, from something as prosaic as a post office to as sensational as a space shuttle, it has its own presence – a unique atmosphere embodied in its layout, design, history, location and relationship to people. It’s vital to pin down the elements of a place that give it this atmosphere if it’s to seem genuine on the page. Honing your powers of description just takes practice and, above all, experience. You should be aiming to make the reader feel as though they’ve visited somewhere personally by the time they’ve finished reading. This means using all of your skills and all of your resources to create a rich, threedimensional, multi-sensory setting.

Do your research. Just because you’ve physically been in a place doesn’t mean you’ve looked at it carefully: don’t take it for granted. Keep your eyes peeled for the small details, the things that usually remain hidden from view: the way the light hits the buildings, the dog hair on the carpet, the way the computers whirr. Jot a plan down in a notebook, including doodles if you want, so you’ve got a list of these insights – as well as more mundane descriptions of furniture, objects, décor – to hand. Even if you never use half of it, it gives you a much clearer mental picture of your location. And remember, just because you can visualise your location when you read back through your work doesn’t mean a reader will. You’ve had the advantage of actually being there (or, if not, having researched and imagined it for hours on end). In order to ensure your reader can picture a scene as clearly as you do, it’s vital first to be able to approach it as they will: from outside. Don’t risk becoming too familiar with your literary locations, try and see them freshly, without prejudice, as if you’d never encountered them before. Again, this means looking at the small details, the ones even you’ve never noticed before.

Of course, you may not be able to visit the scenes you’re using in person. If they’re historical, they may not exist any more; if they’re political, you may not have access; if it’s a foreign country you’re describing, you may not have enough cash to get there and back; and if you’re writing sci-fiwell, you can’t very well nip across to Venus for a research trip. But this doesn’t mean you get off lightly. Use every resource you can to learn more about the setting. Talk to people who have lived there, watch movies filmed in the same location, look on the internet, read relevant novels, travel guides, holiday reviews, astronomy books and street plans. You need to be able to answer any questions about your setting (even if you’re the only one doing the asking).

Above all, remember this: when setting the scene in your work you need to be able to recreate it, not just set out a list of details. Before you can do this, you need to be able to exist in that scene in your mind, to be able to see, hear, smell, touch and taste as if you are actually there. Only by supplying these sensory details will you be able to carry the reader with you. Look at John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men – the first paragraph in every chapter is a master class in creating powerful description.

Surgery or butchery?

You’d be surprised how much even the smallest nip and tuck will improve your finished work. Keep your mind open to revision.

The infamous red pen. We’ve all got one; we all hate to use it. Let’s face it: the thought of taking the knife to a piece of writing we’ve nurtured since birth is tantamount to infanticide. But rest reassured – this isn’t the case. Think of the editing process as more like taking the stabilisers off your kid’s bike. It’s nerve wracking, and you’re worried it will bring them crashing down – but ultimately it makes the ride faster, smoother and a hell of a lot more fun.

When you think your piece is finished, that’s when the hard work begins. Working out what to dice and slice from a piece of writing is simply a matter of observation. But what should you be looking for? In short, barnacles and dead wood: anything that’s clinging on to the flesh of the piece without contributing anything. You may not think this applies to you, but take a really close look at what you’ve been writing.

Are there examples of abstractions and generalisations, clichés, outdated or unrealistic language, unwanted or vague description, condescension, didactics, obscurity, poor rhythm or clumsy rhyme, lazy or automatic use of words, stolen phrases you’d meant to change or just plain old waffle? Look at the list above and honestly ask yourself if you’re guilty of any of writing’s cardinal sins – ask yourself if the piece of writing is unique to you or whether it’s something that anybody could have written.

Start by zooming in as close as you can: ask every component of your writing whether it’s as well developed as possible, whether it’s as good as it can be, and whether it deserves its place in the work as a whole. If it helps, write out sentences separately on a sheet of paper, see if they work as freestanding structures. But don’t get so bogged down in detail you forget about the bigger picture – it’s vital every now and again to take a step back and look at your finished piece as an organic whole. If you’re including everything you’ve written because you stubbornly don’t want to cut it out, you risk a piece of writing full of extraneous detail and devoid of character.

Don’t be afraid to let the red pen get carried away. Pare your work down to its purest state, see if it’s actually saying what you wanted it to in the first place. Use different coloured pens for comments on plot, or character, or dialogue, so you can get an idea of which area is giving you trouble – if you’ve got more green marks than any other colour, you know you’re having trouble with your dialogue. In fact, you don’t even have to limit yourself to a pen. Get messy, attack your draft with scissors and glue, edit the old fashioned way, the messy way – it’s so much more satisfying than using a word processor.

Be brave, try major changes like altering the point of view or including a brand new plot twist. It may mean extensive rewriting, but the result may be far more dramatic than your original. The revision period is your chance to try out these changes, so don’t be shy. Just never forget to keep a copy of the original. I can’t stress this enough. Personal experience has shown me that if you edit on your only copy of a draft, you can never go back, even if you decide the changes you’ve made suck.

So when is it time to stop revising and leave your work alone? There is no simple answer, but eventually, you’ll just know. Like a sculptor chipping away at a block of stone, there will come a point when you don’t want to take off any more, when your writing simply speaks for itself. It may take a while for you to recognise it, but believe me, you will.