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.