During an interview with the Creative Penn podcast, novelist Tony Park shares his advice for writing novels with a strong sense of place, even when you are writing about somewhere other than home.
- Your setting should do double duty. “You have to make setting work for you,” Park says. “You have to give it a job. It’s not just window dressing. It’s not just describing a lovely location or just to anchor a character in their scene. Setting can show us how a character is thinking or what they’re feeling, and that’ll be colored and enhanced by the environment around them and how they view it. You know, say a character is up or happy, they’ll revel in the rich beauty of the Savanna landscape, the wildlife, and they’ll be fascinated by the heritage and the people. But if they’re down or facing adversity or in danger, then you weave in things like the laden skies, the dirty streetscapes, the tatty old buildings, or that lion lurking in the long grass with the chilling golden eyes as a portent of doom.”
- Setting is more than a place. Setting “takes in things like the history of the place, the politics and culture which go to the mood of that particular place and setting,” Park explains. “It’s the people in the street, the music that’s playing, the public art or graffiti, the food on the streets, or the absence of food, what people are drinking…the wildlife, the birds, reptiles, the environment and the state of the environment, the problems with the natural landscape.”
- Setting is more than description. “Also use narrative and dialogue because with the narrative you can weave in a little bit of the history and the impressions of the streetscape and the country from your character’s point of view,” Park adds.
- Use all of your senses. “Let’s have your character smell the street food cooking, or the musty dirty laundry smell of an elephant, because that’s what an elephants smells like, like if you’ve left your washing too long in the hamper and it’s all dead,” Park says. “Stephen King says a few well-chosen details will stand for the rest.”
- Remember the context. Neighborhoods and localities have nuance and local history. If you’re writing about a real place, make a point to understand some of these subtleties. “The best way to research or to capture place accurately, particularly if you’re not from there, and this is the situation I have found myself over the years, is talk to a local,” Park adds.
