The Invisible College Lesson Thirteen: Place
May 28, 2017
Writers describe how a powerful setting can spark a whole story. They discuss choosing vivid details, the music of landscape, and how memory distills place into essential fragments. California’s shifting lights and exotic inspirations get contrasted with intimate, immortal sensory memories.
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Grave Found In The Himalayas
- Ruma Godin found a nun's grave at 18 in the Himalayas and couldn't forget it.
- Ten years later that memory became the seed for her novel Black Narcissus.
Landscape Needs Its 'Music'
- Ted Hughes says landscapes overwhelm with detail but contain just a few essential elements that open feelings.
- He argues the 'music' or atmosphere is crucial, not a photographic inventory of features.
Look For Telling Specifics
- Be curious about how places affect you and hunt for telling, specific details.
- Use those specifics to convey the place's emotional effect to readers.
