Sometimes, your writing has engrossing characters, compelling dialogue, and a brisk plot…but it still feels flat. It’s a fireworks display in your mind but hand it to a stranger and they glaze over. For me, it usually means I’ve done a crappy job creating a sense of place.
Describing a setting can be hard. Florid detail = usually silly. I don’t care about every plate in the china cabinet or the entire geography of the Pyrenees Mountains. A different reason is the writer may not have a vivid sense of place. A picture in your head does not equal a picture on the page.
Say your characters are fleeing a pack of werewolves through medieval Scandinavia. It’s cold and lonely. Snow, rocks, little bits of underbrush. That could also be my grandma’s farm in Pennsylvania. Readers can fill in many blanks, but conveying a vivid landscape needs enough details for the reader to imagine it, even if she has grown up in Australia and has never seen snow outside of The Nightmare Before Christmas.
I use photo references. No one disses an artist for using a model or a reference photo. Why is writing different? I keep a folder labeled “Writing Inspiration” and add interesting pictures I find. 90% of these come from Tumblr, from blogs like Vurtual. That way, I can let descriptions percolate. I’ll jot down details, moods, and interesting possibilities. Physical details are good, but so is the real sense of the place. A grassy field can be serene, or it could be the spot of a bloody battle and the rustling glass sounds like ghosts. Once I have some good descriptions, I take the best and use them for my story.
It could be the path to freedom, or gap that suddenly fills in with soldiers, swords bared, crushing all hope that you escaped their dungeon.
Source: Vurtual
Amazing photography expands your mind too. We can’t all be jet setting explorers, but the world is full of magic. Could you imagine the Sahara looking like this?
Making love under the stars just got more epic.
Source: Vurtual
Photo references are great for improving descriptions in general. Personally, I love animal motifs, but animals get cliched out the wazoo. “He grinned wolfishly” – what the hell does that lazy description mean? What makes it wolfish? Pictures help you better define senses and moods and allow more showing instead of telling.
His eyes pierce, but could they care less about what lies beneath?
Source: WOLVES
Lastly, seeing is just one sense. Good writing incorporates all five. Some of the scariest shit I’ve ever read is terrifying because of sounds. A photo can’t tell you what the wind across Finnish hills sounds like, but it can spark your imagination.
“Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.” – Edgar Allen Poe
Deus ex Ironica 