Writing help

How to describe your setting

You can make your setting come alive for the reader by including details that capture its special flavor. What sights, sounds, smells, sensations are typical of your setting or unique to it?
You don't have to list all of these details together in a block of "description." Weave setting details throughout your story, using them where they fit naturally without interrupting the story's flow.
How to find details for your setting:
- Observation. If your setting is someplace you know well or someplace you can visit, record details in your Idea Journal so that you use them later.
- Books and articles about that time/place.
- Interviews with people from that time/place - either interviews you do yourself, or published interviews.
- Published journals and letters by people from that time/place. Related biographies.
- Magazines and newspapers from that time/place.
- Photos, movies, documentaries.
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Homework
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1) In your Idea Journal, answer the Character Setting Questionnaire from this unit about two of the characters that you've developed during the course. Make a note of any conflict ideas that come up as you're completing this exercise.
2) Choose a setting from your responses to the Character Setting Questionnaire. In your Idea Journal, make a list of 10 details that will help to express the sights, smells, and sensations of that setting.