Developing locations and settings in your novel

Descriptions of locations and settings in novels vary from broad strokes which suggest you fill in the rest yourself, to the nauseating detail. How much you describe your character's surroundings will depend on your preference and style, but either way it needs to be a conscious decision. As an author, you need to know all about your locations, including where the furniture is placed and how it smells.

Locations interface in our novel writing software

You can use novel writing software to guide you through the development of locations and keep all your notes in order, or you can just keep the info loose. If you're really lucky, you may even be able to keep it all in your head.

Here are a few pointers to help you get started:

1.Start with just a name and brief description of the place, brainstorming and noting down anything that comes to mind.

2. Go into a bit more detail, and deliberately make note on sights, sounds, smells, tastes and things your characters might be able to feel (with their hands, feet, cheeks, whatever).

3. Find some pictures that are close to what you envision for your location. The real world is always far more detailed than anything we can ever come up with in a single brain, so the images you find are likely to add rich detail to your location.

4. Make sure thre description of the location fits the atmosphere of the story. It should add to the mood with everything that's mentioned,not mentioned, and how it's mentioned.

5. If the location appears more than once, then think about how it changes. Describing it in a differnt way is a great way to show change and passing of time in your story and to reflect and complement your character's development.

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