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.

If you're writing a novel and found this article useful, you might want to take a look at our novel writing software. It's completely free to try for 30 days. Click here to visit the novel writing software website and find out more.

 

So how do we make our settings come to life?

How well you can gather detail about your settings depends a lot on your constraints - time and money.

Ideally, you'll immerse yourself in each setting - including in each relevant time of day and season. 

However, this may not be practical (particularly if you're writing a steam punk novel), in which case your imagination will have to pick up the slack.

If you can go to the locations you're going to use as settings, then go - take copious amounts of photographs (which can easily be saved and kept track of with The Novel Factory Novel Software) make reams of notes about everything you can see, smell, taste, feel, hear. Take samples of sand, pebbles, dried leaves - whatever you can. Try to look at the place through the eyes of your characters - what would they notice? What would they ignore?

However, if you can't go there - you'll need to research - and lucky you, you live in the era of the Internet. Get online and find pictures, even videos - of places and buildings that are as close as possible to what you envisioned. Study the pictures and you're guaranteed to find more delicious detail in real life (or some artist's imagination) than you could have come up with on your own.

A quick exercise to prove this if you're so inclined:

Take ten minutes now and write a description of a sweet shop, without doing any research online - no cheating! You know one of those old ones where all the sweets are in jars. Go on, go right ahead and do that.

Done? Now go and spent ten minutes searching for images of these old style sweet shops. Keep the pictures somewhere handy. Now, constantly referring to the pictures, spend another ten minutes on a second description of the sweetshop.

Compare.

And if you like - post your results in the comments.

 

Draw maps and plans

It's hard to overstate how important it is to have floor plans detailing each of the places your characters visit.

Seeing exactly which rooms are adjoining; where the doors and windows are, where they lead and what can be seen through them; what furniture is where - really anchors your characters, rather than giving the impression they're drifting around the space. Having this information will add realistic detail to your story as you will see what in the environment the character can interact with, where they bump into each other and things, how they enter and leave.

 

List the senses

It's time to get analytic about the abstract. Prosaic though it may seem, go through each of your settings and make a list for all of the senses.

• What can you (or better, your point of view character) see?
• What can you smell?
• What can you taste?
• What can you feel?
• What can you hear?

Just make a list. You probably won't use everything on the list. You may use hardly any of it. But when you're writing your scene, you'll have this box of colours, ready to dip into without having to break your flow.

Next - advanced plotting - consistency and clarity

It's time to take a closer look at settings.

It's important to remember that settings aren't simply a stage for your puppets to walk about on - each setting is an opportunity to:

• build mood and atmosphere
• develop character
• foreshadow plot points

 

Building mood and atmosphere with settings

The house could gleam brightly with a fresh coat of whitewash; have aging, peeling, lead-heavy paint; or give the impression of a gaping skull with sightless windows as eyes and a door forever closing its mute mouth. The sea could roll heavily, recline in reflective tranquillity or froth with lively white horses.

If you're trying to build a sombre mood, make sure the park isn't filled with cheery colours, just because that's what was there the last time you went to the park. Make sure every word of description supports whatever mood or atmosphere you are trying to build in that scene.

 

Developing character with settings

How do your characters respond to their surroundings? This can give the reader a lot of information about your character without you having to say it outright.

For example, one character stuck overnight in a forest will build a bivouac, take a few slugs of whiskey and settle down with their heavy boots up on a stump. Another character might collapse into a weeping huddle, hysterically swatting at the creepy crawlies.

Of course it can be much more subtle than that - as much as what they notice and don't notice, what they touch, how they move around the area.

 

Foreshadowing plot points with settings

Every element of the settings you describe should be relevant, and have a justification for its inclusion.

For example, if you're describing someone's bedroom, not only should every item accurately reflect their character (see above), but it should also be relevant to this particular story. If they're going to reach for that bag of marbles to knock out the intruder in chapter 9, it'll be that much more satisfying if you mentioned them in passing in chapter 2.

The photographs in your characters house and room are an excellent opportunity to expose their character and history - just try not to get too heavy handed about it.

Read more about developing settings here.

The next article will explain how we can make our settings come to life.