I am reading the utterly brilliant novel Dark Matter by Michelle Paver at the moment. In addition to her sublime gift of storytelling, the book shows how crucial it is if you write about a place that the reader can see it.
You have choices: do you write rich and vivid prose to paint a word picture or do you keep it minimalist - describe a tree in a park and we all see a different tree and a different park? Perhaps we only need to say it is a tree in a park? Or do you go for detail? Michelle Paver chooses the latter.
If you do the same, make sure you:
Describe physical characteristics - what does it look like, any quirks which bring it to life?
Use your reader’s senses - what does the place smell, taste, sound like?
What does it feel like to be there?
Michelle Paver’s book, set in an ice and snowbound world, does it brilliantly as it weaves a truly terrifying ghost story into the landscape.
John Dean
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