I have an image in my mind, I don’t know where it came from, but there’s an upright piano, various bottles of spirits with bourbon being dominant and pinstriped trousers and a hat although I can’t tell you its shape and colour. The walls are dark, maybe even matt black and the ceiling and cornices have elaborate plaster mouldings or maybe pressed metal. I’m getting a 70s vibe from this image and smoke, cigarette smoke, laughter, singing and then it’s gone.
Wait, it’s back, I see those matchbooks you used to see in bars—all different colours, fonts and logos. Was there a glass bowl on the piano to hold them?
I don’t think I’ve ever been to this place, but I still have the image. Perhaps I’m remembering a dream or perhaps I’m remembering an imagining. I may have even seen it in a movie. With writers, reality, memories and imaginations sometime bleed into one another. So what does a writer do? How does a writer make it seem authentic?
The answer is to go into the field. I once walked around the streets of Sydney, Australia to get the setting right for a short story I had written. Even though the story was set in the future, I needed to see the existing structures and to know what characters would see, hear, smell, touch and experience. A fight scene takes place in a lonely underpass. I needed to stand in that location and think about the fight’s choreography.
A field day (or night) provides concrete information to write about and gives you a huge amount of confidence about what you’re writing. Take a camera or a smartphone to capture various views and sounds for later. Take a friend or partner along as their revelations about the setting can be useful. Although you might not notice the graceful wisteria draped over a fence or a man wearing funky shorts walking a dachshund, your friend or partner might. The heat of the city or late afternoon shadows could become crucial to the plot, so look at everything as a possible inclusion.
Pack the writing away for a day and get out into the field. Experience what your characters experience.
Justin O’Leary
Done this before? What did you learn? How did it impact your writing?
I do this. I have computer folders of images and sounds for various settings.
If things go swimmingly with your writing, such field trips can be tax deductions. I really must write a story set in Tahiti.
Keeping a folder like that is a great resource, Peter. I really should get my settings info more organised. And WOW, I didn’t know you could claim those trips as deductions. Perhaps I should set a story in Tokyo.
Love the picture of Sydney there. Great reminders. The computer can deaden our mind, and getting out and away from writing for little trips can rejuvenate the senses and sharpen our writing when we return to the keyboard later. Right now, I could write a great setting right now set in single digits (Fahrenheit) with nasty inversion air that you can smell, and slipping all over the place on the icy sidewalks. Walks aren’t too good right now in Boise. Ick!
Your experience there reminds me of Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton. It’s a novella set during a very cold winter in Massachusetts. Over here, we’ve had the opposite, a massive heatwave. The other day we flicked the cold water tap on and waited through four litres of almost boiling water before the cold water arrived. In one part of Queensland, it reached a record high of 48.6 Celsius (119.48 F). Looks like we have your sun, but feel free to take it back anytime you like.
It’s so nice getting out and about and looking, smelling and feeling a scene. This is a great idea, Justin. If I’m writing about a place I haven’t been to I usually read travel brochures (that’s cheating a bit – but hey, it’s all about poetic license)
I love the image of the upright piano, bottles of spirits and bourbon. This sounds like a very intriguing scene!
Yeah, I could probably turn that scene into a short story entitled 5th Key Junction or something …
Travel brochures are a great source when you can’t get to a location, but if you want to enhance that a bit, you could also read restaurant reviews (e.g., urban spoon) from the places you’re writing about and mention a particular dish for a touch of authenticity. It also helps to have a spice rack on hand.
Sometimes my cat watches me sniffing spices, so I shove a spice jar in his face to see his reaction. When he likes one, his little nostrils work away gently, but when he doesn’t, he backs away. It’s hilarious!
Hahahaha! That’s fantastic!
Setting is a favorite element to write for me, and I really like to get into all the senses to evoke a particular place. I love your ideas about how you conjure setting. I clip photos from magazines that speak to me in some way. I keep them in a box and sift through them when I’m on the hunt for something specific. The exact picture I never find, but enough detail will get me to the right place in my mind.
That’s a great idea about collecting pictures from magazines. Another useful endeavour is to create an interior design board with fabric and upholstery samples. This way you can bring the imagined into reality and know exactly how a fabric feels, looks and sounds e.g., taffeta, velvet and leather.