It was all there infront of me....

[John Dean]

It’s funny how a sense of place inspires writers. As you may know if you have read my blogs on our weekend writing courses at my home (details below), we moved to a hillside in Dumfries and Galloway a year and a half ago. The landscape has had a profound effect on my writing.

For instance, my new DCI Jack Harris novel Error or Judgement (The Book Folks) features a plane crashing into a North Pennines hillside and that hillside, its ridges and contours, is actually based on the one that I see every day when I take the dog for a walk. No imagination needed, similar landscape - it was all laid out infront of me.

If I head the other way down the lane, I come to a copse. That copse was where the would-be assassin waits for his victim at the beginning of the DCI John Blizzard novel Death List (The Book Folks). Yet again, a sense of place sparked creativity.

But if you are a writer, care must be taken. It is crucial when 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?

When you seek to describe the setting - and the reader does need something to focus on - seek to use the following components:

1 Physical characteristics - what does it look like, any quirks which bring it to life?

2 Use your reader’s senses - what does the place smell, taste, sound like?

3 What does it feel like to be there?

If you are interested in our weekend courses, they are running during the summer and will look at how a landscape can be harnessed to shape powerful stories. The courses will run on July 6/7 and August 24/25, 2019. The cost is £95 per person, including catering, and you can find out more by emailing [e-mail]

You can buy Error of Judgement at

https://www.amazon.co.uk/ERROR-JUDGEMENT-gripping-Detective-Inspect...

You can buy Death List at

https://www.amazon.co.uk/DEATH-LIST-following-prison-targets-ebook/...