So I have several drafts ready. The problem is that they all seem rather lifeless. I get the issues with describing a location by its appearance, i.e. the colours, the state of cleanliness and maintenance, large sweeping generalizations first and then zoom in a few particulars, etc... But what's your advice for making it living and breathing? Those little neighbourhood corners that bring a story and a history to a setting. That little bits and pieces of culture and references and words and little snippets that tell of a existence and history beyond the POV of the story?
It depends on how you structure it, but some advice which has served me well is to show the world through your character's eyes: What do they notice, what do they feel, smell, think of, remember. If possible have them interact with their environment: Exchange a word with the shopkeep, nod to the dude who has been sitting on that step every day since the character started coming there and probably (the character thinks) since the steps were built, or maybe even before, sitting there on a rock since the dawn of creation, waiting for his steps to be built. Etc. The best way to make the setting alive to your reader is to make it alive to your character IMO. Also beware of overdescribing. A few choice details judiciously sprinkled in can have infinitely more life in them than a whole paragraph of 'head to toe' description, which can actually have the opposite effect. Edit to add: If seeing it through your character's eyes isn't an option for whatever reason, a good workaround can be to see it through the eyes of whatever is the most relatable person/creature/object present. For example, instead of 'the churchbells rang', 'the townspeople heard the churchbells calling them to worship'. You could do something similar for animals, plants. For objects, you could look at it through the eyes of the people who made them, or through the imagined eyes of the object itself. The point is to get the reader to relate to something as a way of investing the setting with that life. Hope this makes sense, rushing a bit as trying to cook dinner.
Don't do the five-senses-role-call. EG, the "character enters the room and mentally describes the taste of the air" kind of approach. There's a lot of "top ten writing advices" articles out there suggesting this; it's rubbish. What I'd suggest is to consider the setting a character on its own right. And there's three easy things what a "character" like that should have in your story: - A character hook, something that immediately gives away a portion of them to the reader and makes them interested. - Development, so as to not remain static and unmoving (figuratively, of course). - Nothing described that is "to be expected". EG, you wouldn't describe a contemporary-set romantic novel's protagonist with "Has /two/ nose holes and his face is separated from his hairline by a forehead!". Similarly, you shouldn't give "Yeah I knew that" descriptions to your settings. A breakfast room /will have a table/, it's merely enough to note the characters seated and eating. For the second, understand that settings develop too. Hard to portray and I seldom see it done well; the best examples are from video games. The importance in this point lies in the fact that we humans are narrative creatures by our own right and /notice change/ sooner than we remember static qualities. Furthermore, setting development can enhance your ability to convey a greater setting. Note the changes in a neighborhood to show underlying changes in your world; an increase of trash, more people smoking while seated on the curbs, ever-frequent police sirens in the distance. A myriad way to describe a neighborhood falling from grace. The character/setting hook is just a trick I use based on an interview with Brian Mitsoda. While seeking to replace "generic quest-giver characters" in the game he was head writer at, he endowed each character with a STRONG personality that immediately gave you a "first impression". The same can be effectively used for a setting - instead of concentrating on a broad spectrum of attributes, concentrate on one specific detail and have it speak for the rest. Hope that helps out, friend!
The way a character sees the setting reflects their inner mood or emotional state. Try to veer away from purely rational/materialist descriptions and toward the atmospheric, to establish a mood. Here's an attempted opening I just typed up, in extremely rough draft form. I haven't settled on ideas about tense or several other things yet: Drifting forward through dim blue semi-darkness of late evening. Head tilted against warm glass—direct connection to tires hissing on concrete below, every bump transferring through the frame of the station wagon into Rachel’s little world. Strange shapes drift past against the slowly sliding backdrop of vast night sky, so much broader and more open than the rigid geometric slits visible between buildings from their apartment. Here the sky is ghostly and unfathomable, wild with possibilities. Gigantic misshapen forms slip past, in places showing the hard straight edges of buildings, houses, tractors or silos. Some of the shapes must be masses of trees and bushes, hills, god knows what else. Her imagination supplied a welter of answers, some quite likely, some sliding into the phantasmagorical. One thing I notice in reading this is that it isn't straightforward description: 'The buildings were flat-topped and rectangular, made mostly of old worn brick and with green-painted wooden frames around doors and windows'. I'm moving through description and action and narration, getting some sense of the setting and the mood/atmosphere into each. Example, 'Strange shapes drift past' is action, but it plays into the setting and mood. It's best not to get trapped into pure declarative statements about the surroundings, but try to keep a flow going through narration, description (which I suppose is a specialized part of narration) and action, even dialogue or inner monologue if you can.
For me as a reader what makes a place come to life (apart from what's unusual or shocking) is when it's described through the characters eyes. When you give basic, mundane information on a setting it comes across a basic and mundane, just an overall view of the place. How would some random person describe my estate? A large block of flats surrounded by bungalows and houses. It's quite pretty with raised flower beds, some wildlife, a car park, well maintained...am I getting dull yet? What does this information tell you? More importantly what does it tell you about me? If I described this estate I would describe the 18th century house that has been converted into flats. That long narrow stretch is now a corridor in the flats but it used to be stables. That little courtyard you passed on the way in was where they tied the horses, and it still has the old, black metal posts used to tie horses whilst in cart. That cobbled road has been here since the 15th century and the road gets it's name because farmers used to drive cattle before this estate even existed. Henry Tudor road down that road when he visited Norwich. I'd notice all the detail designs on the house, it's very 18th century. The huge tree next to it was planted by the man who owned the house. It was where he buried his favourite carriage horse. History gives us a sense of time. A sense that this place existed before. Plus, it's the kind of thing I would notice as a history nerd. You got a sense of place and a sense of me and my love for history. Most people who live in my area have no clue of this history. So if you an evoke character when describing a place, it can become more interesting. Small details on one or two central focuses. Look to the senses we use. In the summer time this place smell of honeysuckle. In the winter it's a very earthy smell that disappears when you get to the road. There's a strange mixture of sounds. This mixture of countryside and city because we are literally in between the two. And because of the way of the buildings sit, there is always a wind.
To fill out a setting, you need to think of aspects beyond the senses. Think of the society, of how the people play out their lives and the attitudes they have to each other. These hidden facets will manifest themselves in particular ways. The reader then plays detective, picking up on the clues and working out the deeper aspects of the setting. The MC walks down a road. An empty beer can lies in the street, along with discarded wrappers from fast food. A puddle of puke next to a lamp-post. Clues of someone's night before.
One thing that could work is by describing particular things in a given setting very well, and let the reader fill in the rest through imagination. Like, say your character is in an old, abandoned storage room. Describe a bookcase of crumbling books in spiderwebs, the air vent rusting at the top of the wall, and maybe a broken chair on the floor. Then the reader can assume lots of other things, like how humid or dusty the room is. Try to visualize what you have, and point out all the most important things. Point out what could be done with an object or setting. Like how the MC would absolutely love to drive a certain car he sees, or how something he sees in the window of a store would be a perfect present for someone -- which could then transition into a scene where maybe he isn't friends with that person anymore, or they're dead, or just anything that would tie the plot to the item or place. Think about the other sense. Sight is usually covered pretty well, but what about smell? Humidity? A crackling feeling of electricity? Hearing? Maybe have a character talk about how a car looks like a delicious candy apple red, to the point where it makes the MC hungry. Or just put an incongruous object there. I once saw a decorating book cover where someone hung a branch from the ceiling. It was hilariously stupid, but very attention grabbing, and could work for one of your scenes.
I don’t have a lot to add as I think the replies so far have given great advice. Describing things through an character’s eyes is critical I think, but as mentioned, don’t fall into the trap of over-describing by describing everything (every sense of the character, or every trait of everything they see). Over-describing makes for a difficult read; some of the most difficult-to-read stories I’ve encountered described things too much. There’s nothing wrong with leaving certain elements of the setting to a reader’s imagination - try to strike a balance. I don’t write a lot of fiction, mostly non-fiction, so take this with a grain of salt. Personally my approach would be to define the setting from different lenses: your general setting (location and key items/people), what you see from your character’s perspective, and how your character feels about what they see. You can include how your character feels - but what I mean is that your character’s emotions may impact their perception. Depending on your POV and style, this may translate into describing your setting based on your character’s emotions. A character who is seeing red is going to have a blurred perception of everything around them (so describe less), and a passionate focus on certain elements of their environment (describe these based on the emotion in question). Using your mind’s eye to place yourself literally in the environment (and/or in your character’s point-of-view) is an exercise I’ve found helpful. You may do this already, but putting down the pen and closing your eyes and actively imagining the scene has helped me when I’ve participated in this type of writing.
So far I have only been writing fanfiction, but to me the key was to have characters interact with the location. Make the description a background to action, rather than the standalone. To see what I mean, you can contrast Lord of the Rings and the Inheritance Cycle: Tolkien has very nice descriptions, but they are always in the background. Paolini by contrast pauses action entirely to provide paragraphs and paragraphs of description of monster's drooling fangs. So read those two, and you will have an example of how to do it, and how not to do it. Also, if you want to breathe life into description, that goes back to characters interacting with the location: but not just physically. Ideally, interaction should be emotional as well; show how the location makes characters feel, or even better, try and make readers feel the way characters feel; to feel creepyness of an old abandoned mine or a graveyard. Basically, it is less about describing the physicality of location and more about bringing forward emotions that location is supposed to cause.
Read this and find your type, then think about how the other one would describe a scene: https://www.truity.com/myers-briggs/sensing-vs-intuition
I sometimes struggle with this as well, especially if my PoV character isn't frequently in the setting I'm trying to describe (which is mostly an issue with 1st person PoV - with 3rd person, it's much easier to give a clearer idea of the setting). But one thing I have learned over all my years of writing creative fiction is this: You don't need to describe EVERYTHING. I like to describe the general look and feeling of a place, giving more detailed descriptions sparingly in order to bring attention to specific things. In my current story, the bulk of the story takes place in the largest city in the country, so it's a lot more lively than any of the other places my protagonist has seen before. But because of my protag's background and life, the city itself is described more broadly, with great detail being put into describing the temple, since that's where she's going to be living. I just try to prioritize the level of detail based on the character. It's like many here have said: What is important to your PoV character? What do they notice or gloss over? Things like that. And I know that I can't possibly describe everything in one go (it would become a wall of expository text), so I try to make a conscious effort to spread out descriptions of a setting over time, feeding the reader new details in different scenes.
One thing I've found that works is actually tailoring the scene description to each character. So for example, the novel I'm working on has 5 main characters: each one of them would notice different things if they walked into the same room. If one character's more artistically gifted, they might notice patterns/shapes/colours more prominently than say, a deeply practical person - who might pay a bit more attention to the functional objects within the room (windows, doors, cupboards, etc). If your POV/narrator is separate entirely from the character, you probably have a bit more freedom to describe stuff that they wouldn't pick out themselves (due to their mood, circumstances, etc. - I know I certainly don't pay attention to the curtains in my room when I'm pissed off!), but it's not a set rule, per se. Go for it, experiment as you like, and let us know what you come up with!
To me, it would also depend on the genre you're writing. Fantasy, Science-Fiction, and Gothic-fiction are usually the best genres for crafting settings because the worlds themselves are integral to the story. Fantasy can be the simplest for setting creation because fantasy tropes are pretty ubiquitous and quite acceptable. Sci-fi is a lot harder if the author is taking the "Science" part seriously; otherwise, one can get away with a lot of things if the "Fiction" part of science-fiction takes precedence. Gothic is all about atmosphere, so it could be argued that it's the strongest genre for setting development.
I just wanted to quickly add something (and ask something, I guess) to this conversation. Are we talking 'locations' as in a few places your character frequents, or 'location' as in, a city or region nation? For places, give us your character's observations and show their opinions about those places to make them stand out. For broader, wider settings like a city or kingdom, it can be trickier. You still want to show us how your character feels about wherever the story takes place, but if you want to make a fictional area or culture pop, I've heard it's best to go in depth about a couple facets of that place like it's religion, or commerce, or whatever, and then provide only fleeting details about a few other facets. If you can prove to the reader that you can develop a few societal ideas well, then when you give only slight mentions to how other parts of that setting work, readers will often trust that these other facets are fully developed, too, even if you don't provide the details. In one of my fantasy books, much of the plot revolves around the ministry that the main character is a part of, her responsibilities, her position in society, and what situations she has authority over and which that the local government has instead. I only touch briefly on the weather, the military, or the fashion and art of this society, but my responses from readers have been very positive about the setting.
Others have given some good suggestions, but mine are the simplist way to do that is to use the five basic senses: sight, touch, hearing, taste, and smell. You don't have to use all of them at once, but trying to use two or three of them will allow your reader to not just understand what something looks at, but also what it is like to be there.
