{"id":9587,"date":"2022-03-22T07:50:42","date_gmt":"2022-03-22T11:50:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9587"},"modified":"2022-03-22T07:50:42","modified_gmt":"2022-03-22T11:50:42","slug":"where-writers-ideas-come-from-what-kind-of-trip-is-it-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9587","title":{"rendered":"Where Writers\u2019 Ideas Come From: What Kind of Trip is It?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Tarifa,<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Authors are praised for strong, vivid writing that makes their settings seem \u201cjust like another character.\u201d The Virginia countryside of SA Crosby, Val McDermid\u2019s remote reaches of Scotland, a gritty part of Philadelphia in Liz Moore\u2019s Long, Bright River<\/em><\/a>, the barren Utah countryside in The Never-Open Desert Diner<\/em><\/a> by James Anderson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, our characters are not necessarily glued to one place. Many stories take them away from the familiar, detailed world that\u2019s been established and put them on the road. There may be too little time\/space to develop a complete, three-dimensional picture of these secondary settings. This is where you need a few telling details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can think of such a destination as a bare-bones stage set, and the writer embellishes it selectively and, to some extent, quite naturally. If there\u2019s danger, there might be the smell of garbage, trash in the streets, ominous sounds (or even more ominous quiet), streetlights blinking out. If there\u2019s romance, there may be beaches and outdoor cafes and bright colors. Ideas about which<\/em> aspects of a place to describe and how<\/em> to describe them come from the place, from the character, and from the character\u2019s purpose in being there. These descriptors need to be tightly connected to all three or they risk feeling arbitrary or superficial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The protagonist, of my forthcoming novel, Manhattan architect Archer Landis, travels to Brussels for work<\/a> and to Tarifa, Spain, for powerful personal reasons. In Brussels, he has to get a job done. He is organized, deliberate in the parts of the city he chooses to see. But in Spain, he can\u2019t escape the emotional reasons motivating his trip, which calls for a different type of details. Food and street life and contemplation-inspiring vistas are emphasized, as opposed to the newspapers and briefcases and cabs of Brussels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though I\u2019ve been to Tarifa, the geo-linked photos that people post in Google maps were helpful reminders\u2014whitewashed walls, narrow brick streets, flowering plants in clay pots, wrought iron balconies. These were among the features an architect like Archer Landis would notice. If he\u2019d trained as a Navy Seal, there would have been a totally different significance to the claustrophobic streets, the balcony shutters standing ajar (a hidden watcher?), the low-rise, flat-roofed buildings, perfect for snipers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my story, these elements were easily worked into the action. For example, Landis naturally notices how the whitewashed buildings bring light into the narrow streets; when his trip is going badly, he hates the red geraniums\u2019 aggressive cheerfulness. Looking across the patio of their penthouse suite, Landis notices the tightly packed buildings, and how hard it will be to find whom they\u2019re looking for. By contrast, his friend and bodyguard Carlos notices how easy it would be to jump from one of these other roofs to theirs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a reconsideration of this issue of setting, which I\u2019ve gone back to now that the publication of Architect of Courage<\/em> is scheduled for 4 June!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Authors are praised for strong, vivid writing that makes their settings seem \u201cjust like another character.\u201d The Virginia countryside of SA Crosby, Val McDermid\u2019s remote reaches of Scotland, a gritty part of Philadelphia in Liz Moore\u2019s Long, Bright River, the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Describing the setting of a story or a scene depends in part on what anyone would see and feel in a place, but it really works when it describes the reality the character would see. Different types of people see different things!","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[61,40,174,60,78,29],"tags":[321],"class_list":["post-9587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-character","category-fiction","category-first-draft-blog","category-storytelling","category-travel","category-writing","tag-setting"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2uD","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9587"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9589,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9587\/revisions\/9589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}