Have you written a scene that sits flat on the page, one that doesn’t conjure any visual imagery?
People watching and simply placing yourself in a setting – and then writing from the perspective of your different senses can really help.
Additionally, people watching is a great way to add a change of landscape to your day; to give you a break from writing; to reconsider a scene that’s not paying its way.
Creating The Right Atmosphere
Think about the type of atmosphere or mood you’re trying to create, what might impact this?
A lot of people will use weather to create mood in their stories.
Weather will subconsciously allow your reader to gauge setting, but there are other ways too.
A fun run might create an atmosphere of both sadness and motivation, a sense of people coming together to support one shared cause.
A busy beach might create the atmosphere of happiness that summer is here, or annoyance that there aren’t enough places to sit.
Think about incorporating your senses and the impact different stimuli can have on mood and atmosphere.
Making Your Reader ‘Feel’
The purpose of writing is to make your reader feel; think about how the stimulus is making you feel and why.
Does it impact your day, or the atmosphere? Is it a passing annoyance or joy?
Here’s an exercise you can try: Grab a coffee and go for a walk. Take in everything that’s around you: the leaves drifting from the trees, sunshine peeking through gaps in the buildings.
Do you have to move to avoid a child on a bike, or a jogger weaving around people heading to work?
How does this make you feel?
What noises accompany their or your movements?
Allow your thoughts to ripple and take in the noises slightly further away, maybe someone’s calling their dog back, a mobile phone might be going off.
Allow the ripple to go slightly further take in the distant sounds of the traffic, or a trains hooter alerting people that the train’s about to leave.
Breathe in deeply through your nose – what can you smell?
Can you identify different flavours within the scent? What thoughts or memories does this conjure?
Alternatively, having walked, cycled, or driven, to a café, find a seat in a busy area, or in a corner out of the way but within easy hearing distance of the action, or by the path.
Top Tip:
One tip I suggest to my writing students is to put some ear buds in, or even just one, this allows for the suggestion that you’re listening to music, rather than focussing on what’s around you. Just don’t use noise cancelling buds!
Zone in on one or two conversations and listen out for the normal things that people say. Either write your notes in the book you’re using for this piece of writing, or directly into your phone.
Don’t just think of this scene either, there might be other things you record, or think of: snatched sentences, sounds or scents that will be useful for other bits of action within this or a later story.
Think too about what you’re doing as you’re listening: what distractions grab your eye, or any of your other senses?
For example: A toddler driving a toy car across the table opposite. Maybe someone slops their coffee as they place it down – do they clean it up? Or do they leave it for a member of staff to deal with? Or call over a member of staff to deal with it? How do they deal with it in order not to have to deal with it?
Focus On Your Feelings
Think about how the things going on around you make you feel? What was your mood when you entered the café? Has it changed? Why?
Getting in touch with your feelings and how they can be changed by the stimulus around us is also important for helping to bring a scene to life.
Always look for opportunities to put yourself in settings or action situations that are similar to the ones in your novel.
There will always be some stimulus that you’d forgotten to mention, or simply weren’t aware of and which will add that sense of empathy with your reader, for example: the smell of cold on people as they come into your house on a frosty winter’s morning, how loud footsteps sound on an empty street at night time, the shapes cast by lengthening shadows at the end of the day etc.
I’ll explore more about how people watching can help your writing in next month’s blog.
In the meantime, good luck and happy writing.
Lesley