Writing Outside the Box - Writing Place
Scroll to the end of the blog to watch the video tutorial for this session or read on for a full transcript of the workshop.
To find the other six sessions type #WritingOutsideTheBox into the Blog’s search engine.
Introduction:
Most of us don’t notice the places we pass through every day. Spaces become so familiar to us we eventually become oblivious to them. Good travel writers all have the ability to see the places they move through with fresh eyes, noticing every tiny detail, using all their senses to describe what they’re experiencing and seamlessly weaving in both historical background and stories associated with the place. Reading a good piece of travel writing or a description of a place you’ve never visited can be almost as good as being there yourself. Your imagination will automatically build up a vibrant, colourful picture of this place. Interestingly, each reader’s imagination will probably conjure up a slightly different image.
I once wrote a short story called “Five Ways to Discover an Already Discovered City.” It was about a group of people revisiting Barcelona for the second or third time and trying to see the space with fresh eyes. One walks backwards through the streets observing everything in reverse, another only goes out at night and sees a different city illuminated by moonlight, a third is now in love and notices Barcelona’s romantic side in a way she never did before. It’s a strange story but a good illustration for what we need to do when we come to write about a place we’ve often visited or spend a lot of time in. We need to get rid of our familiarity and find a new way to see the space around us, to note things we usually overlook and describe items and features we’ve possibly even forgotten about. This is a great exercise in observation. If you can’t pay attention to the world right in front of your face, you’re probably going to miss a lot of wonderful details when you venture out into the wider world.
If you have time you might like to read the work of some writers who write well about place. I really enjoy Bill Bryson’s travel writing. Most of his books offer an excellent blend of description, anecdote and history. For those of you who prefer fiction, there’s a fantastically sharp description of Midwest America at the beginning of Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood” and you’ll also find some great descriptions of rural spots in most of Thomas Hardy’s novels. For a quick read, I’ve included a tiny Postcard Story about the city of Bath. You can see a blend here of physical description, things and people associated with a place and also a sense of how the place makes me feel.
“Bath”
It is impossible not to imagine Jane Austen at ease in this city, walking and folding her hands in gloves. The squares are square and bordered on all four sides by privet hedges and black, spike iron work. The buildings are the bleached blonde colour of old sand and everywhere the ivy climbs neatly, never once taking its ascendancy for granted. Even the cobblestones are correctly angled. This is a place for moderation and discrete romance. Small intrigues might be permitted in their proper place but even these would be tight as a well-laid table or a slip of Sunday afternoon needlework. This is the kind of city which is always clean, and inclined to resolve itself in the time necessary to drain a china tea cup and refill. In other words, Bath is two square miles of sense and sensibility; the kind of place which made those Brontes howl.
Interactive Writing Exercises:
· Today you’re going to write a travel log; this is a detailed description of a journey. However, you’re not going to leave the room you’re sitting in.
· Close your eyes and take turns describing the place you’re currently sitting. Don’t be tempted to peek. Use as much detail as possible.
· Open your eyes. Take a good look around you. What have you recalled accurately? What did you forget about? Are there any details you got completely wrong?
· With your eyes open now and using all your senses, (sight, smell, sound, touch, even possibly taste), write a short paragraph giving an outline of the space you’re currently sitting in.
· What sort of a room is it? What is used for? What style is it decorated in? What can you hear and smell in this room? Don’t go in to too much detail but rather give an overview of what this space seems to be.
· This will be your introduction to your travel log
· Take a clean piece of paper, draw an outline of the room including doors, windows, major pieces of furniture and features.
· Pick five objects, items of furniture, features or even specific areas within the room. Go with your first instinct. Jot down the names of these five things you’re particularly drawn to.
· Make a small spider diagram for each of these five things, writing down words you’d use to describe it, memories associated with it, any history it might have, or even things you might use it for. You can be as factual or as fictional as you like. Use your imagination to help you.
· Add each of your five things to your map of the room. These are going to be the stop off points on your travel log. You might like to number them 1 to 5 and draw arrows indicating the route from one to the next.
· Beneath the introduction to your travel log add five short paragraphs describing and explaining the five things you’ve picked to visit on your journey around the room.
· It will help to imagine you’re on a guided tour and each of these things is a stop off point. Explain what the thing is, why it’s important and what it means to you. Be as imaginative as you’d like. Remember there’s no such thing as lying when writing fiction.
· If you feel comfortable spend some time taking the other people in your group on a guided tour of the space you’re in. It’ll be interesting to see the different features they’re drawn to and the different ways they describe them.
· You can extend this exercise by exchanging your travel log with someone who’s in a different room so you get a snapshot of the space they’re currently occupying.
Example:
I’ve had a go at the exercise above and written about my dining room which I’m currently using as an office. During the Covid-19 Lockdown I spent months in this space and grew so over familiar with it I probably couldn’t have described what was right in front of my nose.
Welcome to my dining room. I say dining room but it’s not really a room and these days it’s hardly ever used for dining. It’s a kind of stuffy, square space annexed between my living room and my kitchen. It doesn’t really know what it wants to be. It contains a single yellow-curtained window, three sets of bookcases, a table, a sofa, some French doors, a tumble drier and any amount of dust. I eat at one side of the table and shuffle round to the other side when I’m transitioning into writing mode. It’s not the best arrangement. I’m always dripping food and coffee over my papers and the whole place constantly smells of microwaved Bolognese. I don’t know why. I can’t remember the last time I microwaved anything tomatoey.
We’ll begin our tour at the kitchen end of the room. A tall brown side table sits against the wall. The varnish is peeling from the surface. If you run your finger across it, you’re liable to come away with a splinter. It belonged to my father’s mother who kept it by the door of her house and used it as a telephone table. Her house sat right beside a busy junction and, back in the day before people carried mobiles, she’d often be awakened by a stranger knocking at the door, asking to call the AA or, on several occasions, an ambulance. My father remembers the night the TV presenter Richard Hayward was in a car accident just outside the house. They came to the door that night looking to call for an ambulance though it was already too late. I don’t have a telephone in my house. I keep a letter rack on Granny’s table and a tin pot of pens.
My tumble drier occupies the wall opposite the table. My childhood Humpty Dumpty sits on the top of the tumble drier. He smells like fabric softener and heats up when the drier’s on. Someone made him for me when I was little and obsessed with Playschool on TV. I carried him around with me, dragging him by his thin arms until they became detached and had to be sewn back on. Most of Humpty’s been replaced over the years. His hair. His waistcoat. His button eyes. Even his fat belly’s gone a bit flat. He’s been hugged too often and sat upon and generally maltreated, though it’s good to note he’s still smiling.
Humpty presides over my mustard yellow couch. It’s my favourite piece of furniture. It’s a small two-seater covered in scratchy tweed fabric, it’s back puckered with buttons like an old-fashioned waistcoat. It is my reading couch and always covered in slouchy blankets. I like to curl up here in the afternoon, reading and drinking tea, watching the light fade. Though I did not plan it, it is a perfect length. It fits the whole of me and provides a comfy back to lean upon and an armrest perfectly placed to support my feet. It was, aside from my house and car, the most expensive thing I’ve ever purchased and will therefore be remaining in my possession ‘til the day I die.
The bookcase next to my sofa contains a single eye level shelf cleared of books. This is where I keep my treasures. My mother’s mother’s jewellery box sits right in the middle of this shelf. It is pale cream in colour, long and lacquered with a painting of the Arc du Triomphe on the lid. The right side is mirrored. On this mirror sits a tiny plastic ballet dancer wearing a frilled blue tutu. When you open the lid the box plays tingly, fairy music and a magnet in the dancers feet inches her across the mirrored dancefloor in small hiccoughing circles. I only open the lid once or twice a year when I’m missing my grandmother. I’m scared the music might run out if I use it too much.
My final stop on the tour is a cheap wooden frame, balanced on the second shelf of my main bookcase. Inside, framed is a pale blue cheque for three American dollars. It is made out to me and has never been cashed. I keep this check at eyeline so, when sat down, writing at my laptop, it is always in view. It does not look like very much, but it represents the very first money I ever made from my writing. I keep it there, winking at me, like a bad joke, just to remind me where I’ve come from and why I need to keep pressing on.
Developed, written and presented by Jan Carson
Produced by Alan Meban
Funded by Arts Council NI
