The unreliable place

I am teaching a course which looks at the idea of the unreliable narrator but have also extended it to the unreliable place, the idea of using weather, darkness, shadows, sound etc to turn a place from somewhere safe and reliable into somewhere that can create unease in a reader.

Place is so important in writing and it is crucial that if you write about somewhere  that the reader can see it. 

You have choices of approach: 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?

Whatever you do, do not make it too long, you do not have a lot of words to play with in a short story.

If you seek to describe the setting, the reader does need something to focus on, so 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, sounds like?

3 But above all, what does it feel like to be there?

 

John Dean