Person on the Page

All of our experiences are located; they happen in a physical space. All of our most profound thoughts and deepest wishes, all of our doubts and our convictions, our heartbreaks and triumphs have been influenced by the place in which they occurred. 

Fiction writers know that creating a palpable setting for their stories is essential to engaging their readers and conveying their message.  We, as writers of personal nonfiction, may neglect this important element of our writing. 

We know that they must advance our narrative quickly. We must keep our story moving forward, or upward toward a climax, or from conflict toward resolution, or however we envision our narrative progress. Descriptions of setting slow a narrative. They embody a pause, a moment for the reader to experience the backdrop of the story—the light and colors of a scene, the sounds and aromas, the feel of objects. Descriptions of place allow the reader to stop and look around, to acknowledge the writer’s appeals to their senses.  They slow our narratives, yes, but they invite the reader to experience the physical place of the story.    

Writing about place can be tricky.  How can we effectively describe the scenes in which our life experiences took place without slowing our narrative to the point that the description distracts or bores the reader?  How much detail should we include, and what kinds of details? How can we attribute meaning to the places we describe?  How can we make place an integral part of our story?

How can you, a nonfiction writer, convey a sense of place effectively in your writing?

Try this.

Imagine the location in which an experience that is significant to you took place. Set aside the experience itself and focus on the place, the setting. Write about the place itself, using the following prompts.

1. First, the obvious.  Describe the physical characteristics of the place.

What does the place look like? What is visually noteworthy about the place? What sounds do you associate with it?  What aromas?  Are there tastes or textures that you associate with the place?

2. Consider the history of the place.

If you were asked to explain how the place evolved into its present state, what would you say? What is most relevant about how the place came to be? How do you figure into the history of the place?  How does its history affect you and your story?

3. Write about a memory you have of the place.

What has been your relationship to the place in the past?  What memories stand out for you? What has been the importance of the place to your life experiences?

4. Write about an emotion you associate with the place.

Is your impression of the place positive or negative?  Do you feel safe and at home in the place, or threatened and alienated?  How does your emotional response to the place affect the experiences you have had there?

5. Create a metaphor for the place.

A metaphor describes an abstract concept in concrete terms.  The place, in this case, is the abstract concept.  What concrete object or familiar idea characterizes the place?

Write this:  This place is a _______________________________. 

Now develop the equation in detail. Create an extended metaphor that characterizes the place.

6. Personify the place.

If the place were a person, what kind of person would it be?  Humanize the place, describing it in terms of human intentions, desires, or character traits.

7. This one may be difficult.  But give it a try. Consider the universal significance of the place.

What truth about human experience or the human condition does the place embody? What life lesson does the place convey?  What is the possible significance of the place for your potential reader?  

Once you have considered place from several perspectives such as the ones listed above, look at what you have written and find what is relevant to your experience.  Discover how you might use descriptions of place to enrich and lend nuance to a narrative about your experience. 

While personal nonfiction writers do not invent settings for our narratives as fiction writers do, we can convey the real settings in which our experiences took place creatively and strategically. We can use our descriptions of place intentionally to enrich our narratives and engage our readers.