Landscape Writing Like a Landscape Painting

February 23, 2009 by
Filed under: Lessons Learned 

One way to succeed in creating your setting is to think like an artist. Approach landscape writing like a landscape painting.

My approach to landscape painting is to first lay the large expanse of color like setting the stage. Your reader may have her own idea of where you taken her. That’s where your art begins. With subtle brushstrokes of character and place, your landscape painting comes alive. What’s more, your unique style shines through.

In my latest work, it’s as if the setting is a character. The story could only happen here. To better appreciate setting, I turned to a master of travel writing, Robert Louis Stevenson.

Yes, he wrote more than “Treasure Island“. In fact, his first published work, “The Inland Vovage,” was a travel piece. RLS loved the French landscape. His words lovingly bring joy alive. Who better to study to learn how to create a sense of place! As he wrote in an essay about Walt Whitman, There is a sense of course in which all true books are books of travel. ..

Indeed how true. Through my writing, I hope to transport you. I hope to introduce you and invite you in to the lives and living rooms of my characters. I hope to have you live in their world for just a bit. Borrowing from my artist background, I will approach my landscape writing as if it were a landscape painting on my easel.

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