“…his beautifully descriptive words that expertly paint a picture of the Idaho wilderness.”

“I grew up in the Northwest, and his descriptions of the areas the novel traverses are spot on.”

“…the author’s deft hand at describing the Idaho wilderness…”

The above quotes are from the few early reviews of The Switch. Setting is really important to my stories (to all stories); I’ve worked hard to reach the happy compromise of telling enough, but not too much. Some authors poetically describe landscapes or cityscapes, and their descriptive passages narratively wax on for paragraphs or even pages. Others give sparse descriptions, leaving the reader to mostly fill in the blanks. My strategy is to find that middle ground and let the reader conjure up the scene with enough tidbits of information to place them there. Of course, for someone who has been to central Idaho or any wilderness area in the West, the work of placing them in the environment is easy. But it’s not enough to put someone there. I have to strike a mood effected partially by the environment and let the readers feel it from the characters’ experiences. In The Switch, the Idaho wilderness, at least to Macy, is lonely and cold, but spectacularly beautiful at the same time. The remoteness is both exciting, yet for a woman surrounded by five million people at home, there is also a sense of uneasiness, even danger. Early on back in DFW, when she sits in the heat and humidity at a cafe table waiting on her friend, she is irritated and has little patience for the crowd around her. Most anyone from Texas or the southeast can imagine that. 🙂

For description and settings, it helps that I’ve been privileged to live in the West for twenty-one years and that I love (at least over the past seven years) photographing these open spaces. There is nothing like standing on a mountain near sunset and watching a lone lightning bolt fifty or sixty miles away briefly brighten the sky, or standing alone looking out over miles and miles of mountains poking up or canyons cutting through the sandstone–pondering what’s out there. In fiction, the readers must not only see it, but feel it, hear it, smell it, etc.

As an inspirational example, here’s a picture I shot in a remote part of Canyonlands NP at sunset. What do you see? Probably what I said above–a remote desert-like scene at sunset. For me, however, the shot evokes an emotional response that I can’t easily describe, mainly because I experienced the scene. I was there (along with my spouse). We were the only people around. I would bet that in the viewing area of the image, there might be twenty people total out there (some of the plateaus in the distance are fifty to seventy five miles away). We were literally at the end of the road, isolated from the world we usually experience. People say it makes you feel insignificant, small. To me, it makes me feel significant. It’s just me and that vast expanse. So no people. No breeze. Completely silent. Comfortable but cold air starting to bite at your fingertips and face. Immersed in silence. Did I say silence already? 🙂

Describing that in a novel is a challenge, but if the reader has experienced something similar, he or she will feel it too (in their own way). For those who have little experience in the setting, I have to try harder to evoke the appropriate emotions and experience. That’s why I don’t simply describe the setting in my novels. I try to bring out the setting through my characters’ sense of it, and hope the reader will feel the same emotional response whether they’ve been there or not.

Given I can recall vividly the setting of the personal scene in my life that inspired my two published novels and the current one I’m working to publish, it’s clear this evocative setting issue is really important to me. It is a huge part of my inspiration to write! Given the early reviews of The Switch and most reviews of The Redemption, it seems I’m on the right track. For The Connection, the task may be a bit more challenging. It takes place solely in a small town in West Texas. I used to live there, so I have no trouble placing myself in the setting. For my readers, time will tell.

Thanks for listening and Happy Friday!!!