41 Landscape

Episode 41 is up! 

This episode is all about landscape and its uses in fiction. Turns out it's incredibly important, unless it isn't important at all. If it's there, it has to matter, that's the thing.

I'm working on landscape in the Becca book and being bothered enormously by the lack of landscape, as in, not just scenery or that kind of thing, but understanding the physical surroundings in a visual and visceral way. 

When I've done this well, it's fantastic, but when I'm not doing it well, I haaaaaate it. Have to step it up.  

Nobody does this better than Joan Aiken in The Whispering Mountain and my favorite book, A Cluster of Separate Sparks. They're incredibly locational. Every spot has meaning and every action takes place in an important spot. 

I really feel strongly that this is ESSENTIAL to excellent fiction. It can't be in some woolly "somewhere" or vague space.

It's making me mad about my own work. Of course I don't think this is done well enough in Summerlands but I can do it better and better in the Becca book. Every scene needs to be in a location that carries multiple meanings. Every scene ought to be doing three things anyway!

Feeling extremely adamant about all this. Adamant!