Of late I’ve been often asked how it is I work environmental detail into my writing. Up until now I’ve never really thought about that much, partly because of the way I write (very tightly-focused character-driven stories) and partly because of major influences on my writing, which, if closely analyzed, will reveal that one is in fact a result of the other.

Because of such weighted character import in my work, all environmental descriptions must be written from the perspective of that character, as that character would see, taste, feel, hear, and smell. That is, the environmental description is sensual, lush, evocative, all created so that you, as the reader, will not only experience the world through which my characters travel, but experience the thoughts, emotions and rationale of the character in a way only long familiarity could normally allow. After all, I don’t have a lifetime for you to get to know this character, only a few hundred pages, and by the end of the story I want you to feel you’ve laughed over every absurdity, cried through every tragedy, been to a place invented in my head and transported into yours.

That I write like this should be of no surprise when you learn the two major influences (although there have been many) on my writing have been the works of Margaret Atwood and Thomas Hardy. I remember well reading Hardy as a girl, and falling in love with his work over and over again as an adult. Far ahead of his time, Hardy used environmental description to echo the emotion and upheaval in his character’s lives, so that one became the larger mirror for the other.

As to Atwood’s work, she does a similar thing, although without the sensual surround of Hardy. Atwood’s work is incisive, sharp, written for precise impact.

One of her most evocative scenes, for me, was close to the opening in A Handmaid’s Tale, when Ofglen walks along a sidewalk after a rain and notices worms lying in her path like bloated lips. It was the phrase ‘bloated lips’ that set the entire tone of the remainder of the novel, of sexuality twisted into something repulsive.

Brilliantly written.

I’ve never forgotten the impact of that sharp, short image, and use it as a touchstone whenever I write. So it is that a sunny day may be glorious or oppressive, depending on the circumstances surrounding my character, and that equally the world through which my character travels must be a mirror, just as Hardy would have done.

By employing techniques such as these I’ve found I can easily sidestep what I’ve come to call the ingredients list — an author who chooses to describe a room or landscape not by tying it tightly to the character, but rather by giving clinical, detached sometimes dimensional description that halts the action, halts my bond with the character, and tells me the the items I allegedly will need to carry on through the story. Unfortunately what usually results is my loss of interest and transportation.

In my opinion, far better for a writer to fully engage their character in their environment than to be writer intrusive.