Using the natural world and folklore to build atmospheric and sensory landscapes.

Settings are not simply the background to our stories, they are a presence which shapes our characters’ actions, psychology and experiences. Whether our worlds are imagined or real, by deepening our understanding of the environments around our characters we can exploit setting to reflect our character’s inner journeys, add subtext and atmosphere, and immerse the reader in a fully realised world. Working with participants’ own writing or from set prompts, the 90 minute (suggested) workshop will consist of the following:

1. Discussing both imagined and real-world settings, Lorraine will show how freely-available resources can be used to build complex, dynamic settings and set a writing prompt to think about specifics of climate, biome, seasonality and sensory details.

2. We will pull these details together and develop an awareness of how descriptions of the surroundings can be used to create atmosphere and subtext within scenes.

3. We will look at how folklore interacts with the natural world and how this can inform people’s interactions with their surroundings using examples of traditional beliefs as writing prompts to explore our characters’ relationships with their environment.

4. We will pull together these strands through a final writing prompt to explore the power of setting to explore mood, reveal character arcs and tell your story for you.

About the event:

Running time: 105 minutes

Tickets: £15/ £10 (plus 50p booking fee)

The event will be in person.

About the author:

Lorraine Wilson (she/her) spent many years working as a conservation scientist in remote corners of the world, but now lives by the sea in Scotland writing speculative fiction rooted in folklore and the wilderness. Her debut novel, This Is Our Undoing, was released in August 2021 with Luna Press Publishing, and a second is due out next year. She has also published short stories and creative non-fiction in anthologies and magazines including Strange Horizons, Forge Lit, The Mechanics’ Institute Review and Boudicca Press.

This workshop is supported by Write Gear, purveyor of the Writer’s Notebook and creators of The Page One podcast