(no subject)
I assume by now most of all y'all have read how Ursula is sick of Fantasyland.
But my question is, what gives a place in a story a "sense of place"? how do we, as writers, avoid what Ursula is complaining about1? Having more kind of birds than just corvids and vultures? A field of bluebells in the middle of a moss-hung forest? Is that really all there is to it?
How do we move our landscapes from callow-farmboy-becomes-cloaked-Chosen-One to um, say, Tolkien?
1I am not disagreeing with her! I just don't know how to avoid the problem.
But my question is, what gives a place in a story a "sense of place"? how do we, as writers, avoid what Ursula is complaining about1? Having more kind of birds than just corvids and vultures? A field of bluebells in the middle of a moss-hung forest? Is that really all there is to it?
How do we move our landscapes from callow-farmboy-becomes-cloaked-Chosen-One to um, say, Tolkien?
1I am not disagreeing with her! I just don't know how to avoid the problem.