CREATIVE WRITING BUILDING BLOCKS

Writer and tutor Ian Ayris explains the importance of wandering about in the imaginary worlds you create so you can bring them to life for readers

So far in our exploration of the Building Blocks of Creative Writing we have looked at four major Building Blocks: the Building Blocks of Plot, Story and Structure; the Building Block of Point of View and Tense; the Building Block of Setting and the Building Block of Character. The first two of these relate to how a story is written, the planning, if you like, whilst the Building Block of Setting and the Building Block of Character, meanwhile, relate to what is in the story. But so far, the characters are wandering around silent in the idea of a setting within an empty framework of a story. When we discussed the Building Block of Setting we spoke about how it has to feel real, as do the characters and everything else we write. We need to know what a Setting looks like, of course, but we also need to know how it impacts all the other senses – those of the characters inhabiting it and those of the reader. This parallel relationship between characters and reader is carved deep into the Building Block of Description. This relationship is the focus of this issue.

The importance of the Building Block of Description cannot be underestimated. It is HUGE. If we return to one of the things we first said about storytelling – that of creating an image in your head and transferring that image into the head of a complete stranger – you will quickly see it is primarily the Building Block of Description that helps this to be achieved. But in order to transfer an image that feels real into the head of a complete stranger, we must first make that image real for ourselves.