How to Write Killer Prose (4)

Place

Everything in a novel happens somewhere. Whether it happens in a physical location or in a character's mind, it's your job to take your reader there.

Think of a typical movie or TV series opening:

Exterior - New York skyline, morning

cut to 

Exterior - Office block

cut to 

Interior - Boardroom. Anxious execs checking watches, a conspicuously empty chair

cut to

Interior - bedroom. Close-up on a sleeping face. The eyes open. Shot widens to reveal a second head on the pillow, a trail of discarded underwear...

We're led from wide shot to narrow, from our world into that of the movie. This process is one which we read instinctively, and it was happening in fiction long before there were movies. Of course there are infinite variations on this format, but one way or another where? has to become here. A story must be located, if our readers' imaginations are to move into gear.

Film, by its nature, establishes place easily. A novel must be highly selective about the words it uses to accomplish the same thing. We need to know where we are, but also what that place is like, because your characters must exist in a physical (if imaginary) world. If this world is to be real for your reader, place and your character's physical experience must constantly reinforce each other.

How do we do this?