Making Fictional Worlds Feel Real Part 1: Sensory Realism

“I think I recognised that place!” - Reader, Australia.

“I’m sure I’ve stood there, on that exact spot.” - Reader, Australia.

“I could see it. I could almost feel it!” - Reader, Canada.

“It felt like I was there.” - Reader, USA.

My glorious beta readers say things like this too. And every single time, I get a little boost.

A tiny little “Yay! I did the thing!” 🤯😊

Because one of the things I really strive for in my books is for them to feel like they’re set somewhere real.

Even when they aren’t.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not in the same stratosphere as Tolkien. I’m not going to spend three pages describing what a tree looks like.

But I try to put enough into every book that the setting almost becomes a character in itself.

That’s the goal.

And that's not always easy! Blood in the Water was a bit of a struggle because, obviously, I’ve never been inside a deep-sea research vessel.
But I have the internet, documentaries, and a vivid imagination. Let the research begin! 🌊

What I took away from my research for that book was less about the mechanics of deep-sea research and more about the feeling it evoked.

That sense of claustrophobia is brought about by knowing that the only thing between you and the crushing depth of the ocean is essentially a tin can. And there is no quick escape: ascending to the surface takes hours.

That evokes a particular feeling, and that was what I tried to seed into Blood in the Water.

Other books were easier.

I’ve been to Outback Queensland. Several times.

I’ve been to Tasmania.

And when you've actually been somewhere, you have a very different kind of material to work with.

I try to set my books in places where I’ve been, because then I can go beyond just describing what it looks like.

I try to recreate the atmosphere. The weather. The smell. The texture. The feeling of walking somewhere. The little things you notice without even thinking about them. The things that make a place feel distinctly itself.

The first time I went to the Outback, what struck me was the colour of the dust. Bright orange. Deep red. And fine as talcum powder. It gets everywhere. Every step you took sent clouds of it floofing up into the air around your knees and, by the end of the day, you’d have a fine coat of it over you.

Then there was the heat. And the flies. Oh, the FLIES. It was like being surrounded by dozens of tiny bi-planes reenacting WWI dogfights.

And let’s not forget the deafening sound of corellas on the powerlines during every spectacular sunset.

All of that is right there, in Blood in the Dust.

When I went to Tasmania, I got the feel for Blood in the Ferns. I went on rainforest walks. Took tours. Sat for hours. Took So. Many. Photos.

Weird things: Moss. Lichen. The shape of trees.

I paid attention to the way button grass grew. The way it smelled.

The way the taste of the air somehow melted away stress and made me calm.

Which is why I chose that place to host a horrific fighting ring. Horror surrounded by beauty. It’s a theme in my books.

Every book, I work as hard as I can to nail the little details, so even if it’s only a sentence here or there, scattered through the book, it gives enough of a sense of that place that anyone who’s been there might recognise it.

And those who haven’t? They can still picture it clearly.

And all without going full Tolkien!