Craft Chat Craft Challenge?

[Aethalope]

Okay, so I have a problem with describing places when writing fiction. My settings are sometimes so vague that readers have no sense of where the characters are. Yesterday I noticed an interesting exercise in the workbook of my more advanced ESL teens, and I thought I’d give it a try.

Choose a local place you know well (a park, a library, a shopping mall, your favourite café, etc.). Now imagine you are a tourist. Write 150-200 words describing this place. Remember: you are seeing it for the first time! Do not explain the history or tell a story.

(I'd say bonus points if the place in question has a substantial backstory that you are simply aching to tell the reader!)

Does anyone else want to tackle it with me? I'm thinking we could post our attempts in this thread. Not for critique or anything, just for a sort of mutual exploration of the different ways to approach this task.

 

[RK Wallis]

Great exercise! I'll join you

 

[Sedayne]

I'm rubbish at describing the appearance of things. So this is interesting. A descriptive exercise with no story. I should have a go.

 

[Sedayne]

In My Room​

‘Is this the junk room?’

‘No, it’s where I write.’

But it is a total mess. There are boxes piled in the corner, not neatly stacked, but higgledy-piggledy and overflowing with the books and magazines that aren’t precious enough to be on the crammed bookshelves and really should be taken to a charity shop. There are piles of CDs that there isn’t room for in the squares of the tall storage units, and there are two overflow stacks of vinyl, one of which runs the width of the room.

My guitar is propped in front of the record player. I should play it more often or at least clean the dust from behind the strings. The banjo stands in the far corner and gets even less use. The dulcimer is just visible between a couple of boxes. It hasn’t been played since I decided it needed new strings and haven’t got round to restringing it.

I recently tidied my desk and sorted out the bookshelves, if you can believe it. It still appears untidy to the untrained eye, but I know exactly where everything is, thank you. If I look up from my laptop, I see my Peanuts calendar, if I reach out to my left, I can put my hand on Hart’s Rules, and all my John Irvings are together if not in order.

I should read more. I should play more music. I should tidy up. But instead, Joni Mitchell is singing from my turntable, and I just keep on writing.

 

[Sedayne]

I realise I'm disqualified for going over the word limit, but it is what it is.

 

[Aethalope]

Eh, you were clearly in the flow, which is likely more important than something as pedestrian as word counts

 

[mickleinapickle]

In My Room​

‘Is this the junk room?’

‘No, it’s where I write.’

But it is a total mess. There are boxes piled in the corner, not neatly stacked, but higgledy-piggledy and overflowing with the books and magazines that aren’t precious enough to be on the crammed bookshelves and really should be taken to a charity shop. There are piles of CDs that there isn’t room for in the squares of the tall storage units, and there are two overflow stacks of vinyl, one of which runs the width of the room.

My guitar is propped in front of the record player. I should play it more often or at least clean the dust from behind the strings. The banjo stands in the far corner and gets even less use. The dulcimer is just visible between a couple of boxes. It hasn’t been played since I decided it needed new strings and haven’t got round to restringing it.

I recently tidied my desk and sorted out the bookshelves, if you can believe it. It still appears untidy to the untrained eye, but I know exactly where everything is, thank you. If I look up from my laptop, I see my Peanuts calendar, if I reach out to my left, I can put my hand on Hart’s Rules, and all my John Irvings are together if not in order.

I should read more. I should play more music. I should tidy up. But instead, Joni Mitchell is singing from my turntable, and I just keep on writing.

Yet another potential blog!

 

[Sedayne]

Yet another potential blog!

Roger that.

 

[Jake E]

Imagine, if you will, the house of a chronic hoarder, and you will have a close approximation of my writing room.
A day bed, whose only occupants for the last few years have been my daughter's discarded dolls and a, for some inexplicable reason, a paddling pool (uninflated). Various toys from Christmases long ago litter the floor and, in a few cases, the ceiling.

A single table, which once had dreams of being a miniatures painting table, lies piled high with board games, random kitchenware, and a printer that hasn't worked since 2013.

and in the corner, amid the chaos of life's detritus, is the computer that I write at.

No wonder my books take so long to write...

 

[Aethalope]

Actu

Imagine, if you will, the house of a chronic hoarder, and you will have a close approximation of my writing room.
A day bed, whose only occupants for the last few years have been my daughter's discarded dolls and a, for some inexplicable reason, a paddling pool (uninflated). Various toys from Christmases long ago litter the floor and, in a few cases, the ceiling.

A single table, which once had dreams of being a miniatures painting table, lies piled high with board games, random kitchenware, and a printer that hasn't worked since 2013.

and in the corner, amid the chaos of life's detritus, is the computer that I write at.

No wonder my books take so long to write...

Actually, this sounds like a perfect place to write...

 

[Aethalope]

In My Room​

‘Is this the junk room?’

‘No, it’s where I write.’

But it is a total mess. There are boxes piled in the corner, not neatly stacked, but higgledy-piggledy and overflowing with the books and magazines that aren’t precious enough to be on the crammed bookshelves and really should be taken to a charity shop. There are piles of CDs that there isn’t room for in the squares of the tall storage units, and there are two overflow stacks of vinyl, one of which runs the width of the room.

My guitar is propped in front of the record player. I should play it more often or at least clean the dust from behind the strings. The banjo stands in the far corner and gets even less use. The dulcimer is just visible between a couple of boxes. It hasn’t been played since I decided it needed new strings and haven’t got round to restringing it.

I recently tidied my desk and sorted out the bookshelves, if you can believe it. It still appears untidy to the untrained eye, but I know exactly where everything is, thank you. If I look up from my laptop, I see my Peanuts calendar, if I reach out to my left, I can put my hand on Hart’s Rules, and all my John Irvings are together if not in order.

I should read more. I should play more music. I should tidy up. But instead, Joni Mitchell is singing from my turntable, and I just keep on writing.

I love that you have three stringed instruments!

 

[Aethalope]

Kompleks Karamunsing. A shopping mall with four levels of chaos to get lost in.

A ground floor of phones, shoes and gadgets, sometimes cars on the weekend. Take the glass elevator to the labyrinthine first floor for more shoes, but also carpets, Muslim fashion, fruit and an appliance warehouse. The second floor is violins, treadmills, second-hand books, and Bali massages. Why? Because why not. The third floor is an electronics wonderland, from laptops and drones to solar fridges and an Apple Store.

Only half the non-glass elevators work, and the stairwell smells of burnt circuitry. The climate control room has a smoke-grey ceiling and scorch marks on the walls. You’ll see this because the door is wedged open.

The employees look like they live happily here. An old guy still runs the tiny coconut curd bun stall outside the opticians. Perhaps he can’t retire because coconut curd buns are all he knows now.

Oh yes, the food… Noodle soup upstairs, roast chicken downstairs. Sushi on the left, croffles on the right. A bustling local vegan buffet sandwiched between McDonald’s and Burger King. The basement houses a hidden food court with good economy rice, though I can never quite find it.

 

[Sedayne]

Kompleks Karamunsing. A shopping mall with four levels of chaos to get lost in.

A ground floor of phones, shoes and gadgets, sometimes cars on the weekend. Take the glass elevator to the labyrinthine first floor for more shoes, but also carpets, Muslim fashion, fruit and an appliance warehouse. The second floor is violins, treadmills, second-hand books, and Bali massages. Why? Because why not. The third floor is an electronics wonderland, from laptops and drones to solar fridges and an Apple Store.

Only half the non-glass elevators work, and the stairwell smells of burnt circuitry. The climate control room has a smoke-grey ceiling and scorch marks on the walls. You’ll see this because the door is wedged open.

The employees look like they live happily here. An old guy still runs the tiny coconut curd bun stall outside the opticians. Perhaps he can’t retire because coconut curd buns are all he knows now.

Oh yes, the food… Noodle soup upstairs, roast chicken downstairs. Sushi on the left, croffles on the right. A bustling local vegan buffet sandwiched between McDonald’s and Burger King. The basement houses a hidden food court with good economy rice, though I can never quite find it.

I'm heading straight to the second floor. Then a vegan buffet sounds good to me.

 

[Sedayne]

I love that you have three stringed instruments!

There are loads more downstairs...

 

[Aethalope]

I'm heading straight to the second floor. Then a vegan buffet sounds good to me.

It's an absolute masterpiece. About 3 pounds for as much spicy vegetables, rice, tofu and watermelon as you want! My kids are monsters and refuse, so they go to McDonalds and I go there.

 

[Hannah Faoileán]

When you walk in the room, the first thing you notice is the fireplace: old; iron surround; copper hood; two women in Greek-style togas admiring it from the tiles that adorn either side. It draws your attention because, though the grate is empty, a summer breeze wafts the homely aroma of burning beechwood into your nostrils.
Your gaze wanders to the right and you see a floor to ceiling set of bookshelves. The upper ones hold mainly novels, side by side in an almost colour-coded fashion. The lower shelves sag under the weight of non-fiction books piled on top of each other in no recognisable order (to your eyes anyway). You wonder, do two people live here?
There's a chaise longue on the other side of the room. Plump cushions in various shades of terracotta and cream invite you to rest upon one of its scroll-patterned terracotta seats. So you do.
In front of you is a low, cedarwood coffee table with no placemats for cups or mugs, just more books. These are neatly laid out as if five invisible people surround the table and are about to indulge. They have different tastes, these people. One likes photos of film stars, one a travelogue around magical Britain, and one is a fan of Dickens, eager to read his biography. But do these books ever get touched, or is Audrey Hepburn, on her glossy cover, doomed to simply stare at whoever sits where you are?
Below the short legs of the coffee table is a wooden floor. Not a modern laminate but old planks slightly separated, darkened with wear, mottled with grooves that tell a history of everyone who ever walked through this room, Another you, perhaps, 200 years ago.

 

[Aethalope]

When you walk in the room, the first thing you notice is the fireplace: old; iron surround; copper hood; two women in Greek-style togas admiring it from the tiles that adorn either side. It draws your attention because, though the grate is empty, a summer breeze wafts the homely aroma of burning beechwood into your nostrils.
Your gaze wanders to the right and you see a floor to ceiling set of bookshelves. The upper ones hold mainly novels, side by side in an almost colour-coded fashion. The lower shelves sag under the weight of non-fiction books piled on top of each other in no recognisable order (to your eyes anyway). You wonder, do two people live here?
There's a chaise longue on the other side of the room. Plump cushions in various shades of terracotta and cream invite you to rest upon one of its scroll-patterned terracotta seats. So you do.
In front of you is a low, cedarwood coffee table with no placemats for cups or mugs, just more books. These are neatly laid out as if five invisible people surround the table and are about to indulge. They have different tastes, these people. One likes photos of film stars, one a travelogue around magical Britain, and one is a fan of Dickens, eager to read his biography. But do these books ever get touched, or is Audrey Hepburn, on her glossy cover, doomed to simply stare at whoever sits where you are?
Below the short legs of the coffee table is a wooden floor. Not a modern laminate but old planks slightly separated, darkened with wear, mottled with grooves that tell a history of everyone who ever walked through this room, Another you, perhaps, 200 years ago.

That's...a lot of books! Sounds like a cozy place to be