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Bringing location to life on the page

Writer's picture: Stuart Grant Stuart Grant

  • sounds – what can I hear that makes this place different?

  • sights - what visual details or colours add to it being special?

  • smells – everywhere has its special smell – what is this one?

  • touch and movement – how can I pull in sensory imagery that evokes what it is really like to be there?

I'm lucky enough to live with a view of the sea, so while I was writing The Chalky Sea, every day I would write a sentence describing how the sea looked – incredible how much it changes colour, "texture" and movement. I As I wrote the book, set here in Eastbourne, I would draw on my list of descriptions and use them in the novel, often to reinforce the emotions of my characters. The inspiration to write Kurinji Flowershappened on a sleepless night in a hotel room in Kerala, South India. The hotel dated from the British colonial period in the early twentieth century and I found myself wondering who might have stayed there back in those days. My main character, Ginny Dunbar appeared to me and I began to write the book. Once I’d got the first draft written, I decided I had to go back to India. I booked myself a two-week break in a former tea planter’s bungalow and walked in Ginny’s shoes.

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