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you might need to show the reader through action how it is used.

Choose your details carefully. Keep alert to:
The interior decorator in you who wants to label every piece of furniture and bric-a-brac in every room.
Your map maker who wants to provide endless charts and diagrams.
Your poet who wants to rhapsodize about every tree, bird, and flower
However, in a mystery novel, you need to give the reader a running inventory of objects. Knowing these objects is essential in solving whodunit. Make sure you show only the objects relevant to the mystery.

In creating a setting, you are creating a place that is unique. Use specifics. Don't say dog when you can say Golden Retriever, Pitbull, or Dachsund. The type of dog your character's neighbor walks every morning says something about the owner. Don't say tree. Instead say magnolia, palm, or pine. These reveal climate. Daffodils and chrysanthemums reveal season. A Queen Anne chair or La-Z-Boy gives us a peek at the character's history and tastes. What does it say about your protagonist if she uses milk crates for bookshelves and pasted on her wall a Degas picture torn from a magazine ad?

Avoid sameness in your scenes. Don't open all your scenes on a street corner or in bed. Have your characters visit different places.

If you're writing about places you've never been, research it thoroughly. You won't show all your newfound knowledge, but you should know the place well enough to convince the reader you've been there. Check and double check for accuracy. Your credibility and the story's can be destroyed by one inaccuracy. Avoid cliches in your descriptions. Don't describe men wearing striped shirts and berets standing by the Eiffel Tower if your story is set in Paris. London isn't always gray and foggy. There are interesting buildings in New York City other than the Empire State Building. Home in on specific details. The smells wafting from a patisserie, clip-clopping of horses' hooves, a line of yellow taxis' on Fifth Avenue.

When you visit a new place, pay attention to details. Ask questions. What's behind that fence? Why is there a crack there? Ian Fleming (James Bond novels) used to make a point of avoiding the well-traveled, well-lighted roads and instead favored the lesser known back streets. He felt that the unexpected turns and obscure details spoke more eloquently and gave him a sense of the city. Make a practice of noting details in your own town and ask how you can bring them to your fictional world.

Learn more about this author, R. M. Ziegler.
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