Landscape

This week I came across a book on writing by Elizabeth George called ‘Write away’. In the book she puts forward a notion about the Landscape as separate but related to setting. Now, I’m guessing we are all familiar with setting – it’s where the action takes place. Landscape on the other hand is bigger, it’s the place where the settings reside, and can be used to good effect to set the mood of a book – think Gone with the wind, landscape being the US South or Wuthering heights, Landscape being the North Yorks moors. They run through the whole story; could you imagine books like this in a different landscape? It would surely affect the whole feel of the piece, wouldn’t it?

Looking at my book, it doesn’t seem to have a landscape. I’m not sure yet if every book needs one but I have an uneasy feeling that without one it will feel, well, a little two-dimensional. I’ll have to give this one more thought…