Writing Believably about Places You’ve Never Seen

Writer: Jonathan Lerner

I used to write a lot of travel articles, back before the 2008 crash when magazines had big budgets to send writers around. I always took in a destination’s obvious sites—museums and markets, beaches and beauty spots, hot restaurants. I also rambled, took buses and trains, idled on park benches and in cafes. This looked aimless. But I was absorbing atmospheric details like a sponge, and noting down every visual image and sensory impression. They made my stories rich, which is why readers loved them.

• The dirty little secret of travel writing.

So I was shocked when I got my first assignment to write a travel story without taking the trip. (Of course, I accepted the job—as a freelancer, I didn’t have much choice.) You might assume that a travel writer has actually, well, traveled somewhere. But caveat lector: it’s not always true. Getting started that first time, I felt a bit smarmy. But I quickly figured out how to write with integrity about places I hadn’t seen.

• If you’re writing non-fiction, just don’t make it up.

One simple trick: Do not write in the first person. You weren’t there, so how could you? Some things you won’t be able describe experientially, like the particular savor of the crawfish bisque. But you could still make the point. “The region is known for its crawfish bisque, which Julia Child once called ‘heaven in a bowl.'” (But only if Julia really did.)

This rule holds across categories of journalism. But fiction is all about making things up. Thus we have the fantastic worlds of speculative future and gothic past. But you may want your novel or short story to be not only plausible in its plot and characters, but also recognizable and resonant in its setting and textures. The following suggestions are as useful for writing fiction as for non-fiction.

• Translate sensory detail from your previous experiences.

Perhaps you’ve taken the short car ferry from Ocracoke to Hatteras, and the overnight ferry from Maine to Nova Scotia. Now you’re writing a story set in the Greek islands, without having been there. You probably can’t say anything specific about the ships of Hellenic Seaways or Minoan Lines. But you can surely recall the bustle and clang of loading and offloading cars in port, or the delicious feel of coming on deck at dawn to watch a coastline emerge from the mist.

• Borrow other people’s experiences.

I’m not suggesting plagiarism, or over-reliance on quoting, from Julia or anybody else. But you can get a picture through others’ eyes, and then craft your own description. Reading about a place is one way. Better, interview people who know it. I once had to write, without visiting, about a rustic resort where people stay when hiking the Great Ocean Walk on Australia’s south coast. The resort’s photos helped, but I didn’t want to mimic its brochures’ language. So I asked for the names of several past guests. Over the phone, those folks were happy to fill me in on, for example, just how secluded the place’s “private eco-cabins” were from one another, and what was liable to be in the lunch packs walkers were handed every morning.

• Research like crazy.

Reading and interviewing are two ways to find out about a place. Nowadays the internet offers many more. Suppose you need your depressed character, who coaches youth soccer, to experience something marvelous and uplifting. Scan blogs by soccer parents. It might take a while but you’ll find anecdotes you can work with, like the day practice fell apart when a helicopter landed in the adjacent field, delighting the kids. Perhaps in your story that becomes a hot air balloon, and sets your sad character to dreaming.

There are online resources for any angle of inquiry. When did commercial jetliners start flying, and what did Atlanta’s airport terminal look like that year, and what did meals in first class consist of? Find answers in narrative documents, archival images, and the recollections of flight attendants and travelers. Street View is especially valuable to get a visual feel for a place you haven’t seen recently, or ever: What do the houses look like? Are there front lawns? Wide or narrow sidewalks, or none at all?

You’re not looking for exhaustive information, just telling details, the little gems. After all, those are what let readers visualize, and travel into, your story.

Jonathan Lerner is the author of the novels ​Alex Underground and Caught in a Still Place, the memoir Swords in the Hands of Children, and the new novel Lily Narcissus, out now from Unsolicited Press. ​He has had a career as a magazine editor and feature writer, and is a longtime contributing editor at Landscape Architecture Magazine where his work addresses the connections between built and natural environments. He lives in New York’s Hudson Valley with his husband Peter Frank, a community activist.

Website: Jonathan Lerner