Sense and Scenebility
World-building through immersion
With Blade and Lyre resting on my editor’s table, I’ve moved to finalizing Book 2, The Bard and the Warlord.
By now, if you’ve read any of my previous posts, you must’ve realized that I’m all about immersion and describing the surroundings through my characters.
I’ve touched this topic at a macro level in some of my earlier musings, for example, in this one, where I ponder character agency.
It has taken me some time, but at last, I’ve joined the interiority bandwagon.
In my earlier years, I put too much energy into my characters’ thoughts, while forgetting their physical bodies. Slowly, I’ve realized that life without physical sensations isn’t really life… but an abstraction.
Your Character Is NOT Dead
Our understanding of what’s around us is shaped by what we sense. The different experiences our sensory network feeds into our brain create the continuous experience we call life. We can never leave our bodies. If we did, we’d be dead.
So, I try to remember what it feels like in my body when I write my character smiling, or how an emotion can both burn or hollow me out. How the earth smells after the rain (petrichor as a word still doesn’t work for me), and how that scent makes me feel.
I dare suggest that this is more relevant for world-building than any of the historical details. You can have the most compelling and bloody past for that fictional world, the most amazing mental realization, but if your main character doesn’t breathe or feel what’s around them, you can be sure your reader won’t either.
Example from “The Bard and the Warlord”
So here’s my ‘walk the talk spiel.’ It takes place around the middle of my manuscript.
1st Stage…
I don’t usually save all my versions, although I make backup copies regularly. In this case, I’d just finished a very intensive writing period and was emotionally…rather exhausted. While complaining to a friend about my lack of progress, I took a screenshot after finally writing even something.
As you can see, the very first draft is not even bones, just a sketch.
The Next Version
From a writer’s perspective, it’s better to have something than nothing. No matter how poorly written, once I have the foundation, I can expand it: the scene, the plot beats, and the world around my characters. This is when I begin to think about senses and how they could enhance inner/outer conflicts.
From my skeleton sketch above, I got into this:
Dark clouds hung overhead, the brisk seawind splashing saltwater over the dark stones. Trisha walked toward a dark wooden sailboat. Her pendant gleamed on her chest. She wore no tattoos.
It was a relief of sorts.
The wind snapped on the sails, skimming white foam off the waves and tossing it to the shoreline. Walking over black rocks slick with saltwater and damp wood, she tried to burn a hole in Blainor’s nape with her glare.
Three days of this farce. She’d push him into the water.
Trisha’s strides widened to keep up with the two men’s pace. Her boot landed on a puddle over dark wood, and she slipped. A hand caught her.
“Be careful, Mistress Dewi—” Fjorten cut himself off at the murderous glare from her.
“Bard is enough.” Trisha yanked her arm free but stayed by his side.
A pearly flash as he grinned. “Are you not charmed by our northern customs?”
She paused midstep before continuing, “This is ridiculous,” she said in undertone. Blainor’s attention remained on Gend’s bearded profile. He’d not even turned?
The Latest Version
I could call the scene above done and move to the next one, but since I’m sometimes a bit compulsive when it comes to writing, I decided to polish it further.
I didn’t make big changes. Those come after I’ve finalized the whole manuscript and gotten my alpha/beta-reader feedback. What I did add instead was more sensory descriptions and smoothing the interaction between Trisha and Fjorten (lol, at least I hope so).
A dense mass of clouds hung low, the brisk seawind splashing saltwater over the basalt. In the small bay protected by a rock-formed breakwater, a weathered wooden sailboat dipped in the rocking waves.
The gleaming pendant lay over Trisha’s chest, but she wore no tattoos—a relief of sorts.
The wind tugged at her cape, bringing with it a whiff of burnt tar. Walking over black rocks slick with saltwater and damp wood, Trisha tried to burn a hole in Blainor’s nape. The fur-lined cloak flapped in the air as he exchanged low words with Gend.
Three days of this farce. She’d push him into the water.
Her fingers curling, she widened her strides. Clothed in thick wool and heavy leather, Blainor’s tall shape loomed closer. Trisha’s pulse raced. She pressed her mouth in a firm line, fist tightening, when her boot landed on a puddle of seaweed.
A firm hold caught her before her fall.
“Be careful, Mistress Dewi—” Fjorten cut himself off at the murderous glare from her and grinned.
She yanked her arm free. “Bard is enough.” Still, she stayed by his side.
With an edgewise glance, he asked, “Are you not charmed by our northern customs?”
”It’s ridiculous,” she said without breaking her pace. Blainor’s attention remained on Gend’s bearded profile. He’d not even turned?
I trust the example illustrates my craft ramblings above. The clothing details, the surroundings (sea, tar, etc.), the reference to pendant and tattoos (which is plot-relevant, btw)… All of this creates a world that carries meaning, even if I don’t spell it out.
I might do small tweaks, but not many, before I call the scene done.
Oh, this reminds me. I’ll start looking for alpha/beta readers in a few months. If you want to know how the story continues in The Bard and the Warlord, you can volunteer :) Just message me here or via any of my social media channels - Instagram, Bluesky, Threads.
How do you work with your scenes? Or what did you think of the examples? I hope the evolution was clear enough.
If you read all the way here, I hope you found this newsletter post, if not educational, at least somewhat entertaining.
Thank you for your time!
It's fascinating to observe your writing process. It's all at once dissimilar and exactly the same as my own. LOL ... Quite often my scenes come to me "ready to wear" or in need of very litle tailoring to make them fit... This makes them easy to get put to paper. Where I run into issues is the tangle of thread that I find myself unraveling in order to sew scenes together.
I'm forever grateful for the time you spent with the Herscher Project (so many years ago, should we dare contemplate it). I hope you gained something from it that you can apply to your latest endeavors or, at the least, some measure of inspiration for pursuing writing....
I'll beta read for you!