Nature isn’t neutral. The swamp has moods—sometimes breathless and waiting, sometimes thick with secrets. The sky carries warnings in the curl of a cloud or the hush before a storm. Trees don’t just provide shade—they lean and whisper, they bear witness. They’ve seen generations pass beneath their branches.
I write these spaces the way I write people: with motives, with memory, with presence. Because they act like characters. They shift the tone of a moment. They force decisions. They create turning points. They offer sanctuary—or sharpen danger. A character can lie to another person. But they can’t lie to the wild. The wild sees through them.
The earth doesn’t shout—it murmurs. And if you listen closely, those murmurs become a language. Grief might settle like silt in the bends of a river, heavy and unseen. Longing might drift in on the saltwind, clinging to everything it touches. Hope might feel like the first green shoot pushing through soil after fire.
When I write, the natural world becomes the place where emotion is safest to show—because it’s already there. In every rustle. In every ripple. In every wingbeat overhead.
When done right, nature isn’t decoration—it’s the mirror. The compass. The witness. The thing that reflects your character when words fall short.
So much of what we feel lives just below the surface.
So does water.
So do roots.
So do stories.
In What They Had Taken, the beach at low tide isn’t just a setting—it’s a mirror, a map, a quiet reckoning. A wide, wind-swept stretch of sand where grief and memory settle into the damp ridges left by the sea. Tide pools cradle bits of sky. A mother and child walk side by side, saying little, feeling everything. Her boots press into the shoreline, soft and deliberate. His pockets fill with driftwood and shells. The silence between them speaks louder than dialogue ever could. The emotional arc of the story rises and falls with the tide—each retreat and return echoing the weight of what’s been lost.
The scene could’ve been written with dialogue. With flashback. But instead, the natural world speaks for them.
In Where She Had Left Me, it’s the hum of park lights and the long shadows of palm trees at sunset. It’s a stage made of warm wood and the crack of a Zippo flame in the dark. Nature here isn’t soft—it’s an accomplice to heartbreak. A witness to abandonment. But also, strangely, a stage for resilience.
Because in the end, the wild doesn’t just shape my characters. It reveals them.
For Writers: Deepen Your Use of Place & Nature
If you want to explore how to use setting as a force—not just a backdrop—these books offer insight, craft, and inspiration:
-
The Wild God of the World by Robinson Jeffers
(Poetry that understands place as spiritual and wild—great for lyrical influence.) -
The Writer’s Portable Mentor by Priscilla Long
(Fantastic craft book with emphasis on image, sensory language, and scene.) -
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
(Her chapters on observation and honesty are essential for grounding characters in place.) -
The Meadow by James Galvin
(A masterclass in how landscape shapes narrative and character across time.) -
The Art of Description by Mark Doty
(If you want to write vivid, emotionally rich settings—start here.)
Whether it’s tangled mangroves, a moonlit estuary, or the hush of snow settling on a frozen lake, I want readers to feel the weather in their bones. Because the land remembers. The sea remembers. And so do we.
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📖 Read Where She Had Left Me on Reedsy