Rooting the fantastic: excerpt from Ridiculous Kinky

M.C. Escher

        "In her bedroom Ada dressed slowly, with ritual care, her skin buzzing as though the walls watched.  She liked her room. The walls smelled like vanilla and old books in the sun.  But when it rained, the house became strange and dark, as though it kept a secret.  The oaks and magnolias unfurling alongside the house seemed to claw towards it like a nightmare row of hands.

         The day was warm, though; the wooden boards had not forgotten their months of wildness and were no longer asleep.  Under the touch of birds and sneaking rain, their surface had faded as pale as a fawn's..."


 (the house was abandoned after a grisly incident, hence the months of wildness)

          The more otherworldly your writing, the more important it is for you to ground your words with concrete images: walls, books, trees, floorboards.

          Close your eyes and imagine your page as if it were a scene in a movie; what do you see?  

          What would you feel if you were there?  

           Smells, sensations, emotions... just a little bit of symbolism and foreshadowing... if you work this stuff into every scene, your story will feel like a world unto itself.  

           Try to hit every sense on every page if you can.

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