Writing descriptively scenery and surroundings comes more naturally to some writers than others. If you’re wondering why your novel is too short or moving too fast, that’s sometimes due to a lack of character development or to the plot itself. Sometimes, though, it’s caused by a lack of description, including descriptions of settings.

Why is it important to write about setting? Well, arguably, it’s not as important as it was one hundred years ago, when readers didn’t have ready access to images of other places through TV, movies, and the Internet. Contemporary readers can draw on many more visual memories of settings than readers of past centuries could. That’s why nineteenth-century novels tend to have lush, detailed visual descriptions.

But even in modern novels, which we expect to move more quickly, setting or a sense of place is important. It’s often neglected, but it can be a writer’s secret weapon.