Dubai

I’m here in Dubai awaiting the start of the Emirates Festival of Literature.  I’m here to teach a couple of workshops with teen writers in Dubai and I’m really looking forward to working with them. 

Whilst I’ve been here, I spent a couple of days in the desert, enjoying lots of empty space and rolling dunes from my window.  It got me thinking about writing and how sometimes you can stereotype place when you write about it.  The desert isn’t always hot and dry.  In the mornings, a heavy mist hangs over the sands, thickening the air.  The sky isn’t blue but hazy.  The sun when it heats up, feels so close that it’s heavy.  I wouldn’t have known any of these things if I hadn’t been in the desert myself.  Now, as writers, we can’t always go to the places we’re writing about – especially if it’s somewhere imaginary.  But we can do research.  We can read about places like the place we’re describing.  We can talk to people who have been there.  If it’s an imaginary place, we can research the realistic parts to make the imaginary parts feel more true.

That helps me not to stereotype descriptions of place when I’m writing. 

Here’s an exercise: take a few minutes every day or so to describe the weather and the sky in the place you’re in.  Really try and capture the essence of what you’re seeing, feeling, smelling… You’d be surprised – the sunset isn’t always orange, the morning isn’t often crisp…

Can you break those stereotypes?