How the Five Senses Enhance Background Setting

Last week we talked a little about my love of marine settings and why so many of my books are set in beach towns. But what about you? What type of environment awakens your senses and makes you feel alive and inspired? It might be a hiking trail through a majestic Old Growth forest in the mountains, the high desert with its endless miles of tan sculpted hills, a ranching community nestled into a lush green valley, or a beach where you can commune with the seagulls.
To help make our fiction characters spring to life, we need to give them a vivid background setting. In other words, our characters not only need a stage on which to perform, but they must experience their surroundings through the five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. Now that’s where you the writer comes in. It’s up to you to get inside your character’s head so the reader can indeed experience the world that you have created for your character. (To be continued...)