SEE, SEEING, SCENE: Reread the scenes early in this chapter—Paul Theroux’s bus ride in Turkey, James Salter’s hall at West Point, Arundhati Roy’s landscape in Ayemenem. Go sit somewhere distinctive—a favorite garden, a cathedral, or even a grungy inner-city laundromat—and notice what is special or evocative about the place. Use concrete, vivid nouns to paint a picture of the scene. Carefully choose a few idea/feeling/abstraction nouns to convey what makes the place unusual. Is it a microcosm of something larger?
