Monday 5 December 2016

Bush Landscapes and Settings

BITB welcomes romantic suspense author Bronwyn Parry!




I've always loved the blog title 'Breathless in the Bush' - I sometimes wish I'd thought of it first as a tag line for my books!

Where is 'The Bush'? When politicians (and some city people) refer to it, they generally mean anything beyond 'the suburbs'. But the Australian landscape is varied and amazing - I often think of it in terms of the various regions beyond the cities - the coast, the country (within an hour or so of a city), the mountains, the bush, the outback, the desert, the tropics.

I've been fortunate to have travelled extensively through Australia's stunning landscapes, and I'm lucky to live on 100 acres of regrowth bushland on the Great Dividing Range in northern NSW. I set my books a little further west though, where the western slopes and the Brigalow forest belt meet the dry plains on the edge of the outback. This area fits my idea of 'the bush' - the dry forests of eucalypts and native cypress, the mulga scrub further north, and the kilometres of cleared paddocks for grazing and crops. The towns are few and far between, the small ones dusty and dying, employment and services evaporating or shifting to larger centres, often hours away.

The landscape can shape both character and story. The isolation of the bush makes a great setting for my romantic thrillers, intensifying the drama and emotion by placing the characters beyond help, so that they have to rely on their own skills and strengths to survive.

For writers, my main suggestion for creating an evocative landscape setting is to describe the surroundings through your characters' points of view, as they are experiencing it at that point in the story. What will a particular character notice at this moment? What will they feel? How can you weave those things through your story so that the reader is there with your character, in both the physical and the emotional place?



In my latest book, Sunset Shadows, some of the early dramatic events take place around a waterfall in wild country. Here's Tess, a police officer, visiting the scene of the crimes again, when she's been through an emotional day herself:

     Standing here on the top of the falls, with all the beauty of the wild country around - the rugged hills behind her, the gorge opening in front of her - and the fresh breeze in her face and the soporific burbling of the water, it could be so easy, so easy, to simply step into it, to take that one step and fly into the mesmerising beauty. Just one little step...
     'Are you okay, Tess?'
     Steve's voice, even and gentle. He stood there on the rocks, only a couple of metres away, his face so drawn she realised how she must look. She stepped backwards, away from the edge.



Rather than simply a backdrop, making the landscape an essential element in your plot that your characters must interact with adds depth and emotional intensity to your characterisations and your story. Whether it's the bright sparkling blues of a beach in summer or the wind crackling dry leaves in the Pilliga Scrub, our characters' actions, thoughts, emotions, and choices will be affected by the environment they're in. And out there, in the bush, there are many things to make a character breathless - the beauty, the rugged country, the heat, the passion of being alone with a loved one - or the fear when being pursued by a killer!


Are there books that you love for the landscapes they are set in? As a reader, has a book's setting made you breathless?







Bronwyn's latest book is Sunset Shadows, published by Hachette Australia. For police officers Steve Fraser and Tess Ballard, a split-second decision saves the lives of fifty members of a cult, but in the aftermath of the rescue nothing is simple. As the violence escalates out of control, Tess's past comes back to haunt her - and Steve - with tragic consequences. Isolated in rugged country, they're both faced with the impossible choice: who do you protect when there is more than one innocent life at risk?















Also coming Dec13th - a special 2-in-1 print edition of Dead Heat and Storm Clouds.











Buy links for Bronwyn Parry's books: Booktopia Amazon US  Amazon AUS   Kobo  B&N iBooks



Love to love: the amazing support and friendship of the romance writing community.

Love to laugh: with my husband, especially when I'm stuck on a scene and he helpfully suggests that my characters can go out for a pizza. Not that there are many pizza shops in the bush!

Love to learn: New things about the environment around me - matching bird calls to birds, observing the behaviour and interactions of the wildlife, seeing where water runs and pools in the landscape when it rains.




10 comments:

  1. Hi Bronwyn! I love the way you use bush settings to add to the suspense in your fabulous books. And what a bargain - 2 books for the price of one! Another book to add to the Christmas wish list. :)
    Another author I like who creates suspense through her settings is Anna Romer. I was reading a bush storm scene (in 'Thornwood House') during a thunderstorm and it was so vivid I felt like I was actually there being chased!

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    1. Thank you Marilyn! Anna Romer's books are very evocative - and she's almost a local to my area, so I do know her. She has a new one out, which I must add to my Christmas wish list :)

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  2. Hi Bronwyn. I can see how you would get plenty of inspiration for your settings considering where you live.

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    1. Cassandra, the landscape is inspiring, and the people! It is a stunning area here on the tablelands, and our place is just a couple of kilometres from the gorge country, where the rivers carve down through the escarpment towards the sea. Vast areas of rugged wilderness!

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  3. Bronwyn, thanks for this so much. I'm a city gal from birth. I'm uneasy in the bush. In fact, I'm uneasy if I can't see lights from my house at night... I don't mind driving in the city but I get nervous driving in the country. A bit late to change now, but still. So I love and adore your books. They give me a wonderful sense of our wonderful bush, and how to appreciate it far far far FAR more than I usually do! I'm too busy looking around for snakes and spiders and other such things to relax in the bush. I wish I could, but hey, can't take the city out of the girl. But I really love reading books set in the bush. Books can take my feet where I don't usually walk and I can appreciate all that natural beauty and splendour from my armchair. Your characters are also really attuned to the bush, and it's just wonderful to read. They love it, you love it, and it shows. So through you, I can love it too. Thankyou!

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    1. Malvina - I confess, I'm scared of snakes! Especially at this time of year I'm very cautious, and when I'm outside or walking the dogs my gaze is glued to the ground. Re the light, it's rarely pitch dark out here - only on moonless nights with cloud cover. And when the moon is full and the sky is clear, it can be quite bright. I haven't always lived in the bush - I grew up on the edge of Melbourne and Canberra - but I have come to love it. And I have learned so much in the years we have been there; it's truly a fascinating, interconnected natural world.

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  4. Hi Bronwyn, I hadn't thought about the impact of settings on characterisation and emotional intensity before, but now I reflect on it, it makes perfect sense. My examples come from movies. I think of the scene with the multitude of wounded soldiers in "Gone with the Wind" and the dawning realisation in Scarlett of her helplessness and vulnerability or the role of the sea in heightening the tension of the growing awareness between Caroline Muir and Captain Gregg in "The Ghost and Mrs Muir".

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    1. Hi Sharon! Those are great examples of stories where landscape and setting are intrinsic to the plot and characterisation. Gone with the Wind wouldn't have worked anywhere else but in the south, at that time. And I can't imagine The Ghost and Mrs Muir set on the Kansas plains - it would have been a different story altogether! Likewise Wuthering Heights - definitely not a Cornish story!

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  5. Hi Bronwyn. I love stories where the setting evokes emotions in the reader. I especially love those set in desolate places where the landscape means life or death to the characters. Perfect examples are your books, which leave me 'breathless' as the danger escalates. I'm a bush/forest girl at heart so tend to gravitate to stories set there. I especially love your books. They're keepers on my shelves!

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    1. Thanks, Enisa - it's great to know that you love my books. You've always been so encouraging to me, right from my first conference! And yes, when the landscape is challenging and can itself be a threat - or a sanctuary - it does become another character in the story :)

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