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How to Master Sense of Place in Fiction: Expert Writing Techniques from Award-Winning Author James Sturz
by Writing Workshops Staff
2 weeks ago
From Manhattan Bathtubs to Hawaiian Coral Reefs: How James Sturz Mastered the Art of Creating Place
Discover the secrets of transforming settings from mere backdrops into living, breathing characters in your writing
Picture this: a young boy in a Manhattan apartment, snorkeling gear strapped on, diving into his bathtub while imagining the living room's shag carpet as finger coral. His mother worries he'll knock over a lamp with his fins. Fast-forward decades, and that same boy has become James Sturz—acclaimed novelist, journalist, and master of place-based storytelling whose work has been published in 18 countries and translated into nine languages.
This journey from childhood imagination to literary mastery offers a powerful lesson for writers: the places we create on the page must feel as real and transformative as those early fantasies that shaped us.
When Setting Becomes Character
In a recent revealing interview with Creative Process, Sturz explains how his approach to writing about place evolved from simple description to something far more profound. "I wanted to find a new way to write about the water—not just to say what it is, but what it's like, the question that no one asks, which means then that it doesn't have an answer—so that readers would love it and want to take care of it without having to be told what to do."
This philosophy—focusing on what places are like rather than what they simply are—transforms Sturz's settings from static backdrops into dynamic forces that shape both characters and plot. His latest novel, Underjungle, set entirely underwater, demonstrates this approach at its most ambitious. As he describes it, the book explores "what it was like to be underwater. Not just to dive down, but to live there and be there, and for everything you know, whether it's food, minerals, oxygen, ideas, or mates to come to you in the currents, through this thick and intensely rich medium that covers 70 percent of the planet."
The Writer's Laboratory: From Travel Journalism to Fiction
Sturz's mastery of place didn't emerge in a vacuum. His extensive background writing travel articles for publications like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Atlantic became his laboratory for developing techniques that he later applied to essays and fiction. This real-world training taught him that compelling settings involve far more than visual description—they require the full sensory experience of being somewhere specific.
Living in Hawaii now, Sturz's daily routine reflects this commitment to place-based authenticity. His writing day begins with nature: "looking out from my bed at the ocean from the midst of a pasture—in season, our view is whales and cows—and then it often includes a trail run, often past mongooses and wild pigs." This immersion in his environment isn't recreational; it's research. He carries underwater slates when diving, capturing observations that can only be made while submerged, understanding that "I can write more creatively and convincingly about the water when I'm deep inside it than I can at my desk."
Beyond Description: The Multidimensional Approach
What sets Sturz's approach apart is his understanding that effective place-creation engages all the senses and taps into deeper currents of meaning. He advocates for settings that include "unusual or unique occurrences that could have only happened there, the sounds and smells that tell you unmistakably where you are, the history that gave rise to the characters' personalities even without their knowledge, and the way the characters transform as they move from place to place over time."
This multidimensional approach explains why his work resonates so powerfully with readers. Whether describing the underwater world of Underjungle or the cave homes of Basilicata, Italy in his novel Sasso, Sturz creates places that feel lived-in, places that matter to the story because they actively shape what happens within them.
Learn from the Master
For writers seeking to elevate their own sense of place, James Sturz will share his hard-won insights in an upcoming seminar that promises to transform how you approach setting in your work.
Creating a Sense of Place in Fiction, Nonfiction, or Memoir: One-Night Zoom Seminar with James Sturz Wednesday, July 9th, 2025 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM Eastern
This intensive two-hour workshop will teach you to think of settings as catalysts for your characters and engines for your plot. You'll learn to craft locations that come alive on the page, developing what Sturz calls "tight narratives that make use of their settings' most important features, while eliminating superfluous description."
The seminar covers essential techniques including:
- Creating complex settings that feel multidimensional
- Understanding how place shapes character development
- Mastering the crucial difference between describing what places are versus what they're like
- Eliminating unnecessary description while strengthening narrative impact
Why This Matters Now
In an age of AI-generated content, Sturz's emphasis on authentic, lived experience becomes even more crucial. As he notes in his Creative Process interview, AI is "limited to human experience and emotions as they've been written" and cannot "reach deep into its heart and pull out something glistening and new. That's what human writers are for, if they are good."
The kind of place-based writing Sturz teaches requires exactly this kind of authentic human insight—the ability to transform personal observation and experience into something that resonates universally. It's the difference between generic description and the kind of specific, sensory-rich prose that makes readers feel they've been somewhere real.
From Bathtub Adventures to Literary Mastery
That young boy snorkeling in his Manhattan bathtub discovered something profound: the power of imagination to transform any space into somewhere magical. James Sturz has spent his career learning to recreate that transformative magic on the page, and now he's ready to teach you how to do the same.
Whether you're working on fiction, memoir, or creative nonfiction, mastering the art of place can elevate your writing from good to unforgettable. Join James Sturz on July 9th and discover how to make your settings come alive.
Ready to transform your approach to setting? Register now for James Sturz's Creating a Sense of Place seminar and learn from a master of place-based storytelling.
