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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/42572
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/42572
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

+1 Galastel. I would add to her answer **_memories._** If my MC has never seen it before, how does what she see connect in her memory?

What has she been told about this place? By whom?

If she has been here before, what was the occasion? How has it _changed_ since then? You give the reader a sense of time this way. It's been five years, and these houses out here occupy what was empty farmland. That skyscraper is new. This street has been widened. It's dirtier than she recalled, the wind liberating scraps of paper from overflowing trash cans. Or was she just inured to the filth back then? Perhaps she had become spoiled, living in the Capitol.

She can remember these things, and filter the details through her own life experience. Your description doesn't have to be **just** raw description of the setting. Consider that (just raw description) as similar to a wall of dialogue. The wall of dialogue can be under-imagined, it leaves out the setting, the people moving, thinking, remembering and feeling, their physical actions.

Just description can be similar. You aren't painting a picture, you have a **mind** looking at a picture. Just the description can be under-imagined because you aren't imagining what these visions are _doing_ to your character. Like talking, Viewing can be presented as an active experience influencing the mood, feelings, memories and plans of the viewer.

So anchor your writing in description of the setting, but in a character-influencing way. Consider her personality: What is she _looking_ for in this landscape?

If she has been a soldier all her life, she may be naturally looking for threats, for ambush points, for people. For water, food or supplies. I would detail what she sees through the lens of somebody always assessing a landscape in anticipation of battle, places of safety, lairs for ambush, lines of sight, defensible positions and gravitating to explore those first, even if she is in no immediate danger -- That's just how her mind works; threat assessment first.

If you have multiple characters viewing this spectacle, they are all affected by it, and each have their own personality and memories. They can have a conversation about that -- but again remember to anchor it in descriptions of the setting, so their conversation is driven by observations about the setting and the memories and emotions it triggers in them.

Original score: 13