How to bring your setting to life
BY Lizzie Lee
26th May 2026
In this advice blog Lizzie Lee, author of the feel-good summer romance The Little Greek Guesthouse, shares her tips for bringing your setting to life.
As Spring peeps around the corner and we all breathe a sigh of relief that there’s warmth in the air, sun in the sky and the scent of pollen drifting from blossom, it’s natural that we’re all looking forward to summer. My summer romance, The Little Greek Guesthouse, was a joy to write as I immersed myself in a world of scorching skies, turquoise seas and golden sand baking in the sun – bliss!
For this book, as with all genres, the setting played an important role. More than just the backdrop to the story, the setting can play an active role in the plot – it can help or hinder your characters and affect or reflect their mood, it can be an integral part of creating atmosphere, and can anchor the story in a believable world for the reader.
So how do you go about breathing life into the setting of your novel? This is a skill I’ve had to work hard to develop over the years, so here are a few tips!
1. Use all the senses
One of the most effective ways to show the setting is through the senses – this is a great technique to help your reader really connect to the world of your story, rather than presenting them with dry descriptive paragraphs.
This can be done through carefully chosen details – not just what your character can see, but also what they hear, feel, smell and taste. These last two are often neglected and yet they’re extremely evocative, so always worth including! For example, in The Little Greek Guesthouse, the protagonist Nina describes the ‘fresh scent of sweet peonies and salt in the warm air’ as she gazes down from the balcony of her father’s house in Kefalonia at the sea below. The rich flavours of local food also add wonderful detail, and are as an added bonus are fun to research! Finding a natural way to include small details like these can make all the difference; your character might brush a hand against the warm, rough stone of a wall, for example, as they pass it.
2. Trickle, don't flood
Often when describing setting, less is more. Long passages of description can be challenging for the reader to connect to and remain focused on, but small, well-chosen details can be very effective for breathing life into sense of place.
A few lines about the sensation of warm sand shifting under bare feet, and the sound the sound of waves lapping against the shore, for example, can be more evocative than an abstract description of a beach. Small details that bring the setting to life are powerful, and so you can afford to use them sparingly. A line or two sprinkled through the scene is more engaging and appealing for the reader than blocks of descriptive writing, and just as effective.
3. Describe through character
Approaching your portrayal of the setting through your character’s experience of it is a great technique to ensure the details you’re including are relevant and engaging. This can also help you avoid the temptation to info-dump!
The setting will affect the character – both physically and emotionally – as well as the plot and atmosphere of your novel. In The Little Greek Guesthouse, the island of Kefalonia is a respite for Nina, offering comfort and a chance for a fresh start. The balmy skies and turquoise waters of the setting help to create a cosy, tranquil mood that contrasts with the hectic life in a grey English city she’s left behind. Seeing the setting through her eyes (and all her other senses, see above!), ensures that the reader sees it this way too.
4. Research
Whatever genre you’re writing in, it’s worth researching the setting before you begin. Even if you’re writing fantasy or SF, where there’s much more freedom in creating the setting, time spent thinking about the world your story takes place in is a good investment. If it feels real to you, it will also be convincing for the reader.
There are various ways to research the place your novel is set in. If possible, visiting in person is the best way to drink in the sights, sounds, smells and atmosphere (and can also double up as a holiday, if you’ve set your book in, let’s say Kefalonia, for example!)
If this isn’t possible, or you’re writing historical fiction that requires period details, there are a myriad of other research opportunities available – reading up, talking to people who have been there, google maps and so on. The best advice I can give is to enjoy bringing the world of your novel to life – read up, take photos, make notes, eat local food, draw a map. (It doesn’t have to be good, a terrible one is still useful, as I can attest!) Anything that brings the setting into sharp focus for you will help you to create a convincing sense of place on the page. I hope you enjoy it!
I can be found on Instagram as @lizzieleewriter and on my website.
Lizzie Lee was awarded the Marian Keyes Novel-Writing Scholarship to study on our online Writing Your Novel – Six Months course in 2018. Lizzie's debut historical fiction Cunning Women was published by Windmill Books in 2021 and her first romance novel The Cotswolds Christmas Café was published in 2025 with Embla Books.
The Little Greek Guesthouse is out now in paperback with Embla Books.