Writing the Wind: Capturing the Soul of the Your Landscape
We are all writers from somewhere. For me, it is the South, and more specifically, Appalachia. It’s my culture, just as your culture is yours, and it makes up who I am and what I express as a writer. As I write this essay about my place and time, think about your place and your time and apply it to who you culturally are.
I’ve written about the Appalachian Mountains in many stories and articles. I tried to capture their beauty and essence, but sometimes, instead of the dynamic subtleties, my writing just sat there. Flat. Maybe beautiful on the surface in terms of the words, maybe. But somehow lifeless.
I dutifully described the trees. I meticulously noted the ridgelines. I might have dropped in a hawk circling overhead. But with all this, it still didn’t move like something alive. The page didn’t breathe. The scene didn’t hum with the power I knew those hills held.
I discovered my own shortcomings. I described the land with incredible detail, but I didn’t write about the wind.
The wind?
I realized that the wind in Appalachia—and where you live—the symbolic wind, is more than weather. Wind is memory. It is a presence. It is the unseen witness whispering through the hollers, curling around sagging porches, and rattling old screen doors like it is trying to say something nobody has had the courage to listen to in a long time.
Here’s your writing Success Point for today. If your setting feels hollow, like I found many times in mine, don’t write about the place. Write what the place feels like when it moves. Don’t tell me the leaves are red. Tell me they shiver like a thousand tiny hands applauding a secret only the mountain knows. Don’t say the fog rolled in over the Smokies. Tell me the fog tiptoed like guilt between the trees, thick as a lie you can’t unsay.
See, great Appalachian stories—and stories set wherever you are—don’t just paint the mountains. They let the mountains (or whatever location) breathe, sing, warn, haunt, and heal. If the setting isn’t alive, your story, just like some of the things I have written in the past, won’t be either.
Here’s the truth you might have missed. Landscapes and locations are not a backdrop. They are a pulse—a heartbeat. When you ignore that beating, your story’s essence goes silent. Simply put, it dies.
For today, in your work in progress, find one paragraph where the setting feels passive. Rewrite it so the land and location are active, like a character unto itself. Give it a soul. Give it breath. Give it wind.
When you do this, you’re not just writing a story. You’re honoring a region, your culture, and yourself. You’re writing something unique and unforgettable.
Let your story move like the wind through the mountains.
Someone out there, your reader, is waiting to feel it.
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