Travel writing:
1. Most travel writing is a balance between material about the internal and
external landscapes. That is to say, there is an
interplay between the person and the place--the place is used to reveal
character in the person and the life experience and perspective of the person
is used to reveal the character of the place. Think of a journey
you have taken--this doesn’t have to be a long trip, you can use a trip
to a concert (or a conference). Try to reduce the experience to one
moment--try to think of the most significant moment of the journey, the moment
which defined the journey. Now write about that moment in two ways.
In your first version, emphasize the person, the narrator, use his or her
experiences to reveal something about the character of the place or the journey
itself, about the external landscape. Keep your focus on the life
experience of the narrator and use that to reveal the journey.
In your second version, emphasize the place and use the features of the place
to reveal the character of the person. Keep your focus on a description
of the place which can reveal aspects of the narrator’s character.
Compare your two versions. Which do you think worked better? Why do you
think so? What did you learn from this exercise?
2. A common related exercise is to describe a place from the point of view of a man who has just lost his son in the war and a man who has just been married and is about to set up roots in a new place. Do not mention the war or the son or the marriage. Try to reveal through the way the scene is described, the state of mind of the narrator. You can, of course, vary this exercise and choose characters with whom your students might be more familiar.