Hampton Sides Shares How To Make Locations Come Alive

During the “On Location” LitFest workshop, narrative historian Hampton Sides discussed how to write more descriptively and make a place come alive.

Sides was always bored by history textbooks, but today he has made a career as a bestselling author through writing descriptive stories of battles and adventures in history. Some of his works include “Ghost Soldiers,” “Blood and Thunder,” “Hellhound on His Trail,” “In the Kingdom of Ice” and “On Desperate Ground: The Epic Story of the Chosin Reservoir, the Korean War’s Greatest Battle.”

During the workshop, students were shown a picture and asked to describe it in detail. While students were doing this, Sides asked a variety of questions that prompted students to not just write what was in the picture, but write the details that help make a person feel transported there. 

“You try to break down a scene into all of its component parts, sort of deconstruct it and then reconstruct it,” Sides said. 

Sides also emphasized the importance of verbs when describing a place. He advised students to try to avoid weak verbs and too many adjectives, and he said verbs are the engine for good writing. 

Verbs can also take the place of adjectives by adding more than an action. Sometimes verbs can be associated with sounds or provoke more than just the idea of action. 

“Verbs do the work of adjectives better than adjectives,” Sides said. 

Sides told the students the importance of trying to activate all five senses in descriptive writing. 

“I think down deep in our bones we want to have our senses activated,” Sides said. 

Through listening Sides, students gained greater perspective on illustrative writing, particularly in nonfiction.

“I enjoyed hearing a professional’s perspective on how to write descriptively,” junior Flora Solymosi said.

LitFest helps provide students with a chance to learn or practice writing in a different environment. Students who attended Sides’ workshop were able to write freely and share with the group in an environment different from a normal classroom. 

“I liked being able to talk with successful people and practice writing outside the class setting,” freshman Justine Choi said. 

At the end of the presentation, Sides shared how he enjoys his job, and traveling to different locations in order to write about them more honestly. 

“It’s kind of a dream job, it’s a license to be curious,” Sides said.