Markets and their ilk are a lovely moment in writing: a rich opportunity for description and world-building, filled with sensory potential. The only hitch is that as you cheerfully launch your character into this wealth of stuff, you suddenly have to invent all the stuff! Your writing flow suddenly grinds to a halt as you start googling "types of fish" or "ornamental stuff" or "tropical fruit"... Enter Reverse Dictionary.
Reverse Dictionary gives you words that use a word or phrase in their definition. For example, if you look up "ornamental", you won't get synonyms (decorative, showy, etc) but a list of ornamental things: lampshades, figurines, beading, doilies, etc. It also works well with phrases, eg "tropical fruit" brings up heaps of names of tropical fruit. If you struggle to get the exact slew of results you're after, think of one example of what you want (eg "figurine") and put that into an actual dictionary, eg dictionary.com. Look at the definition for a key word, then plug that into the Reverse Dictionary.
This Writing Skill gives you a lovely way to play with this, and hugely enrich your writing. I suggest you spend 10–20 minutes on it, whichever suits. Grab your notebook, pen, and a cuppa, curl up somewhere comfy, and have fun!
- If you’re using this Skill as your starting point, pick any time or place setting you like – historical, contemporary, your country, another country, somewhere completely imaginary, whatever appeals.
- If you’re using your own story, use your own time and place setting, or your own imaginary world.
Spend a few minutes brainstorming the categories of things they'll sell there. For my imaginary world, that's fish, fruit and veg, fowl, spices, and assorted snacks. For a realist story in my home town, I'd also have clothes stalls, knickknacks, second-hand books, and so forth.
Next, spend the rest of the time using Reverse Dictionary to look up types of that thing, and jotting down the examples which catch your eye.
That's it! A brief but thorough trial-run of the Reverse Dictionary, and a much expanded sense of a story's world. To take it further, launch into some writing: have a character enter the market and encounter all these stalls and things, including as many senses as you can.
The skills you're developing
Specificity: Moving from generalities and categories (eg ornaments) to specific detail creates a much richer sense of your story: the details are what bring it alive for the reader.
Sensory description: Markets are inherently multisensory: visually busy, noisy, and an opportunity to include tastes and smells, which are often harder to weave in. This makes the story far more immersive to read.
World-building: Markets are a fantastic chance to showcase your story's world in all its richness and idiosyncrasy, especially if it's a world your readers are unfamiliar with: a foreign country; a historical setting; an imaginary fantasy or science-fiction world. Spending time delving into everything it contains will also enrich your world beyond the market square: next time someone's munching on street-food, buying another character a present, or preparing dinner, you have a much wider repertoire to draw on.
If you're writing or want to write stories set in an invented world, or an invented spin on our world, and you'd like heaps more ways to develop it, join the Imaginary Worlds course this October–November. It's a live 8-week evening course and you can join on Zoom from anywhere (Thursday evenings) or in person in Oxford (Wednesday evenings). See all the details and how to book here.
Bookings close on Wed 1 October. After October–November 2025, this course will next run in 2028.
