Forest after Dark

My manuscript ”Skovrå” takes place in a town surrounded by forest. Without revealing too much, the forest also plays a big role in the story and literally has a life of its own.

When writing Skovrå I have been doing a lot of reading up on how trees work, how forests and root networks function and how fungi almost serve as transmitters underground. Really fascinating stuff that I will most definitely write more about at a later point.

But sometimes you don't really need to know how stuff works. You want to know how it looks or feels. Or even sounds.

For Skovrå I needed to be reminded what a forest is like as darkness falls. Both before, during and after.
Ideally I would go to Poland or Finland or other places that have really dense and even primeval forests, but living in Denmark, on Amager, I just had to make do with Kongelunden, a small, local forest.

It's of course not like I haven't been to a dark forest before. But there is a big difference between being somewhere without thinking about it, and being there, actively looking for something.

Feeling a little bit like a caricature of a writer, I brought my pen and notebook, a warm sweater and some coffee with me into the forest and sat down on a tree stump, starting to take notes. I also really hoped that I wouldn't run into other people, especially when I started crawling into bushes and laying down on the ground and stuff like that. I mean – there was sense behind it, but to a random passer-by you look really crazy when you sneak around, pet the trees, write down notes and take pictures through branches. And not least when you start dashing away through the trees, in some sort of a reconstruction of one of the book's action scenes ;)

All in all I got some interesting stuff out of it. Apart from the obvious lesson that it's really hard to write down notes in the dark.

When it's dark you don't see. So you hear a lot instead. Some sounds are soothing, like rustling of leaves and bird chirps. And some of them can compete with the best of horror stories. For example I have never thought about before that trees make a lot of sounds. They creak. Not slowly. But small, fast creaks or moans, that often sound almost human. Deliciously creepy!

When it's dark, you walk into small branches all the time, because you can't see them. You can see a lot when you look up, because of the light from the sky, but on ground level everything becomes more fuzzy. It definitely gives you this feeling that the trees are trying to lash out at you.

Best of all, the birds go silent. Not during the whole sunset and dusk, but really fast, almost within minutes. Right before sunset they sing a lot and the soundscape is really rich so you notice all the chirping and singing and various bird songs, and then suddenly they're all silent. That's just the way it works I guess, but it definitely feels ominous when you notice it and darkness falls around you.

Looking forward to more weird field trips in my writing future :)