Nature Writing for Beginners | Tasmin Hansmann | Skillshare
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Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Introduction

      1:31

    • 2.

      Class Project

      1:16

    • 3.

      What is Nature Writing?

      4:16

    • 4.

      How to get started

      3:22

    • 5.

      Observe

      5:34

    • 6.

      Learn

      2:21

    • 7.

      Experiment

      2:47

    • 8.

      Make it yours

      4:13

    • 9.

      To the next level

      2:20

    • 10.

      Hope and Doom

      3:36

    • 11.

      Final Thoughts

      1:05

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About This Class

You love nature and you love writing? Than this class if for you - let's dive into nature writing!

Tasmin Hansmann, author and poet, is passionate about the environment and loved to incooperate nature in her work. She has written and published the poetry collections The Anatomy of Waves and The Eloquence of Hurricanes which deal with trauma, healing and, most importantly, nature. She has also published the Azores Travel Journal full of insights about the nature of the archipelago in the Atlantic that she calls her home. On- and offline, she is fighting for climate action and social justice.

This 30-minute class will teach you why and how to dip your toes into nature writing. 

Tasmin introduces you to techniques and practices that help you connect with nature and integrate it into your creative work.

  • The definition of Nature Writing
  • How to deeply connect with nature
  • How to use nature as a metaphor
  • How to find your own voice in nature writing
  • How to navigate the climate crisis in nature writing

Whether you’ve always dreamed of becoming a nature writer or poet or you are simply looking for a way to spice up your writing routine, Tasmin’s honest and authentic class will help you find the courage and motivation to create just that.

After taking this class, you will be empowered to write with a curious mind full of nature's most beautiful sides.

Meet Your Teacher

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Tasmin Hansmann

Author, Storyteller, Environmentalist

Teacher

Hi! My name is Tasmin Hansmann and I am an author, storyteller and environmentalist. So far, I have published my poetry collection The Anatomy of Waves, The Eloquence of Hurricanes and a novella called Welcome Home Dear Soul. I have also released the Azores Travel Journal.

I was born & raised in Germany but I left my old life behind and moved to the Azores Archipelago. Here, I decided to follow my passion and become a full-time writer and immerse myself into the topic of a better future. My daily life consists of (un)learning, creating and growing. And I am here to teach you about this path of creativity and sustainability.

See full profile

Level: Beginner

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Transcripts

1. Introduction: Hi and welcome to your beginner's Guide to Nature Writing. My name is Tasmin Huntsman and I am an author of these books that you can see around me and I'm a freelance creative. I'm an environmentalist and I am a skill shared teacher. I have moved from Germany to the Z because I love the nature here so much and you can follow my journey on my Youtube channel. I have already released four other skillshare classes, three of which were about writing and one of which was all about nature and environmentalism. So I think you can see how we ended up on a class with nature writing in my poetry, and actually also in my fiction writing. Even though my novels have not been published yet, I focus heavily on nature, both in a fictional sense as well as in a poetic sense. And I just love nature so much, and I love incorporating nature in my writing. In today's class, we are going to look into the topic of nature writing. What is it? How can you do it? And how to get started and where to go from there. I hope you're going to have fun and that you're going to learn something. Grab a pen and a piece of paper or your keyboard to type. If you're not the handwriting, type and let's go. 2. Class Project: To immediately use the skills that we're going to learn today. You guys are going to get a class project that you can do if you want to. The class project for this specific class is to either write a poem or a short story, which can be fictional but doesn't have to be. It can also be non fiction. It can be just almost like an essay if you want to, a short story or an essay if you want to, about something in nature that fascinates you, that you feel connected with or just about your favorite natural phenomenon out there. This can range from your house plants to an animal that you love, to volcanoes and how much it fascinates you when they erupt. You can create this class project while you're watching this class, if you're very good at multitasking. Or you can do the project after the class is finished and then come back to the class and post it. You can leave it posted under projects and resources down below. And if you have any questions about this class, please feel free to ask your questions in the discussion tab, which is also down below. 3. What is Nature Writing?: Before we dive into the actual writing tips, let's first ask the question, what is nature writing? Nature writing is a type of writing in which the beauty of the natural world, the environment, and the landscapes around us is observed and described with words. This sounds very broad and very vague, which makes sense because nature writing is a very broad topic which includes multiple genres of writing. You can do fictional natural writing, you can do nature writing, combined with a memoir. You can do nature writing in non fiction, in poetry, and in pretty much any genre that you like. And you can take nature writing literally and just describe the natural world with the passion you have for it and describe its beauty and wonder. But it is also often seen as a way and a metaphor to describe emotions, describe someone's mental state, and to explore human emotion and experiences through nature. This is mostly done through metaphors, by using nature as a metaphor for the human experience. However, we will get to that in a little bit. If this sounds a bit too much for you, just come back to yourself. Sent to yourself and remind yourself that nature is already present in our daily use of language. And I'm going to use the English language here as an example. But if you want, I will open up a Discussions tab down below, where you can share nature expressions, day to day nature expressions that happen in your native language if it's not English or if you know of any good English one, since English is not my first language. So here are some examples for day to day phrases that incorporate nature into our daily speech. Having a family tree, the tree of life, having roots to a place, or a culture being interconnected, like fungi to beat around the bush. Something being a breath of fresh air. The brass is greener. On the other side, the calm before the storm. This is exactly where nature writing starts. But it of course doesn't stop there. It goes a step further. Some good everyday examples where nature writing, or a description of nature is used as a metaphor for human emotions. The meeting felt like walking through the desert with no water and no compass. The realization hit her like a wave or like a lightning strike. Seeing their friend felt like finding an oasis in the desert. His cheeks became the color of roses. She felt as if walking on clouds. She went into Mama Bear mode. He was as stubborn as a mountain. They were always searching for love like the ocean, following the moon. Always longing but unable to reach it. If you want to go deep into nature writing, this is your starting point. And now we're going to dive deeper personally. When I started to go deeper into nature writing in my own creations, it felt like remembering. Don't be afraid when you still feel a little bit overwhelmed. First of all, I hope at the end of this class that this will no longer be the case. And second of all, nature writing is something that is very human because it has been around for so, so long. Nature writing might be the oldest form of writing if we count the cave art of our ancient ancestors as writing. But even if we don't, it has been around for a very long time, ever since humans existed. We told stories and talked about the natural world around us. About how it moved us, changed us. How it was the base of our survival and our sense of wonder. 4. How to get started: So you like nature? You like writing? How started with nature writing, First of all, and this is always my favorite thing, ask yourself why. Why do you want to write about nature? Or what about nature? Makes you gravitate towards it and makes you want to integrate it into your writing that may or may not already exist. Which books or stories or texts that included nature writing or were nature writing inspired you to take it on yourself? What drew you to this skillshare class? And in which genre do you think you could excel in with nature writing? Remember, you can include nature writing in any genre that you like, including fantasy and sci fi. However, it is obviously the most popular in poetry and nonfiction, and also in the subgenre of non fiction memoirs. Nature memoirs, for example, hiking memoirs or travel memoirs are really popular. So ask yourself, what nature writing do you personally enjoy to read and what do you enjoy to write? Where do you meet what your interests are and your talents are with nature writing, Where is the connection? How can you bring those two together? I want you guys to write a list with all of these questions and all of their answers. And all the things that you love about nature. What intrigues you about nature? What fascinates you? What makes you go like, oh, then take this list and come up with words or emotions, for example, that you feel are connected with those things. And as a last step, I want you to think about which of these things of nature that intrigue you so much and that you feel drawn to are things that you can experience in real life. For example, if you just love bird watching, you love seeing the birds fly by. You can probably do that where you live because birds are pretty much in any human space, even in very, very urbanized areas. However, if, for example, volcanoes are the thing that fascinate you, it is pretty unlikely that you will see a volcanic eruption up close without, you know, getting in harm's way, unless you live in a place like Iceland or any other volcanic islands, or you are someone who has the privilege of traveling the world however they like. Then maybe maybe that is something that goes on the list of things that you could experience that fascinate you. But again, just think about with the means that you have the position that you're in, What are some natural phenomenon that intrigue you, that fascinate you, that you could experience for yourself? And now we are going to translate that slowly into the writing part, because in order to excel at nature writing, you need to do the following steps. Observe, learn, experiment, and make it yours. We will now discuss each of those points. 5. Observe: The first step is pretty straightforward and has nothing to do with writing in the first moment, and that is to just spend more time with nature. Even if you live in a very urbanized area, in the middle of a city where you might not have access to a lot of nature, still go on walks, be outside, because nature is all around us. Not only are we humans, also nature at the end of the day, but again, for example, in cities you can still see the birds, you still have some trees somewhere. You might have a park in your city. There might be some urban beekeepers or some urban gardeners around. People might have a lot of flowers on their balconies. All this kind of stuff still counts as nature. Of course, the more rural you live, the easier it is to interact with nature outside of your home. But the important part is go outside. Actually, spend time with nature both mentally, emotionally, and physically. Then of course, read nature writing again in whatever genre you like and you want to dabble in. Read some more nature writing. It gives you more ideas, it inspires you, and you will learn something about nature. Stay curious. Keep your eyes open, because nature is all around you. And if you pay attention, you can find it anywhere you are. Keep your eyes open. Try to focus. Try to find it wherever you are. And then I want you to engage your senses. This is actually really important because when I say to physically connect with nature and spend time with nature, yes, sure you can go on a walk, but do you know how a leaf feels like? Do you know how this flower truly smells like? It is currently winter where I live, unfortunately. But I do have one of the evergreen bushes that are growing where I live, so I grabbed a little piece of it. Don't worry, it's not an endangered species. And it's growing in my own backyard, so it's okay. I didn't steal from anybody or anything. I am touching this right now. This is a smooth leaf. It's not really rough, like the edges have a little curl to them, but otherwise it's very soft and it's very cool to the touch as well. There's a little corner here that is a little bit burned from some salt water from a storm we had recently. It's very elastic too. It's a very elastic plant. So those are the things just at first slance that I can feel just about this little thing listening. This is how this sounds like in the wind. This sounds very different if you didn't know this is Rosemary. Which leads us to the next part that is smelling. I also have some time over here that looks very sad without the other parts, and it's one of my favorite smells in the world. Of course, if you have, for example, herbs around you or plants that you know are edible, that's very important. You can also taste them because sometimes there are surprises. There is a tree where I live, I live on a small island, and if you lick the bark of the tree, which I would have never done just as an own impulse, it was just someone that is from this place originally who told me about it and did it in front of me. So I then did it too. And if you lick the bark of this tree, it is completely salty. It is like licking a jar of salt. And it just blew my mind because I would have never thought of licking the bark of a tree. It's kind of weird to do, but what an experience. So if taste is an option, put it on your list of senses. And lastly, just watch. Sit down and look at things up close. Look how the leaf of this rosemary is very rough actually in texture, and how beautiful the little lavender colored flowers are. Or just sit down and watch the birds fly by or watch a squirrel in your park, or watch the cow on the neighboring field. Depending on where you live and what you have available, of course. But just sit down. Slow down. No phone in your hand, no notebook either. Just sit down and watch. Wow, if you want afterwards, of course, you can note down your observations or you just keep it stored up here, whatever is your preferred method. 6. Learn: The next step is to learn. In order to write about nature, we need to know about nature and not only in the ways that I've just described in the observe lesson, but also in a more traditionally educated kind of way. If you know what I mean, go out and inform yourself about nature. This can be through the medium of books, of course, if you are a reader. But this can also be through the medium of articles, if you're more of a science person, this can be through the medium of podcast watching documentaries, maybe going someplace where someone explains stumps something. There are amazing tours in a lot of places where really passionate people offer tours where they show you around nature. So maybe participate in one of those. Whatever is available to you, just inform yourself about nature if there is a specific field or niche that sparks your interest, for example, you just love mushrooms and the mycelium and you find it so, so fascinating. Feel free to dive as deep as you want. Find other creators that create something with this specific niche. For example, if you are a writer, which I assume you are since you're in this class, I'm sure there are, for example, some artists out there that paint with this topic in mind. Or some regenerative farmers who are super passionate about this topic and just find new ways to explore this topic. Or some scientists that are doing research in this field, just reach out, branch out, dive deep. But don't forget that in nature, everything is connected with everything else. Don't do this. Don't focus yourself too much on one topic. Again, you can dive as deep as you want to. Just don't forget to sometimes look on the sides as well. To look on the outside to broaden your horizon and to remember that nature is interconnected and that you cannot just have one specific thing. It's always just one aspect of a huge network of multitudes. 7. Experiment: Okay. Now you have gotten to know nature. You've spent with nature. You know how it smells, tastes, feels, sounds like, and you have learned more about it. Maybe you have already started to do nature writing. That is how it happened for me. The more I learned about nature, the more I immediately incorporated it into my writing. And I just got so inspired. And maybe that's exactly what's happening to you as well, which would be very exciting. Please let me know down below if that is what's happening to you. Because I would love to know if you have made notes perfect. If you just go by memory also, fine. But try to take these things that you've just learned, experienced, and incorporate them in whatever genre you're writing. And try to find deeper meanings of the things that you've seen, that you've touched and how they made you feel. Find ways to connect the meanings of the words and of the nature elements that you have been like observing and, or learning about. And try to find the connection with the message that you want to send in the writing that you are creating. For example, you want to write about someone, either yourself or a fictional character, who is overcoming hardship. You could write something like this. She blossomed like a plant, cracking the concrete forcefully poured over her head, heavy gray, impossible to break. And yet she grew, reaching up her fragile stem through the tiniest cracks, expanding them until finally she was free. Or maybe you want to describe how confused you were by someone's actions. Or maybe your heads over heels in love, and it's taking your breath away. And it leaves you with all of these emotions. You could write something like this. My thoughts were swept up by the wind, your presence, a thunderstorm in my serene life. Just play around with different words, meanings, metaphors. How can you incorporate all of these natural things into your writing? If you're writing non fiction, of course that is a little bit different then you need to be a little bit more straightforward. However, it doesn't hurt to still incorporate a few metaphors along the way. Feel free to take this stage that you're in right now where you experiment and use this time to create your class project. I would love to see your in process situation and your experiments in the projects. 8. Make it yours: Now you have experienced nature, you've learned about nature, and you've started incorporating it into your writing by using it as metaphors or by describing very straightforward what you have seen. But now it is time to truly make it your own, make it unique, connected with emotion. Try to bring your own life experience and your own emotions about certain topics. Or just in general, your own individuality, your own personality, your own individual path in life into the mix. This is especially true for nonfiction, specifically memoirs, of course, and for poetry that is very important for these genres. Again, especially memoirs and poetry that you bring your own emotions to the table. That you're not afraid to be vulnerable. If you want to learn more about poetry, I have two classes about poetry out, so feel free to check them out. If you want to learn more about that, you can do this in whatever way feels right for you. It is hard for me to give you a super specific advice on exactly how to do this. Because again, everybody has individual unique experiences, ways of processing their emotions, own experiences with nature. And again, since it's so open as to what genre you can write in, it is very hard to give one specific tip. Because when you write a memoir that is connected with nature, you can, for example, talk about how that octopus that you saw on the one time you went diving. How that made you feel and how the way it was gliding through the water reminded you how you were gliding past the obstacles in your life. But if you, for example, incorporate all of this into a fantasy novel, it can be very different. But let's take the example from the last lesson when we were talking about the flower blossoming through the concrete. And incorporate own experiences and knowledge and our own journeys into the mix and go into details. Don't be afraid to really go into details with these kind of things. Don't be afraid of it and make sure all of those descriptions are deeply interwoven with each other. As she grew older, she became like those flowers breaking through concrete. She would always marblehead while walking to school. She had always found comfort in this site. Not knowing that this comfort was simply familiarity. One night she had looked up which flowers were cracking the pavement in front of her childhood home. It happened. The Japanese knot weed, the name alone, made her stomach twist just like herself. It was seen as a pest, something that needed to be hidden away and uprooted at all costs. The authorities wanted it removed before it could cause damages to the perfectly unif street made for fast paced transportation, but despite it all, it would always break through. It was an immigrant, just like her grandmother had been. If one would just open their eyes, let curiosity win for once. They would not only see its strength and beautiful flower, but also find that it was not a weed, but a vegetable that had saved many from starvation. And to this day fed millions of bees in the early spring when the bees needed it the most. What some saw as an irritation was actually the source of the sweetest honey. As you can see, all of the elements that we've been talking about, observation, learning about things, and just experimenting and trying to connect these things and making it your own, your own story. Even though, in my case, this was now a fictional story, come together in the finished text. 9. To the next level: Now that you've started your own nature writing. First of all, congratulations, And second of all, what's next? How to go to the next level from the beginning. First up, just like nature never stops evolving and shifting and transforming, neither should your nature. Writing nature is so complex and there's so much we don't even know about just yet. Keep on learning more about it, about the different aspects of nature. Keep observing, keep interacting with it. And keep exploring it with your senses, body and mind. As I said in the first step, in order to become a really good nature writer, you need to go outside. You need to go out there. You need to experience the world. How else would you be able to describe something that you don't even know? Only when you truly let it in, you can let it out onto the page. Don't be afraid to fail. Just like with any other type of writing or creating art, you will write things that you don't really love or that are imperfect or that might have some mistakes. Don't be afraid of that. Most seeds that a plant produces never even germinate or make it past their little baby stage. Don't be afraid, because that one seed lands and blossoms, it can grow into a magical tree. 10. Hope and Doom: I cannot make a class and speak about nature and nature writing without addressing the elephant in the room, the climate crisis, even if you've not been very informed or engaged with this topic so far. As soon as you start to learn more about the natural world around you, you will come across this topic one way or the other. It will sneak its way into many stories that you are trying to tell because you simply cannot ignore it. Unfortunately, you shouldn't do not ignore it. I know it is a difficult topic, but it is truly just a part of the process and we need to address it, either just in our minds or also in our creations. Depending on where you're at and what you're trying to create in order to be truthful, nature itself, as romantic and beautiful as it can be, can sometimes also be brutal. And we need to acknowledge that in order to be truthful and in order to actually honor nature. So how do we deal with the destruction of nature that we can see on a daily basis on the news, on social media, And again, as soon as you dip your toe into any kind of nature writing that you will inevitably find. How do you deal with the doom when all you want is pay homage to the beautiful world around you? Of course, you can become active and step your toes into environmentalism. I have a whole class about that if you're interested. I'm not going to get into it in this class. Again, if you want to learn more, I have another class about that. For this class, I would like to stay in the context of being a writer, an author, a storyteller, a poet, an artist, and a creator, right. Create art. It is so needed in this world. Tell the stories that people need to wake up to the situation that we're in. The stories that make them fall in love with nature. Make them go on the same journey that you did. A good book, a good story, a good poem even can really change someone's life by shifting their perspective on something. Be that shift, create that art. The channels change. And the channels hope. There is a lot of hope out there. There are amazing places, especially on the internet, where you can find tons and tons of hopeful messages, hopeful improvements, positive news. If you need that to deal with the doom, go there. But in the context of you being a creator and the writer, go out there and use your skill. Use what you do best Writing, creating something to tell the stories for a better future. Tell the hopeful stories. You can write the dark stories that make people go, whoa, okay? Is it really that bad? And that leads them on a journey. But you can also write all the hopeful stories. You can write just about how much you love nature, how much you love the pigeon in your backyard, or the ravens on the tree next door. You can just write about that. Just know that that is valid because it creates love and hope, which is exactly what we need. 11. Final Thoughts: That brings us to the end of this class today. You have learned about nature writing. You have learned about what it is, how to get started, and how to take it to the next level. After that, we observed, we learned something new. We experimented with words, and we made it our own. I hope you had as much fun as I did. If you did, please feel free to leave me a review here on skill that would mean a lot to me. And again, if you have any questions, feel free to use the Discussions tab. And don't forget to leave your projects down below. I'm so excited to read all of them. If you want to find me, you can do so by checking out my other skillshare classes. So follow me here on skill Share, read my books, or follow me on Instagram or Youtube. Thank you so much for being here. I'm going to head outside and spend some time with nature, and I hope you do to see you and keep on writing by