Coming Soon to Taylor Sheridan Techniques...
This perfect bonus to Taylor Sheridan's Techniques focuses on one of his key principles, “Environment as Indifferent Witness,” and leans directly into Sheridan’s ethos: put people in landscapes that test them.
It's a powerful bonus collection featuring more than six landscapes, with elements that you, as a writer, can plug into your stories and use as setting templates.,
1. The Landscape in One Line
Each landscape is described in a one-liner that captures the soul of the place.
2. Its Personality (Sheridan Style)
What does this place represent?
Desert: Indifference. Isolation. Brutal truth.
Ocean: Beauty and betrayal. Depths that can’t be reasoned with.
Mountains: Majesty and challenge. Altitude equals pressure.
Snowy terrain: Silence. Slowness. Erosion of time and body.
Jungle: Chaos. Fertility. Secrets.
Plains: Exposure. Vulnerability. Nowhere to hide.
3. What It Does to People
The section is split because all of us writers want to reveal the good, the bad, and the ugly in our characters.
Good people: What virtues it burns away or sharpens.
Bad people: What masks it strips, or power it falsely promises.
4. Obstacles It Offers
Natural, physical, emotional:
Terrain challenges (steep climbs, blizzards, shifting sands)
Psychological toll (solitude, sensory deprivation, hallucination)
Moral traps (do you leave someone behind? Take a shortcut? Trust a local? All "tough, impossible choices", which is one of Sheridan's Signatures)
5. Story Sparks
Quick examples of what kind of conflict is perfect for this terrain.
“Two brothers lost in the desert with one canteen.”
“A woman trapped on an island with her enemy after a storm.”
“A fugitive caught in the mountains, where the altitude reveals his heart condition.”
6. How to Write It Like Taylor Sheridan
Let the landscape breathe: include silence, stillness, long gazes.
Use nature to counterpoint emotion (blizzard during rage, calm after death).
Frame moral decisions through environmental pressure (can’t call for help, can’t go back, can’t wait it out).
Include a line of dialogue or narration that shows respect or fear of the land.