Why the Where Matters (Part I)
By Sarah Callender | April 9, 2014 |
I was not gifted with a Sense of Direction. North often feels West, and South usually feels down-ish. To make matters worse, when I travel in a new place, I forget to pay attention to landmarks. I can never remember if I should turn left at the river or at the white shack. Is the white shack even on this road? Wasn’t the river on my left earlier this morning? The next thing I know, I am lost.
I was born without an internal compass, but I also often find myself lost because landscape and landmarks do not interest me. People interest me. The road maps on their faces and veined hands, the direction of their posture, the location of their piercings or birthmarks, the foundation of their sadness. People hold my attention, but landmarks? Who cares! Setting schmetting!
It doesn’t surprise me, therefore, when my writing partners nudge me about the “where” of my story. As in, Sarah, where’s the Where? They are lost. Without Setting, stories feel blurred and gauzy.
The problem? When I consider Setting in my writing, I feel ho-hummy. Setting feels boring like chess or physics. Like Pokemon or cricket (the stick game, not the insect). Like economic policy or bridge (the card game not the architectural structure). Like baseball. Wait . . . you know what? Baseball used to be boring, but then my son started playing, and after sitting through nine thousand innings in 40-degree Seattle drizzle, I now love it. Because I understand it.
So I set about trying to understand Setting, and I am now a Setting evangelist. As such, may we please scrap the term “Setting” and instead use “Sense of Place”? It’s such a lovely term, Sense of Place . . . a lot of people think Flannery O’ Connor or Eudora Welty invented it, but no, I did.
OK, then. Let’s talk about why Sense of Place is so powerful and important.
Sense of Place Orients the Reader. The specific place doesn’t matter (it could be Augusta or Anchorage or Antarctica) but the reader cannot feel like the story takes place Anywhere or Anyplace. I have never heard a reader long to be more disoriented, more uncertain of where she is. A reader must feel tethered to a story in order to willingly tumble into it. The writer must create the Sense of Place that tethers the reader.
What else?
Sense of Place isn’t Just Location. Back in the old days (i.e. last week), I thought Place meant Location. Where the story is set. Now I see that’s only a slice of the place-pizza. “Place” encompasses all the stuff in the characters’ place: objects, baubles, possessions. Priscilla Long, in The Writer’s Portable Mentor, includes a beautiful chapter titled “Object and Setting,” in which she writes,
In real life, objects and settings carry strong meanings. No knickknack, no set of car keys, no room is neutral or random . . . The chair, the rug, the photos speak–even if obliquely–about who that person is. If you’ve ever had occasion to deal with a person’s effects after death, you know how powerfully these trinkets and packets of letters and ironed cotton handkerchiefs bare a particular person’s particular life. And so it is with fictional characters. Rooms stand for lives; objects hold history.
A particular person’s particular life! Yes. The stuff in our place matters. The stuff in our drawers, closets, wallets and purses speaks volumes. The other day I found some Spanx in my purse, along with a half-eaten chocolate bar, breath mints, four mostly-gone lip glosses, three church bulletins, five hair elastics, a love letter from my high school beau and some eye drops. That certainly says something. The treasures and possessions that surround our characters must say something too. (I didn’t really have an old love letter . . . but if I did? How that would add to my story!) What is the stuff surrounding your characters, and how does it contribute to story?
But wait, there’s more.
A Sense of Place Establishes Mood. My dear, old friend, F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a master of Sense of Place. In The Great Gatsby, check out the way Fitzgerald creates Place from the moment Nick walks into Tom and Daisy’s house:
The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding-cake of the ceiling, and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.
How airy! How breezy and summery and sugary! I want to eat that page each time I read it.
But later on in the novel, when the characters take a hot and tension-filled trip into the city, we are placed elsewhere:
The room was large and stifling, and, though it was already four o’clock, opening the windows admitted only a gust of hot shrubbery from the park . . . we were listening to the portentous chords of Mendelssohn’s Wedding March from the ballroom below.
Powdered sugar breezes are replaced by sweltering heat, oppressive weight, and the stickiest of tension. Fitzgerald uses Place to reveal nasty, social undercurrents and to create stifling discomfort for the reader. That’s why I love being pals with F. Scott. Because he rocks.
Last but not least . . .
A Sense of Place is Intertwined with Character. I live in Seattle, but I grew up not far from California’s wine country so let’s talk terroir for a moment. This wine-enthusiasts’ website says this:
[Terroir] can probably best be summed-up as the possession by a wine of a sense of place, or ‘somewhereness’. That is, a wine from a particular patch of ground expresses characteristics related to the physical environment in which the grapes are grown.
Same goes for humans. Plant a human in Seattle, and she will likely take on the characteristics of a Seattlite (pasty-skinned and coffee-drinking and polite to other drivers when stopped at a 4-way intersection). Plant that same human in Chicago, and you replace 4-way intersection politeness with, well, heartfelt finger gestures.
We humans are affected and molded by the soil in which we grow. Our characters’ values, manners, priorities and goals are similarly affected by their soil. In fact, Place can support or thwart a character just as the character’s best friend, mother or spouse does. Place can mold character. Place can even become a character. I don’t know how a writer does this. I just know it seems very difficult. If you know, please teach me?
And, while you’re at it, please share:
Where in your work in progress do you see Place impacting tone and character? Will you share some favorite novels with a strong Sense of Place? Why does Place matter in your particular work in progress?
Next month? Part II: HOW writers create strong Sense of Place (other than by plagiarizing Fitzgerald, O’Connor and Welty).
Photo courtesy of Flickr’s SPDP.
A Middle Grade novelist (and Middle School English teacher), Sarah Callender lives in Seattle with her family. Because Sarah dislikes cleaning anything that will just get messy again, she tidies the house and weeds the yard only when absolutely necessary. This allows her time to focus on her true–and somewhat fraught–passions: writing, Abe Lincoln, and Tony’s Chocolonely chocolate bars. Equally passionate about mental health advocacy, Sarah is a member of The Stability Network. Sarah’s first novel, LUCY IN BETWEEN, will be published by Margaret Ferguson Books/Holiday House in 2026.
I have a degree in cultural geography because I’m deeply fascinated by both people and environment; how land and climate shapes the practices and beliefs of the other, how people, in turn, develop the land as an extension of those practices. People and place are even symbiotic in some ways. It’s no wonder I’m a historical novelist. :) Setting is HUGE! And as you so aptly put it, a sense of place most certainly is intertwined with character.
Great article, Sarah.
Oh gee, Sarah, this post was excellent. I often look to Hawthorne or Poe for settings descriptions to spur me on. The opening of Poe’s Fall of the House of Usher describes the landscape. He uses weather, landscape, and architecture to invite the reader in. It’s a bit dramatic for our modern tastes today but Poe’s words draw not only a specific image, but the mood, tone, motion suspend the reader so you must read more.
“DURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country ; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was – but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit … I looked upon the scene before me – upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain – upon the bleak walls – upon the vacant eye-like windows – upon a few rank sedges – and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees – with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation …”
When you grow up reading ‘the good stuff,’ you subconsciously acquire the importance of setting. What would Jane Eyre be without the orphanage, Rebecca without Manderlay, or Wuthering Heights or the Hound of the Baskervilles without the moors?
Or Huckleberry Finn anywhere other than the mighty Mississip?
Setting – so important to not confuse the reader – may be part of the art of writing that can’t be taught, but a great many of the pieces that go into that gestalt are craft, and quite learnable.
Where are we (building, town, country, room, planet…)?
What time of day is it?
What’s the light like?
What small objects are meaningful?
What is the state of cleanliness?
What smells – and is it pleasant or un-?
…
The simple act of asking yourself each of these questions from your list (you have a list, right?) leads to noticing, and then you have so many details to choose from – several of those, and you have your unique way of describing this place.
I like to stand in my mental place, and close my eyes, and make it real, like a movie set. A little bit of theater goes a long way here: if you were in charge of property for a play, what would be worth the effort of putting it on stage – and taking it off for the next scene?
Another easy rule: make each setting choice do triple duty. A choice of adjective or two can make a laundry list of details switch mood completely, and tell us how the pov character sees. One or small details of backstory can be tucked in. The name of a color – cerulean vs. periwinkle vs. Robin’s egg blue – could tell you about class or economic status. These choices can be added in revision if they don’t come easily first time around.
Creating the list – all the components that can be considered – was the part that got me noticing, and it’s hard to un-notice, so the system – like any other part of craft – got locked in.
The art? Well, you get better by doing, but the noticing comes first.
Yes, Alicia. Isn’t it amazing how much noticing we writers do? I think it drives my husband nuts, but frankly, I feel sorry for those who can’t notice (or those who can but forget).
I think a writer’s epidermis must be covered with millions of extra sensors, no? Ah, the blessing and the curse of being a writer.
Thanks for this insightful, educational comment!
The best-kept secret about writing must be how very good it can be – for the writer.
A reader loves a book she spends 10 hours with. The writer got to spend hundreds or thousands of hours with it. It isn’t good for every writer, or all the time, but when it’s good, it is fantastic.
Great post! When people say description is “boring” or “inessential to the story,” I think they mean mere description of externals. But setting description, when it’s done right, tells you about the characters and their story as well as about the place itself.
Steinbeck’s East of Eden opens with a whole chapter about place . . . and it’s so rich that you don’t feel (at least, I don’t) that he’s starting out too slowly.
One problem I have with developing places in my own writing is that I tend to imagine my story’s setting at first from a bird’s-eye view. When I am writing a particular scene, I can “zoom in” my mental map and envision the particulars of setting in that scene, but my default view is the “zoomed out” map view that helps me plot/organize my story. Does anyone else think about their story world this way?
*Will you share some favorite novels with a strong Sense of Place? *
There’s an urban fantasy book that I love called Skinwalker.
It does a brilliant job of painting a picture of the feel, smell and texture of the Louisiana bayou country – from the food, to the heat, to the texture of the ground beneath your feet.
I think one novel that nailed the where was The Return of the King. Mordor was a horrid, deathly, terrifying place. I read that series when I was a pre-teen and it creeped me out. I had an image of dark, cold, desolation, and Peter Jackson did a good job of translating that to the screen.
Here’s a wee snippet from my MS. Feel free to chime in…
The raw, heavy snow weighed him down and pierced him through. Wherever he looked, it seemed the whole world lay covered in white. All sound faded into the thick blanket of snow, as if everything around him stopped breathing, and waited with hushed anticipation to witness his imminent humiliation. Trees stood like sentries, pointing their green and white arms at him, warning the world that here walks a treasonous, weak fool, worthy of banishment, deserving of ruin.
Gosh, I love all of these examples of Place. Thank you so much for sharing!
And several of these comments make me realize how little “world building” I do. Shame on me!
“A particular person’s particular life! Yes. The stuff in our place matters. The stuff in our drawers, closets, wallets and purses speaks volumes. The other day I found some Spanx in my purse, along with a half-eaten chocolate bar, breath mints, four mostly-gone lip glosses, three church bulletins, five hair elastics, a love letter from my high school beau and some eye drops.”
Love this post, Sarah! The point you make about “stuff” is so true. At my day job, I’ve been writing an article about a history class taught on campus called “Material Culture…” Students analyze the “stuff” of Early Americans in order to make sense of the history and the place. Dealing with objects (hands on) from daily life connects students in such a deep way…in the same way, as you point out, readers connect with characters via the characters’ stuff.
As a writer, I’m obsessed with place. For me, everything in a story starts there. My new novel takes place in Newburyport, MA, and I dig deep into the habits, objects, topography, and quirks of the place and the folks who live there.
Cheers!
I find myself not ready to write until my senses are fully engaged into the where of the story I am about to write about. Sometimes it slows me down but once engaged as my wife well knows I am lost in my character’s world for hours, yet it never seems that long. I believe most of us are wired to communicate through multiple senses – sight, feel, taste, smell, hear and once in a while ponder or dream. It has been a challenge to select what to share, but to not engage the reader with multiple senses makes the character far too distant and one dimensional. BORING!
My editor/coach suggested I read John Grisham’s books. She believes I have some of the same style. It was the best advice I received to free up my writing to draw the reader into the “where” of the story. I can only hope to be half as descriptive without going overboard…
I have communicated narrative stories in many of my sermons and teaching moments, and felt pretty good at setting the “where” to present the “what, how and why” of the message. When you are in public you quickly sense the buy-in by the body language. Writing is more challenging, but does not change the power of engaging the reader so he or she is anxious to read more.
A wise preaching professor shared, curb appeal draws people to a house. Your job is to offer curb appeal for them to be willing to invest their time to come and see, and then greet them on the porch and get them excited and ready to see what is inside.
Your article adds value and reinforcement to what I have wrestled with recently. Thanks
Yes, Coach! That’s the key . . . only adding the essentials.
Lisa Cron’s book, Wired for Story, does a great job of explaining why we should only give the readers what they need to know, when they need to know it. It’s a fabulously helpful and fascinating book.
Thanks for taking the time to comment!
Although I’ve never given much thought to place, it always becomes a character in my story. The historical is self-explanatory, but even the contemporary YA I wrote has to happen in that small univ. town because its very nature impacts my characters.
Some favorite novels where place is important:
The Underneath by Kathi Appelt
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Time and Again by Jack Finney
Sarah-
>Place can even become a character. I don’t know how a writer does this. I just know it seems very difficult. If you know, please teach me?
Okay, sure.
Making setting a character starts with accepting that setting is *not* a character. Objects are innate. Landscape doesn’t move. What changes does so mostly too slowly to see.
What brings a place alive is not the place, or your words, but how a character perceives and experiences that place.
Is the place called Hometown a friend? No, it’s just a place. But to someone who’s lived there a lifetime it can provide a friendship as rich, varied and changing as a human friendship. The church steeple can be understanding. The beauty parlor can listen and cluck it’s tongue. The speed bumps by the school and be an annoying reminder of time passing, of wasted hours and plans abandoned. The town can turn mean. The town can forgive.
Do you see? It’s not the town it’s how the resident perceives it.
That principle is not only for setting. It can bring alive an era, society, faith, and intangibles like the mood in a ballpark, a moment in fashion, or the progress of a war.
For a great example of era treated as a character, see the opening of Rules of Civility by Amor Towles, and how he brings alive the turn of the Twenties to the Depression. Masterful.
Wow. This is great. All these years, because I haven’t fully understood Setting, I have been making the concept more complicated than it really is. Thank you for shining your light on the topic!
This is so helpful. You are so generous. I am so grateful.
:)
I have to go back to my old favorite, Anne of Green Gables. The story wouldn’t be as delightful without The Lake of Shining Waters, The Haunted Wood, Dryad’s Bubble, Orchard Slope.
Great post, Sarah. Look forward to part two.
Fun stuff, Sarah! Having lived there, I had to laugh over the heartfelt finger gestures at a Chicago four-way stop. I can see the change in sense of place for our urban visitors (I now live in a resort area for Chicagoans). They arrive from a city where every yellow traffic light is considered a dare, and they’re white-knuckling down our single-lane gravel roads as if they were late to a business meeting. After a few days you can almost see the knots in their backs unclenching, and their shoulders sloping as they leisurely take the ten minute walk instead of driving to the bakery.
Thanks for the laughs, and for changing the name to Sense of Place. I love that. It’s one of the things I love about historical epic fantasy. When it works, it’s comfortingly familiar and yet excitingly unique and adventurous.
Yes! I lived in Chicago for eight years . . . after living in Seattle for 16 years, I am horrified when I go back to Chicago. The people raelly are so nice, but put many of them behind a wheel, and scary stuff happens.
I love how your town transforms them! The perfect example of the power of Place.
I used to be just the way you used to be: “I often find myself lost because landscape and landmarks do not interest me. People interest me. The road maps on their faces and veined hands, the direction of their posture, the location of their piercings or birthmarks, the foundation of their sadness. People hold my attention, but landmarks? Who cares! Setting schmetting!” As a reader, I’d rush through description, impatient for character and action.
In my first novel, though, set primarily in NYC but with some flashbacks to the protag’s experiences in the Peace Corps in West Africa, people really responded to that African daily nitty-gritty. The baskets in the market, the dust from the red laterite roads, the smell of the cooking fires, etc. So I set my second book there. As you say, it makes a huge difference.
When I think about novels with a strong sense of place, the two that come to mind immediately are Poisonwood Bible and American Pastoral. Their settings are unique and powerful.
Sarah Callender–
Thank you for this article. It’s both thoughtful and useful. As regards place in my writing, the great challenge is one suggested by Elmore Leonard’s comment on his own work: “I leave out the parts people skip.” Back in the day (Charles Dickens’ day), readers often read aloud to their families, everyone journeying somewhere together. Even when they read alone, readers were hungry for detailed descriptions of lives and places other than their own.
This is still true, but made radically different in a world now awash in photo images and video. Who doesn’t have a crowd of mental pictures about–you name it? This means the writer must be much more clever at plucking out the best details that will most effectively lead readers to see/hear/smell everything else. It was always tough to do, and even more so now.
Wonderful post, Sarah!
Titanic (the movie) comes to mind. In two hours (closer to three?) that ship becomes many things to many people, especially the protagonist. It starts as a living, breathing object capable of granting fantastical wishes, waifs into a prison, then a playground, and ultimately it’s everyone’s Hell.
Funny thing though, the ship is just a ship. Just metal and frilly curtains. What makes it live and breathe is the people who see it as alive, the characters who FEEL it.
Wonderful stuff. :)
Denise Willson
Author of A Keeper’s Truth, and (coming soon) GOT
Yes, Denise. Thank you for mentioning Titanic! A brilliant example . . . it’s all becoming so much more clear to me. Phew. Thanks. :)
Recently I read Jo Baker’s wonderful Longbourn, the downstairs to Pride and Prejudice’s upstairs. Normally, I don’t like P&P prequels/ sequels, etc., but this book both complemented Austen’s work and stood on its own. And “sense of place” was no small part of its accomplishment. Now we see the Bennets’ home Longbourn (think: long borne) in terms of its physical demands on the servants–endless hand washing of dirty linen during an English winter and the chilbains that heroine Sara suffers on her hands, the emptying and scrubbing of chamber pots, the small cold attic rooms shared by the maids, and the center of the household–its kitchen filled with good smells of cooking, its sink with pots to scrubs…and more chilbains.
As much as I love Elizabeth Bennet, this novel made me rethink much of what I had felt about P&P’s upper class. I give this book my highest recommendation.
Wonderful post, Sarah! And a great reminder for me.
I personally struggle with setting and Sense of Place perhaps because it’s something that I’ve personally had trouble with myself due to moving a lot. In my works in progress, place is often nebulous at best. I *can* do it, it just takes a very conscious effort on my part. So this is a timely and wonderful reminder to stop and give my characters and story a sense place. :)
I was most moved about what you said about objects and what they convey about a person, probably because I had that exact experience of dealing with someone’s effects after their death. Some years ago, the mother of the boyfriend I had at the time passed away from breast cancer, and sorting through all of her possessions was… well, both painful and incredible. I knew her fairly well but by no means intimately, and there was something about going through her things, that made me feel as if I really understood her – who she was, what she valued in life, and what she wanted. I absolutely agree that those little things with which a person surrounds herself can speak worlds about her – and what a great way to enhance the setting or “sense of place” in one’s writing.
Thank you, Lori, for sharing this beautiful example. That whole chapter, “Object and Setting,” in Long’s book was poignant. It really makes me consider how our possessions illustrate our traits and values. It’s a lovely thing to consider for our stories; don’t you think?
Thanks for your words.
“Sense of place isn’t just location.”
This is so very true. Setting is a bunch of things. But for me, today, it is about finding a sense of place in my role as a writer. I recently changed careers; from teacher to writer. This requires a new orientation, a new sense of place. I am building this sense of place as I go, one article, blog post, and chapter at a time. I am building my schedule or rhythm for the day, week, month and year. I am redefining my life and my sense of place.
Having said all that, I have a chapter that after reading this post, I think I better rewrite with a more clear sense of place.
Thanks!
Manderley in Rebecca. A place that is such a strong character that our protagonist does battle with it as much as with any other character in the story.
Great post on how place is not just where, but what is in the where. And how did our characters get there.
I’d like to add one more header for “Sense of Place as Metaphor.” Normally I try not to make more of a passage than is actually there, but in Fitzgerald’s case it’s safe to presume that everything is a metaphor. That passage about Daisy’s house doesn’t just set the mood, it represents Daisy herself.
“The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house.”
White is the color of purity and innocence, but it’s artificial contrasted to nature.
“A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags…”
The room is airy, just like Daisy’s head. “In one ear, out the other.”
“…twisting them up toward the frosted wedding-cake of the ceiling, and then rippled over the wine-colored rug…”
Sweets and alcohol: insubstantial, bad for you, but much too pleasant and addictive for anybody’s good. Just like the sweet, toxic Daisy.
“…making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.”
Now here’s the thing: wind has no shadow. It seems to make a shadow, but it’s only an ephemeral ripple. The sentence following this excerpt is “The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon.” In other words, “Nothing in there but air.” Nothing and no one, not even the crushing forces of nature, can put any substance in or make any impression on these shallow people’s minds.
When you first read the passage, it sounds so nice and lovely. It draws you in, makes you feel comfortable. Then in the paragraph following, the illusion disintegrates–Tom slams the window shut, “the caught wind [dies],” and the people inside reveal themselves to be stupid, absurd, and thoroughly fake. Most of the people in Gatsby (and their relationships) are the same: pretty on the outside, empty and dull on the inside.
Beautiful! Where were you when I was a high school English teacher? You could have been my Most Favorite Student. :)
Sarah, yes, a sense of place can supply so much flavor and feeling to a piece of writing. I set my last book in the San Francisco of the 1989 earthquake, and it’s such a ripe setting: the intricately painted old Victorians, the swoops of the hills, the punkish bike messengers careening down those hills, the urine-rank entryways of historic buildings uptown, with the skittering opera crowd in flight, the palpable feeling of fear as AIDS started harvesting lives with a vengeance, the astonishingly lovely, secret gardens in the tiny backyards of hillside houses with views of the Bay that broke your heart, the dead-of-night buzz of the crack houses (there were two on my street, lucky me)—so many settings that touched and torqued characters in the story.
I just came back from staying on the Queen Mary down in Long Beach. The tubs in the cabins alone, with their individual faucet handles labeled “Hot Salt,” “Hot Fresh,” “Cold Fresh” and “Cold Salt,” with the buttons that say, “Stewardess” and “Steward” nearby—would you call the Stewardess to help you choose what salinity of bath might be just the thing today? A detailed sense of place can certainly bring life to a story, if your characters’ lives are tumbled in that salty wash.
Oh, this is luscious! Extra salt for me, please.
I experienced that 1989 earthquake, and your words about the city at that time are so true. The AIDS fear alone fascinates me . . . SF is such a vibrant city. Prim little Victorians and totally unprim, neighborhoods like the Haight. I love the juxtaposition.
Thanks for helping me understand the power of place!
Loved the post and examples you gave, especially the two from Gatsby. Those showed so effectively how to use description to set tone and mood.
I also really liked this from Donald’s comment, “What brings a place alive is not the place, or your words, but how a character perceives and experiences that place.”
Once I realized that, I got away from the grocery-list type of descriptions where the story stops so a place or a character could be introduced. It still dismays me to read some well-known authors who still rely on that “list” approach. I don’t care to know every detail of what a character is wearing unless it is important to the story or the character.
I can give my personal experience with setting. I do a little business travel with my colleagues. One of my favorite customers to visit sprouts out of the farmfields of a little town called Hopkinsville, Kentucky. My colleagues (who are somewhat shallow) poke fun at this “hick town.” They complain about the lack of good restaurants and imitate the southern drawl when out of earshot of the desk clerk.
Me? I see fields of green extending toward deep blue horizons. A place where one wants to lie in the grass and ponder the beauty of God’s creation. I see and hear people at peace with their casual pace, right down to the way they add syllables to every word, because it gives the words themselves character and, hey, they’ve got the time because they’ve learned to slow down and enjoy each moment.
Setting reflects a characters nature, his mood, his situation, etc. While it’s not really alive, the way a character sees his setting tells much about him.
Yes! Great point, Ron. It’s the whole “beauty’s in the eye of the beholder” concept.
That’s true of Seattle’s gray skies. I see it as perfect writing weather. Most others see it as a reason to move.
Thanks for enlightening me!
Terrific post, Sarah. Like you, my strong suit has always been about the characters, rather than the place. However, there are books I love were that setting is so vividly wonderful that they were almost like characters themselves. My agent taught me that, too. Thanks for your great info!
Thanks for your post. I have NO sense of direction. Whenever my instincts tell me to turn left, I should have turned right. I’m lost a lot of the time–in the real world. In my writing, I usually feel grounded in the world I’m creating. It’s in the characters that I tend to get lost. It’s good to have an editor to help navigate me through the areas I struggle with; just like google maps when I’m lost somewhere downtown. :)
What a great post, Sarah!
In Tim O’Brien’s story “The Things They Carried,” he introduces Martha through one of the photographs Lieutenant Cross carries in his wallet:
It was an action shot – women’s volleyball – and Martha was bent horizontal to the floor, reaching, the palms of her hands in sharp focus, the tongue taut, the expression frank and competitive. There was no visible sweat. She wore white gym shorts. Her legs, he thought, were almost certainly the legs of a virgin, dry and without hair, the left knee cocked and carrying her entire weight, which was just over one hundred pounds.
Yes! I almost included a passage from The Things They Carried.
Thank you for including this passage, too! There is something about that phrase, “dry and without hair.” Says so much . . . a great example of economy of words. Makes me want to reread that whole book again.
Pam Houston’s “Sometimes You Talk About Idaho” is a great example of sense of place changing depending on the protagonist’s mood or point of view.
Setting was essential in Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre.
I’m like you, though my problem area is more with details. I’m more of a big-picture thinker, so it’s very easy for me to write several pages and suddenly realize I have absolutely no setting. It’s been a huge challenge for me because if I try to go add it to the few pages I’ve written, it tends to like like I added it.
I’ve been working on a cozy mystery (the genre requires it to be dripping with setting, but not the world building that fantasy requires), to try to help me with it. The best tip I guess is to study something in the genre and see how they use it.
ANother good blog. Thanks!
Sometimes, I love writing sense of place too much! I indulge myself in the first couple of drafts, but am training myself to cut back as I revise. One of my favorite authors who spins a wonderful sense of place is Sarah Addison Allen. When you can make an apple tree seem human, you got sense of place going on!
This was such an interesting blog, I pinned it on Pinterest as suggested. Thank you.
[…] Why the Where Matters (Part I) […]
I mostly write contemporary fiction, but I’m working on a speculative fiction piece right now which is giving me a much better understanding of this topic. The world-building is intense and conscious. I have to populate every room, if I even can have a room, with objects from the mundane to the sublime. Since I don’t feel I do this particularly well, I’m hoping that what I learn in the SP piece will enhance my contemporary stuff.
I’m late to this post but I love this topic. My WIP is a YA romance set in a mountain resort town in the 1920s, where I used to live. I hope to recreate a lost world through my story and in fact the setting inspired it. Other things I’ve written have started with situations or character.
As a reader, I love setting, especially when it is textured, when you can feel yourself there. The telling details, like Tom’s urine-smelling entryways and pocket gardens (seen them).
I also wonder re: Tamara’s point about Daisy–how much the author deliberately inserts or is it all subconscious? I don’t try for symbolism or metaphor. I just try to create characters that organically inhabit their world.
Great post, great comments!!