Places as characters

[CaroGirl]

Do you ever use the location of your novel as another character? Cities, towns, villages, farms, they each have certain traits that create an atmosphere in which the other characters operate. I consciously try to incorporate location as a character. Is that a strange approach?

[IrishScribbler]

I don't think so, no. I'm doing something similar with my WIP, except books are the "character". She's a voracious reader, so books and literature are a key theme throughout the work. In fact, the story revolves around my MC believing she is Deirdre of the Sorrows from Celtic mythology.

[Jenan Mac]

I don't think it's strange at all. Look at the whole concept of "Southern writers"-- that in itself acknowledges that it'd be a different bunch of stories set in Hawaii or Namibia or Independence, Iowa.

[aruna]

Yes. In several of my books, the country itself was a character./This is especially so in my just-submitted-to-editors novel.

[finch]

You know, I haven't done that before on a conscious level, but it sounds like a great idea and now I'm peeved that I haven't incorporated it intentionally before. I can think of at least three places that could use this right away.

Dammit, I'm still writing my synopsis, I didn't need this distraction! Must... focus... kill the tangent... grarrgh...!

[TwentyFour]

I don't think it's strange at all. Look at the whole concept of "Southern writers"-- that in itself acknowledges that it'd be a different bunch of stories set in Hawaii or Namibia or Independence, Iowa.HA! That's me! I use my town as my main focus in my work. (Stephen King does this often)

If my characters are upset, it reflects in the raging of the river, the dark shadows from the mountains paths, everything reflects a connection to the character and their inner conflicts.

I believe it was a common practice Edgar Allen Poe also used. Check out his work "The House of Usher" or the "Mask of the Red Death". Some of the stories use the colors of the home/room or the setting to show emotion.

[jdparadise]

If my characters are upset, it reflects in the raging of the river, the dark shadows from the mountains paths, everything reflects a connection to the character and their inner conflicts.


I'm consciously doing this now, to an extent - the characters in my short are facing bleak choices and have been hurt in the past, so I chose to set the story in a New England-type village.

But the writer must be cautious about going overboard with this; too much and it veers into High Blown Romanticism, which isn't very in-fashion at the moment as far as I can tell.

Is there perhaps a difference between effective use of symbolism and character-centered setting?

Now, setting [i]as[/a] a character, per the original thought . . . I'm interested in this.

The setting could have characteristics symbiotic with the themes--if one of the themes is forgiveness, the city could be very accomodating or absolutely pitiless, whichever is needed.

Or could the setting have a character arc, like any other character? Though it makes me wonder how the setting-character could -earn- the arc. If a theme is redemption, the farm town could be going through a drought . . . but what could the town itself do to earn the redemption of a rainfall?* (As opposed to there being a symbolic rainfall at the end to symbolize the MC's redemption, which would be a valid choice but wouldn't be a self-realized character arc for the town, but rather one thrust upon it by the author)

Hrm. Food for thought. Thanks for the topic!


*Note, added later: This question doesn't include those f/sf/h stories where the town is animate, which would constitute a special case, I'd think. I realized that my snarky comment below seems to contradict what I'd already written, and wanted to distinguish.

[Prawn]

Totally. My novel is set in Israel, and the local situation is like another character in the story. When people finish the book, I want them to feel like they have been there.

[Judg]

HA! That's me! I use my town as my main focus in my work. (Stephen King does this often)

If my characters are upset, it reflects in the raging of the river, the dark shadows from the mountains paths, everything reflects a connection to the character and their inner conflicts.

I believe it was a common practice Edgar Allen Poe also used. Check out his work "The House of Usher" or the "Mask of the Red Death". Some of the stories use the colors of the home/room or the setting to show emotion.
That is called an empathetic universe and has been discussed here before. Most people had a pretty negative view of it. If you do this, you are introducing an strong unrealistic element, and a lot of stories can't justify it. Weddings do get rained on, funerals are held on sunny days, and so on. Quite honestly, an environment that is always in synch with the characters' feelings seems to me like a cheap trick - and I'm far from the only one. Having the characters reacting to the environment is another question altogether.

Having a very strong sense of place is great on the other hand. Having an environment that has its own emotions, well, I suppose it could theoretically be well done. I'd have to see it to believe it though.

[greatfish]

I think you're just talking about having a strong setting, and not so much using the setting as a character, which could be interesting but would more likely come off as incredibly dull. I can't really imagine what sort of efforts a setting could take to resolve a conflict.

[jdparadise]

I can't really imagine what sort of efforts a setting could take to resolve a conflict.

I take it you don't write fantasy or SF... :)

[Chasing the Horizon]

Do you ever use the location of your novel as another character? Cities, towns, villages, farms, they each have certain traits that create an atmosphere in which the other characters operate. I consciously try to incorporate location as a character. Is that a strange approach?
A good bit of my WIP takes place aboard a ship, which is most certainly a major character in the story. I'm not sure this counts, though, since the ship is alive, in a way.

Another story I've been working on from time to time is a great example of this. The whole story takes place in a fictional Kansas town, and the town is most certainly a character. There is nothing supernatural in this story, but the very atmosphere and attitude of the town are pivotal to the plot and characters.

I can't really imagine what sort of efforts a setting could take to resolve a conflict.
I take it you don't write fantasy or SF...:)
Yes, in my fantasy the ship which is used as a setting is also very important to winning the final conflict. And that ship can make efforts all on its own.

[jodiodi]

*timidlly raising hand*

In college I wrote a scholarly paper (ha!) for a seminar in Sir Walter Scott in which I compared and contrasted his use of gothic motifs in The Bride of Lammermoor as opposed to The Abbey and discussed why one worked and the other didn't. For Gothic lit, there is usually a structure or place that is like, if not a character in the piece. It's one of the hallmarks of Gothic lit.

[jdparadise]

Why timidly? :)

Would you mind digging out the paper and sharing a few examples?

[jodiodi]

Why timidly? :)

Would you mind digging out the paper and sharing a few examples?

If I knew where it was, I certainly wouldn't mind at all. Alas, I have since married and moved six times since then. I know I kept it but it could be anywhere now and the file it was on is long lost.

I remember the concept of water--there was a stream of some sort in The Abbey and a fountain in Bride of Lammermoor; the brooding antihero; isolated setting; some hint of the paranormal. Scott used the conventions to set a better atmosphere in Bride of Lammermoor whereas The Abbey felt almost one or two dimensional, certainly not three. Lucy, in Bride, is driven mad by her love for Edward and the house in which he lives is like a hawk or other bird of prey looming over Lucy's family's more conventional, Gosford Park-like home. In the abbey there was no real sense of place.

Sorry, wish I could remember more or at least find the darn thing.

[Penguin Queen]

If you're looking for another classic example, none does it better than Emily Bronte in "Wuthering Heights". The moors, the landscape, the house...

And yes - she said, blithely naming herself in one breath with E. Bronte :D - I have used places... not sure I would say as character exactly, but as an irreplaceable element in a story or a novel in a way that, if you set the thing somewhere else, you'd have to rewrite the story because the land/scape comes into it so much.

@jodiodi, interesting stuff. I didnt know it was a Gothic hallmark. Makes sense, though.
If you ever do find that paper again... :)

[lfraser]

I would have to say that in most literature, place is really paramount. It's not exactly the same as a living, breathing character, but it's still integral to the story line insofar as the story would not take place at all if the setting was different. I think that's particularly true in Fantasy and SF, but it runs through all genres. Certainly in everything I've written, the setting is inextricable from the story and vice versa.

[Judg]

I would have to say that in most literature, place is really paramount. It's not exactly the same as a living, breathing character, but it's still integral to the story line insofar as the story would not take place at all if the setting was different. I think that's particularly true in Fantasy and SF, but it runs through all genres. Certainly in everything I've written, the setting is inextricable from the story and vice versa.
In real life place is important also. People in mountainous regions, for example, tend to be very independent minded, fractious. The Afghanis are perhaps the most extreme example, but even the Swiss are ferociously independent. They also have four official languages and a separatist movement (at least they used to) which fits in. River and seaboard people will be more mercantile and cosmopolitan. And so on.

Landscape does shape culture to some extent. And individuals react to their environment. My mood is very directly affected by the amount of light, for instance. A series of heavily overcast days in mid-winter is very hard to take. And I'm far from alone.

Having said all this, I don't think I'm doing a very good job of including a sense of place in what I'm writing now. *sigh*

[jodiodi]

Thanks. I have one particular piece where the structure is a presence, character as it were. I don't know if I did a very good job but some people seem to think it's my best book.

[Inkdaub]

Oh yeah I do it if I can. One of the problems with my current WIP is that it is very bland in that way.

My two favorite genres are fantasy and mystery and they both use sense of place quite heavily. I love it.

[Lynn Sholes]

The setting is a major player in fantasy and often in science fiction.

[Siddow]

Someone once commented on one of my WIPs that the house I put my characters in was a character itself. A big scary one, too. So yeah. I don't think it was anything I did consciously, though. It was my first book and I had no clue what I was doing.

[josephwise]

I'm one to insist that a setting should always be a "character." Otherwise it shouldn't be there. Even a scrubby old hill seems to be filled with human intentions.

This isn't so much a choice you make as you write, as it is a result of good writing.

Everything in your story should drive the conflict(s). In that way, everything is a character. Anything that does not do this might as well not exist.