Eight Strategies For Writing Innovative
Settings
“The tourist may look
at a place and think ‘What does it do? What is it like? How much does it please
me?’ but the fiction writer must look at a place and think ‘What does it
suggest? What does it mean to me? What does it mean to my characters?’” Jack
Hodgins
Hodgins suggests that in order to achieve this perspective,
a writer needs to construct a place—“real or invented”—rather than describe it.
By choosing specific details you both impress the landscape on your reader and
connect them to the meaning of your world. Think habitat.
“Stare at your world until you discover what it has to offer
you,” he says.
There are many ways to develop this focused center in any
scene. You can begin from the inside out by imagining the location of your
setting visually and finding just the right pieces to fit the emotional core.
Or you begin from a natural habitat and focus on the specifics that define your
atmosphere and story questions.
For example, a setting on the moors can portray an image of
beauty, wildness, danger, freedom, and loneliness. An added element might be
the choice of dwelling. Is the habitat an ancient stone castle, weather beaten
with crumbling bricks, a wooden hut, or a modern architectural masterpiece? How
would each of these possible homes blend, or contrast, with the physical
geography?
Deserts, oceans, forests, meadows, streams, canyons, and
islands all have distinct characteristics. Even if your character will be
interacting with all kinds of terrain there will still be one that is “home.”
One that will quietly represent a direct heart highway, either toward security,
or away toward uncertainty.
Too early in your story yet to decide which habitat best
suits your purpose? Try this brainstorm. If your character were to transform
into her emotional habitat, what animal or bird, flower or tree, body of water,
type of wind would she become? Where would you most likely find that setting
geographically?
Build Your Story: What in your character’s natural
habitat could become a danger to him or her?
Read deep, marcy
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