Building a Story World

Cross-culture—environment

This environment can be by choice, by birth or by capture. For better or for worse your character is tied to this place. For example, in the movie Phantom of the Opera everyone who participates in the opera has a stake in giving good performances. Jobs and reputations matter. Yet, there are a variety of mini-cultures within the overall setting such as the behind the walls laundry room, carpenter shop and stable. Some vocations may or may not ever communicate with one another.

Although I find labeling people to be derogatory there has been a reason that so many high school based movies are divided by category names. It introduces immediate conflict. One classroom alone can create its own mini-world. The Breakfast Club is a great example of characters being forced to examine and choose what mores will define them within their cultural environment.

In The Hero and the Crown, by Robin McKinley, Aerin, as a king’s daughter, has many privileges. At the same time she has prescribed boundaries. As a princess she is not allowed to cross royal protocol, especially when dealing with visitors or emissaries. Yet even within those boundaries Aerin chose to cross culture with the people of Damar, within and without the castle, regardless of income or status. She treated all with respect and took the time to build communication and relationships. Whereas her relative Galanna stood on her royal blood and demanded everyone treat her “with the greatest deference humanly possible.”

Exercise:

1.                    Choose a boundary area in which your protagonist did not have permission to cross as a teenager. Write up a brief situation in which he submitted to the rule. And another brief situation in which he deliberately broke it.

2.                    What emotions did he experience as an after-effect?

Share: Which emotional version do you think is most effective for the situation you have your character in now?

Maps

Information boards and kiosks, from local hiking trails to prestigious museums, have one common note. “You are here.” The maps may be plain, in color, different sizes, with or without words, but the X marks the spot is clear enough to give the visitor a sense of place, a center from which to choose their direction.

Not only do these information markers cut down on employees being asked to give directions, but they also add a sense of safety and security emotionally. Disorientation in physical surrounding often results in immediate stress. For adventurers it’s an adrenaline rush of excitement, but for others it can raise fearful memories. Either way we prefer to have some measure of control.

In the movie Moonacre, orphan Maria Merryweather is introduced to her new country home as uncle takes her for a ride around the land, marking out the boundaries, and giving clear warnings as to where she should not go. But he also refuses any explanations, both for external dangers and her internal confusion. He removes her father’s book despite her pleadings and locks it away in a forbidden room. He tells her what she may and may not do, and then ignores her questions, often dismissing her with curt exits.

Left with only a partial map of her new surroundings, she attempts to find some solid ground emotionally and tumbles into more and more bewildering situations. Still she tries to make sense of where she is, and why her uncle lives as he does, and what does it all have to do with the hidden book.

Bit by bit she explores this new territory and creates her own map to discover what her inheritance really is.

Journal Prompt:

Take your character to the home of a relative that she never knew existed. Literally or figuratively, close the door behind her. How does she get her bearings in this place? What emotional roller coaster does it unleash?