| "My wound is geography. It is also my anchorage, my | | | | ship that become part of the plot. |
| port of call." --Pat Conroy in his novel The Prince of | | | | When you create place, think of it as a living thing. |
| Tides | | | | (You can do this without going back to the days |
| I like the opening words to Prince of Tides for they | | | | when authors often inserted dozens of pages of |
| tell me that place--in this instance, the South Carolina | | | | description into the beginnings and endings of |
| marshes and sea islands--will play an important part in | | | | chapters while the story more or less sat there on |
| Conroy's novel, almost like an alternately angelic and | | | | hold.) |
| cruel character who knows and sees all. | | | | One way to become more attuned to place is by |
| Place is the living canvas on which your characters | | | | noting how good directors use it in film and how |
| are painted, the arena in which they compete with | | | | accomplished authors account for it in their books. In |
| each other and love each other, the scope of their | | | | film, your focus might be two characters standing on |
| world. Whether the setting is of minimal | | | | a street corner--but look past them and see what's |
| consequence, as in a room or park where two | | | | happening in the background. The place is alive, even |
| people just happen to meet, or of great | | | | if the passing cars and children playing games and |
| consequence, as in a classic man against nature | | | | clouds floating on the horizon have little observable |
| story, place is seldom value-neutral. | | | | impact on the characters. |
| Place can be a wound, as Conroy writes, whether its | | | | In novels, watch how authors create their settings |
| a dimly lit alley in a high crime neighborhood, a sad | | | | and how they remind you about those settings many |
| and dirty room in an old house, or a farm where | | | | pages later. How do the characters interact with the |
| generations have lived without flourishing. Place can | | | | setting? Do they talk about the weather? Do they |
| be a port of call whether it's truly a liberty port for | | | | observe and think about what they're seeing? Do |
| sailors returning home from fishing or the war or the | | | | they recall childhood moments when they drive past |
| "Little House on the Prairie" or "Walton's Mountain" | | | | old parks and old houses? Is the setting complicating |
| that anchors and sustains family members throughout | | | | the plot in any way or is simply there in the |
| the slings and arrows of their lives. | | | | background? |
| Whether it's serving as a wound or an achorage, | | | | When you have created place with the same care as |
| place often becomes a symbol for your protagonist's | | | | you have created your characters, the work |
| lot in life whether s/he actively sees it that way or | | | | becomes all of a piece and the reader will feel that |
| not. You can sketch in place with a just a few words | | | | the people you're writing about really are "there" and |
| rather like an artist using a charcoal pencil. Or you can | | | | that they belong "there." |
| fill your canvas with details, poetic and/or utilitarian, | | | | In the second paragraph of The Prince of Tides, |
| photographic or impressionistic. | | | | notice how Conroy shows you his setting by |
| Perhaps, like the director of the Sound of Music, you | | | | establishing the character's history and relationship |
| begin with a wide shot, figuratively speaking, creating | | | | with it: |
| the setting first before you come in close on the | | | | "I grew up slowly beside the tides and marshes of |
| characters. Or, you start close in and then pull back | | | | Colleton; my arms were tawny and strong from |
| letting the place show itself after the initial action has | | | | working long days on the shrimp boat in the blazing |
| sequence begun. | | | | South Carolina heat. Because I was a Wingo, I |
| My analogy of place as a painting or a photograph, | | | | worked as soon as I could walk; I could pick a blue |
| though, might create a misconception here that place | | | | crab clean when I was five. I had killed my first deer |
| is static. Place, like your own neighborhood or your | | | | by the age of seven, and at nine was regularly |
| commute to work or your favorite vacation spot, | | | | putting meat on my family's table. I was born and |
| moves and changes either close up, as in birds flying | | | | raised on a Carolina sea island and I carried the |
| across the top of the sky, or close in, as in the | | | | sunshine of the low country, inked in gold, on my |
| neighbor's lawn mower outside your window at dawn. | | | | back and shoulders. As a boy, I was happy above |
| Some aspects of place are added throughout the | | | | the channels, navigating a small boat between the |
| novel anchor the story and remind the reader where | | | | sandbars with their quiet nation of oysters exposed |
| he is; other aspects confront the characters and tie | | | | on the brown flats at the low watermark. I knew |
| into the plot: it might be a thundershower that gets | | | | every shrimper by name, and they knew me and |
| their clothes wet on the way to the next piece of | | | | sounded their horns when they passed me fishing in |
| the plot; it might be a washed-out bridge or a sinking | | | | the river. |