sense of place

[bedlamsbard]

I have had an epiphany. I've been starting to wonder, lately, if there's something wrong with me -- I read a lot of author blogs, and obviously I watch metafandom and follow links and so on, and one of the things that's come up continually is, "I started writing so I could read stories about people who look like me," or variations on that theme. And that's a great theme! People should totally write books or stories on that theme. But the thing is that it's never a theme that's driven me; maybe I don't have a really strong sense of self.

I realized today, driving from Ellensburg to Yakima, through rolling hills covered with sagebrush and sparse brown grass, that it wasn't stories about people that looked like me that I wanted, but stories about places that looked like the place where I live. And that's a much rarer thing to find especially in the genres I read. (Which is not to say that Japanese-American fantasy is common, because, ha, no.)

It strikes me that that's what I've been trying to do lately in my writing: build up a sense of place, a sense of setting as character, as essential to the story. But where I live, the land doesn't look anything like the generic western European fantasy land that tends to show up in novels: neither place I live, Washington or Louisiana. And that's a crying shame, because -- if the land is different, how does that change the story?

(One of many reasons I love S.M. Stirling's writing: the Emberverse is set in my neck of the woods, and Stirling uses the geography, and not only that, but he does it for my favorite kind of warfare. <3)

If my Narnia didn't look western enough before, just wait until the sagebrush shows up.

Comments

[snacky]

It strikes me that that's what I've been trying to do lately in my writing: build up a sense of place, a sense of setting as character, as essential to the story.

I've always found your Narnia-fic to have an excellent sense of place, even if you've only been trying to do it lately. ;) Your descriptions of the physical settings have always been quite vivid, at least for me.

[bedlamsbard]

I was trying to do it before, but I haven't really been doing it consciously until recently, and I think I just figured out why.

[sara]

Hah. YES THIS.

[bedlamsbard]

NO ONE WILL EVER SEE THE SAGEBRUSH COMING.

[sara]

*begins singing theme from Bonanza*

[dogstar]

I want a Like button. This!

[dogstar]

Adding more because I've gone away and thorught about it more.

I'm pretty non-lacking in fiction-that-lives-where-I-do, in all honesty. There is no shortage of fiction set in Texas, although Bruce Sterling's "Heavy Weather" is the only thing I can think of off the top of my head that's really genre fiction- it's set out in dryer, rockier west Texas, not the southern end of the Plains and scrubland that Dallas inhabits, though.) But I really DO love to see detailed landscapes and environments that WORK- that show the author has thought about them as more than just a generic "It's a forest, there are squirrels, and rabbits, and some generic birds that are probably mostly brown, and owls." I mean, is it a forest with pine needles on the floor, with leaves and rocky moss, or thick undergrowth you have to cut out of the way and brambles. Or plains! They're not made of golf course grass!

[bedlamsbard]

Yes, exactly! I was thinking about that when I was writing the last couple chapters of Dust, which is the point where I sat up and went, "I can write a forest, sure, I've been in a lot of forests, but the forests I've been have been pine forests, and I'm not sure how common they are elsewhere, but that's the only kind of forest I know how to write without fucking something up, so that's what I'll write." And when I was writing Dust-era Cair Paravel; there are so many generic western European fantasy cities, I wanted something that would really pop as unique and unusual but still feel real.

There is no fiction, genre or not, that is set where I live. There's a lot of fiction set in western Washington (Twilight, for one; Forks has made bank off that), but western Washington and eastern Washington are two completely different animals.

[dogstar]

Yes - a friend of mine's stepfather is running a Forks tourism business. *headdesk*

[cofax7]

Heh, yup. Damn near everything I've written of any substance is all about the sense of place.

[bedlamsbard]

I think I've been building to it for a while now, but it just hit me that this was what I was actually trying to do. (Dude, the fact that two of my favorite series are ones that I consider so strong because the setting is practically a character in itself should have been the first clue. OH BED.)

[dogstar]

What do you mean 'practically'? :P Narnia is totally a charater!

[ineptshieldmaid]

Oh, yes. Literature at large is not lacking in People Who Look Like Me, but it is *certainly* lacking in places-that-look-like-mine. I now don't think it was particularly well done, but props to Cecilia Dart-Thornton for mixing Australian flora and fauna into her pseudo-celtic fantasy 'verse. I will read the shit out of poetry that feels about the authors' location the way I feel about mine (even if it's not my location, but bonus points if it is). I will be bitterly disappointed if I buy a book set in my home town and it turns out to be crap.

[bedlamsbard]

Oh, yes. I love books where the setting is as much a character as the actual people. (Which I've known for years; two of my favorite authors have Boston and New York as secondary characters, and this should have been a clue.)

Have you read Karen Healey's book Guardian of the Dead? I've heard that one manages to do Australia fairly well, and is a fun read to boot. (Though I have not read it. Must find it!)

[ineptshieldmaid]

I have not read Karen Healey, no!

Have *you* read Sara Douglass' Troy Game series? That one has London as a major character. It's fun. Also William the Conqueror is very very hot in that series.