 Action/Adventure: September 08, 2021 Issue [#10971] |
This week: Location Is Everything Edited by: Storm Machine  
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“There is something particularly fascinating about seeing places you know in a piece of art - be that in a film, or a photograph, or a painting.”
― Sara Sheridan (Or a novel, really)
“Places are never just places in a piece of writing. If they are, the author has failed. Setting is not inert. It is activated by point of view.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House |
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Location, location, location. It's important for real estate. But it's also important for an adventure. What does it mean when you talk about your amazing adventure you're going to write? How much does your setting make or break your plot? How is it integrated into the entire background and foreground of the story?
If location is everything, we need to know the location as a fundamental piece of everything. I'm not saying we need purple prose. And sometimes the walls are blue because the writer just liked blue for that room. Not everything needs to be deep and meaningful, but you can weave in the things that are important. Stay with me - all right...
I want to write a new adventure. It looks different if I'm putting it in the mountains versus a deserted island? The sandy beaches is not at all the same for travel as the rocky summit of a mountain. It'll look different in Canada or Gabon. Sometimes we use made-up places, and that be a little more complicated.
The thing about a deserted island with a beach or Canada - they're real places with real rules. When we write stories, we can take little liberties with the location and the reader will roll with it. (Most of the time) But when we make it up from scratch, it is important to know all of the little things that need to go into your setting and how it interacts with your story.
What about a story in space? You can't breathe in space. This is important to know and have your characters plan accordingly. Maybe, like Q in Star Trek, it doesn't really matter and your character can move through different atmospheres without issue. Yet there's always a chance that it happens more like A Wrinkle in Time where someone wants to pull the kids through a really cool 2D world but only when they arrive you find out the kids can't breathe there. At all!
I love stories in the ocean, but it is very important to remember the pressure and the light change at different depths. This is really cool but also tricky to navigate. What creatures look like at different depths and in different habitats.
Sometimes your location leads to different hierarchy structures within the characters - like a castle on the beach likely isn't going to have just one person in it- it takes a lot to keep that castle well cared for. What else can you imagine within all of that? If you wonder if your story is meshing well, first try changing it to something else. Does your story need to change, or does it adapt decently when you add the details that came into contact with your plot details? Every time you're looking for your location, don't be afraid to adjust it until you find the right one. And good luck! |
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Beholden 
I left Africa because God pushed me. One day I was digging my heels in, convinced I would stay forever while those around me were leaving, the next I had decided and was making arrangements to go. In two weeks, I was gone.
When it's time to leave, you just know.
I think we knew it was time to leave before COVID hit, but we just didn't get until last June.
Monty 
Thank you for an interesting look at the means to an end.
Thanks! |
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