Worldbuilding: Environment as Character

One of the things I love about Game of Thrones is how it uses a wide reach of locations-- both in story and in the filming.  They shoot the show in Croatia, Ireland, Iceland, Morocco, and I don't even know where else.  One of the great things Martin has done in the books-- and it translates onto the show-- is paint a large canvas of different places and different environments, and letting those environments define the character of that part of the story.

Now, if you're going to do this well, you need to do some research into biomes.  Now, there are several different definitions for the different types of biomes, different systems to define said biomes.  Most of these involve looking at the factors of temperature, moisture and elevation.  

I'm partial to the definitions in my handy Biome Key, pictured here, and based off the World Wide Fund for Nature's system.  Figuring out what biome your story is set in will define the character of your story.  Food, clothing and attitude of your people will all be drawn from the biome of their environment.  

Now, some of these distinctions may seem trivial-- how different is a Xeric Shrubland from an Arid Desert or a Subtropical Dry Forest?  But having a strong understanding of exactly what the environment is like builds the verisimilitude of your worldbuilding.

And with that, of course, is the flora and fauna.  Beyond the domesticated and edible ones, you have to think about how each of those exists in the environment.  If you're building something fantastical or science-fictional, give some consideration to the whole ecology.  How do the different creatures survive their environment, especially if it's harsh?  What do they eat?  What does what they eat eat?  How does what they eat avoid getting eaten long enough to maintain a balance.  You don't want, say, an area filled with alpha predators and very little prey.

What biomes are you writing in, and how are you distinguishing it as a unique place for your story?

Environmentality

We're discussing Environment as a character this week, and I'm going to divide my post into two points. Protagonist and Antagonist.

For arguments sake, I'm going to assume the protagonist version is a supporting character and not the main character because that is something I did in the Persephone Alcmedi series.

Here's an excerpt from HALLOWED CIRCLE, Chapter Three:

 

The breeze increased, but didn’t flutter the corn. Only the treetops danced.

"Come."

The ley line spoke!

The grove’s branches swayed, beckoning me. Then all at once the field was inviting me, stalks undulating, tassels nodding, pennant-like leaves waving me in, encouraging me to step into the row, into the arms of the stalks.

Intrigued, I laid down the sickle and succumbed to the summoning. Immediately the row stilled as the dried
leaves reached high, making an aisle for me, opening as if this procession of one moving toward that seat of power in the grove was a most welcome guest.

My steps, punctuated by the crunching of dead weeds underfoot, released aromas that combined the
smell of harvest: the scents of soil and a field of vegetation left to deteriorate and rot, withering in the wind of ever-cooler days. In the embrace of the stalks, my fingers trailed outward, feeling their dry husks, the texture of the season.

The ley line sent a pulse to acknowledge me. I expected a faint hiccup, like a little gust of wind, but this
was much stronger, like the tremor of a small earthquake under my feet or the bass drum at a rock concert thudding out its rhythm against my chest.

Something was different. Why?

"You are different."

I walked on. Great. The ley line knows I’m stained. Just what I wanted, to feel more like a freak.


In my series, the ley line is Mother Nature and she has power to share...but be careful. She bites.

 Instead of talking about Environment as a Antagonist, I'm going to point to some previous posts.
 A while back I posted The Happy Side of Villany and Vermin and Volcanoes, Vermin and Vices  where in I discussed JAWS, TWISTER, and ZOMBIES as villains. All three are versions of Mother Nature totally come to kick your ass.

Have a great week and ROCK ON! -Linda

When Mother Nature is a Character

There are some stories where Nature comes alive--both as benefactor and antagonist. However, unlike a mortal villain, there are no Goals, Motivations, or Conflicts driving that wholly unpredictable character.  Or wholly predictable character.  Whichever suits your plot, Nature can be molded to fit your need. Just look to the real-world for inspiration:

The winter of 1946 held the Donner Party hostage until they'd resorted to cannibalism. Why? 'Cause...terrain+weather=Nature.


Quin Shi Huang's tomb (the one with the famous Chinese statue army) is considered too deadly to fully excavate. Why? All the traps--those planned by Emperor, those created by Nature over centuries, and those that are a mingling of the two.

The Siberian sinkholes, erm, craters that suddenly appeared? The extremely flammable methane from those holes? Why? Nature.

And if Magic is your thing--be it Magical Realism or full-on High Mage Elementals--well, the environment is everything: setting, character, quest, conflict, and goal.  Think of the classic Connecticut Yankee using foreknowledge of the eclipse to "prove" his magic or James's Seven Forges (beyond the Blasted Lands, there's the whole silver hand thing).  Me? I'm working on a fantasy reason for the molten blue lava to appear as a character (in the real-world, the sulfuric gasses cause the blue glow).

One of the many beauties of building up the setting until it too is a character is that it can take an indomitable protagonist down a whole lot of pegs. It can also boost an unlikely weakling into the ranks of hero. It can make a heist far more deadly than a shoot-out, or a sea-voyage riskier than a race through the Dolomites.

And if your cast of fleshy characters is constantly in tune with Nature--viewing her as a threat or as an ally--then their relationship with and to the environment will automatically make Nature into a character. It pays to be mindful of that relationship.

So, that's a long way of saying, Nature is always a character in the story. The question is whether she's a main character or a supporting cast-member.

Three Ways to Add an Important Character: the Environment

When I first nursed the fragile and unlikely idea of becoming a writer, I took a class called "Essays on Self and Place." It was taught by a visiting writer at the university where I was a grad student in Neurophysiology. In other words, I felt both brave and... I'm trying to think of the right description. Not afraid so much as kind of a fraud. I didn't have any good reason to think I could make a career as a writer instead of as a scientist, as I'd planned and invested in. And I felt like every-other person I mentioned the idea to replied that, oh yes, they wanted to be a writer, too!

It's a difficult transition to make, so to all of you out there contemplating taking that step, I get it.

At any rate, I took that class with that writer mostly because of timing. I wanted to get going on seeing if I could be a writer, the evening class fit my schedule, was open to people outside the department and degree program - and sounded interesting. So much serendipity smiled on that choice.

I think I've always been strongly connected to my environment. My interest in science grew out of a love for the natural world. Where I live is vitally important to me - so much so that it took me a long time to get that not everyone felt the same way. This course, where we focused on writing about our connections to place and how they shaped us, crystallized that for me. My first published works - essays, naturally - came out of that class. Amazingly fast, too, which came as incredibly important validation for that step.

Though I've moved into writing fiction now, place still plays a vital role in my work. Sometimes deliberately - the City of New Orleans is pretty much another character in Ruby, something many readers love about that story - but place also plays a role in the world-building in my fantasy books too. At a booksigning, a reader asked me about my academic background and when I explained my crooked path from biology to fiction-writing, he nodded and said that explained so much about why my Twelve Kingdoms environment feels so intricate and real.

Which is terribly cool!

So, how to make the environment be a character? Here are three ways to start:

Pick a Place

This might seem like a no-brainer, but the place in which a story occurs is a vitally important decision. It should be more than whether this is a city or the country. If a city, how old is it? What kind of people live there? Is it coastal or land-locked? Think about how the humidity rises and falls, what kinds of storms the area experiences (see below). Even in city environments, there is wildlife, if only rats and pigeons. In rural areas, other kinds of animals might come in, particularly if looking for food because of other forces of nature like drought or a bad winter. The more detail of this sort (which doesn't all have to be on the page, see this post), the more vivid the place will be.

Know the Weather

The weather should be more than the cliché dark and stormy night. Place is profoundly impacted by how variable or steady the weather is. Is it usually cloudy and rainy like the Pacific Northwest? Is it a sunny desert? How does the changing weather - or lack of change - affect the moods of the people living there? In The Mark of the Tala and The Tears of the Rose, some of the action takes place at Windroven, a castle built on a dormant volcano on the coast. The storms and tides of that place play a role in what happens - for example, in a siege situation.

Be Aware of the Sun(s) and Moon(s)

The length of the day and night can affect what the characters can and can't do. Beyond what season it is, be aware of how early or late the sun rises and sets. What is the moon cycle? If not on earth, how do perhaps multiple moonrises affect the amount of light? A night with a full moon is very different than one with at the dark of the moon. Are the sunsets spectacular or always behind wall of fog? These things can be backdrops for scenes that help set the mood and influence the characters decisions.

Obviously this is a big topic, but there's some places to start. What details about place do you like to see in books? What's an example of a book you love where the environment feels like another character?