When a Place Becomes a Character

 The places where stories happen matter, and not just because a story has to occur in something other than the ether - unless you are writing that kind of steampunk/Victorian thing. Setting becomes a character when it evokes a feeling in the reader. It becomes an active character when the setting foreshadows or foretells events. Setting can mirror events - the photo to the right is Pike Place Market - a setting I used in Bound by Ink. It's a cramped, claustrophobic place to meet a serial killer, don't you think? It was a great mirror for the tension in the scene - and that the ramp slops down, possibly into hell, foreshadows a few things that crop up later in that story.
 

The other option is to have the setting contrast the story action and/or the protagonist's mood. Looking at this photo of one of the lovingly restored Victorian homes in Port Townsend, WA, you can see either a beautiful old home, or a frightening, likely haunted, old mausoleum. It entirely depends on your protagonist's frame of mind - which is another great point. Setting is brilliant not just because you get to flex your descriptive muscle in the prose, but because it is a glimpse into the depths of your characters' states of mind. The protagonist and the antagonist aren't likely to see this pretty blue sky and roofline the same way if the house is the antagonist's mad scientist lair. All the sharp wrought iron will look menacing to whoever is being dragged into the  house while bound in chains. The person doing the dragging may be whistling a cheery tune because he adores how well constructed this old house is - no one can hear his victims scream! It's charming!

When you visit a place, any place, and you have an emotional response - good or bad - take a picture. Always take a picture. Even if you take terrible photos - you're storing up not just setting options - you're storing up those emotions. Your aim is to look at something like this rock formation in Ohio and recall what you felt while you were there. If you can do that, chances are you can capture that feeling on the page for your characters when you need it. (In my case, it was 'OMG, I'm looking at the passage of x number of years per layer of rock and that is the coolest thing EVER.' Yes. I'm a dork.)

This photo at left is an old gun battery emplacement in Port Townsend, WA. Fort Warden State Park. Can you not see the zombies shambling up that dirt and grass track toward you? Fine, sunny day. Warm concrete. The undead approach and you go cold. Maybe that's the other reason to take photos of places that evoke a powerful response in you - they suggest their own stories. And when that happens, it's a really good indication that the setting in question IS alive and stepping forward to help drive a character and a story.


Setting matters, but only so much as it evokes emotion, drives characters, and/or moves the plot in some fashion. The fastest and easiest way to get those things is to use a setting that already moves you. Unless you write scifi. Then please. No attempting to breathe vacuum.

Not So Mad Science Experiments

Mad science isn't always as mad as first it seems.






Case in point: I write this blog post while tucked up in a huge bed in a hotel room that's far too big for one person. Why? It's an experiment. We all recall how experiments are supposed to be designed, yes?






Hypothesis, experimental set resulting in data that either prove or disprove the hypothesis. (Okay, it's way more complicated than that in the real world, but I'm not attempting to get my experiment into a peer reviewed journal, I swear.)






The original problem to be solved: Adult life is noisy. The brain is filled with GOTTA DO, GOTTA BE. OMG, DON'T FORGET THE THING! Normal stuff. It's just that over time, responsibilities can gain so much volume that they drown out the quieter voices of story.




Thus, hypothesis: Casting off responsibility to everyone and everything but oneself for a brief period of time (minimum of 3 days) will drain the noise from the brain so story voices become more prominent.






Given the tolerance of family and modern life (and possibly the bank account), the experimental set is poorly designed because it encompasses only one sample set: A hotel far enough away from daily life so that daily life cannot easily intrude, yet close enough to not destroy a budget. My experiment set is structured like this: Get on the first ferry of the day (5:30AM) and put Puget Sound between me and the rest of my life. Bus to Port Townsend - a Victorian seaport that was supposed to have been what Seattle became - a huge, bustling port. It didn't. Now, it's a lovely little town of galleries, shops and Victorian era buildings which includes the Palace Hotel. Yes. It was, at one time, a brothel. I stay in Miss Kitty's room. It's on the corner of the building with views of the ocean and of the main street in town. Every evening at dusk, the local starling flock plays tag up and down Water Street. This room is the best front row seat for that acrobat show. Port Townsend is where aging hippies come to retire and to farm. And start up restaurants featuring all local, organic produce, herbs, and other yummy stuff. The town is big enough that there's always something to see if you don't mind walking. It's small enough that you'll see pretty much everything in a day unless you have a way to get up to Fort Warden to wander the old gun emplacements on the bluffs overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Point being that there are cool things in town to see, but not so many that a writer looking to drain the brain noise will be distracted and lulled by all the shiny. Did I mention writing? Required as part of this experiment. Pen and paper. Laptop. Don't care how it happens, but it must. No rules. No constraints. Doesn't have to be the WIP. It can all be journaling - anything to get what's clogging up the synapses OUT. Last time I conducted this same experiment, NIGHTMARE INK was the result. Total surprise because I was writing something else at the time. I thought. Which brings up a point. Not conducting this experiment while on deadline for a contract. Freedom to let rise whatever wants to rise within the mad scientist/writer is required.




Results? Oh, I know what I hope those will be. I know what they've been in the past - returning to everyday life with the voices of my characters strong and loud and taking up too much space inside of me. It sounds bad. It's not. When character voices are taking up too much space, they spill over onto virtual paper so easily. It's not all clarity and smooth writing, but it's a lot less like scraping my claws on a chalkboard trying to dig up a plot point or scene.






And that, all by itself is reason enough for an experiment like this. (Also? Tax deductible as a writing retreat.)

Long Stretches of Silence

Guilty pleasures.  This one was hard for me. I have a quote from an allergy cookbook, of all things. The author said "Do wrong or feel guilty. Life is too short to do both." I never once used a recipe from that book, but those two lines alone were worth the twenty bucks I paid for it.

After a week of seeing what my fellow word-whores would admit to, I realized that my guilty pleasure is running away from home.

Weird, right? Yes, I play World of Warcraft and it is a pleasure. No guilt involved. My husband plays, too. We're a formidible gaming pair. DPS gnomes all the way. We both read voraciously. No guilt involved - we're learning something, right? Okay. I suppose there's a moment of guilt when we walk out of a bookstore four hundred dollars poorer. . .Hi, my name's Marcella and I'm a book addict. Still don't feel guilty.

But running away from home? Oh yeah. It's a pleasure loaded with guilt. Don't get me wrong. I adore my family, the whole big, messy lot. (No calling to ask if *you're* the messy one I'm refering to - we've all been there.) It's just that when you're immersed in the give and take of family life - dishes, lunches, who broke what, 'Mom, where's my. . .' and 'OMG, I'm going to lie in wait for my coworker in the company garage just so I can run over his toes. . .', it's hard to carve space out for yourself.  As much as I love my husband, my felines, my parents, my in-laws, my sister and her family and all of my friends, there's an irresponsible part of me that craves long stretches of empty time, silence, and responsibility to no other living thing besides myself.

I suspect that's true for most of us. At least, I hope that's the case. I'd hate to be the only whack job on the website. The venial guilty pleasures: an hour or two of TV, a few chapters from a well-worn, much loved book, a couple of PUGs mowing through ICC in World of Warcraft, represent for each of us a respite from what everyone else in our lives needs from us. We grab an hour here or there and stitch together the frayed edges of sanity thereby. But there comes a time when only mortal guilty pleasures (like abandoning one's family for a few days) will do. When the pressure has built past a certain point, I feel stretched thin, like that onion paper your school secretary used to use with carbon paper (for those of you old enough for that image). When that happens, my head is filled with constant noise. I can't see. I can't think. I can barely feel. I sure as hell can't write. The only cure is running away from home. Responsibly.

My husband and I sit down with our schedules. We agree on three or four days for my disappearing act. I go to the same place each time (because I love the place). The Palace Hotel in Port Townsend, Washington. Port Townsend is an enclave of artists, aging hippies and farmers. The town was one of Washington's first seaports. Many of the buildings date from the Victorian era. The Palace is one such building. It's been many things in its history, including a brothel. Thus, I feel right at home.

Time has no meaning when I run off to the Palace. I wake when I want. Eat if I want. Or not. Walk the streets. No. Not like that. We're *word* whores. The point of the exercise is to empty out, to give up being so many things to so many other people, if only for a little while. For the time that I'm away, I get to devolve. I can put off the mantle of wife, kitty mom, daughter, sister, and friend. I'm just me. Alone. Out on adventure. Seeing things I'd never otherwise see. I'm the alien observer my wretched schoolmates used to accuse me of being in junior high. Not that I'm bitter. Anymore. After all, most of them have already died very messy deaths in my stories. Yeah. That's another pleasure. And no. I don't feel guilty about that one at all.