The Element of Location in Fiction: Beware of Screens

For those of you who know me, either personally, or from my work, you know how important location or setting is to my fiction. It is so important to me that when I begin writing something, I have to ask myself, “Where?” before anything else.

I've been thinking about the point of “Where?” since mid-December when I reflected on my NANOWRIMO experience: The Second Door. During that reflection it seemed like I picked a familiar place and started my story because I knew the place intimately or I had an emotional connection with it. Yet for some reason, that rationale is just not good enough for me.

I mean, why pick a place at all? Why not put your characters in a vacuum and let them go through their battles and dramas and conflict in an open space devoid a pinpointable location?

I have had my time working in film. I've had a limited experience writing for the screen. When you write for the screen, you immediately give all the others in the process a time and locale. It gives a context and puts a story in a conceivable, if not concrete, place.

And after thinking about my training as a screenwriter and the use of time and locale, I don't think that's why location in my fiction is so important. After all, when you write for the screen it's all about the basic premise and your treatment of it. It's all about your character and how that character matters to the audience. This is an over-simplification of things, of course. But the question remains, why do I care so much about location when I write?

As I explained on December 13's post, I pick places to set stories from a trove of places I know well.

Places I know well should include all the neighborhoods where I've lived. Places I know well are places I've spent a great deal of time. And believe me, I've gotten around. I've lived in many neighborhoods in many cities and in half a dozen countries.

Simply living in a neighborhood or a city or a country doesn't mean that you can get to know it intimately. In fact, for us, in the modern age, I think it's almost impossible to know a place intimately at all.

I have been blessed in life. This is something that becomes exceedingly clear to me on a daily basis. Even though we can all say these things, being blessed and all, I have a specific reason for it.

My specific reason? Well, you know it has to do with location and my ability to reference any number of locations instantly. It occurred to me just today as I walked my son to school. It's cold here this time of year. It's especially cold here during that particular time of day. And no matter the weather, we walk to school. Daily. We walk to school because it is only six or seven blocks. We walk to school because we do not have the car. The family car is with my wife at that hour.

I wouldn't drive anyway. It's not because I have a particularly strong aversion to it, I just find it unnecessary.

But why?

I'm blessed in life because I have never let a screen come between me and the world around me. In this case, I have not let a windshield (or windscreen) come between me and the world. Anywhere I have ever lived, I have either walked, used public transportation or a bicycle to get around. Walking or biking I especially love because I like the air, I like the views or the neighborhood which are digestible at that speed.

Moving at a slow speed, I believe, there is ample time to see and understand nuance. There are the cracks in the sidewalks or the initials and dates that remain from when the concrete was new. There are the gardens and even these change daily be it by the gardener or mother nature. A slow pace through your neighborhood whether you live there a month or a decade, you really get an intimacy with it.

My mind wanders. My mind wanders especially when I walk. So now, for me, I have a slow pace and a wandering mind. My imagination is boundless, like all of us.

I can remember certain thoughts because I remember the vistas I knew when I thought them. And at any time I feel like I can reference those thoughts like I do those vistas.

So, yes, I'm suggesting the world as seen from the inside of a windscreen cannot be unknown, but I don't think it can be known intimately. Through the windscreen, the world will pass by and quickly. Nuance is gone.

Location is only a factor for me because I can write it well. I write it well because I know it well. I'm grateful for this intimate knowledge and I'm grateful for so many places. I'm now indebted to them.