A setting
that stands out in a story has these two elements
* It
changes the characters
* It
is changed by the characters
That is,
like a character, it shapes and is shaped by the story.
How do settings change the characters? Here are just a few
examples.
Rugged
settings strengthen characters. The character is transported to a grueling environment.
There, they find an inner strength they didn’t know they possessed. Think Lord of the Rings, Hunger Games or just
about any WWII novel. Even Little House
on the Prairie (the books, not the TV show).
Placid
settings humanize and soften characters. Here, the ambitious character comes home again to
Small Town, USA or the Wall Street banker finds himself working on a ranch where
they’ll learn what life is really all about.
Foreign settings
transform a character culturally. Here, historical sagas (The Far Pavilions, Voice in the Wind), sci-fi (Dune) and fantasy (The
Chronicles of Narnia) take a character to a new world, and just as any
ordinary Joe or Jane will find they’re never quite all-American again once they
spend a couple of years in Argentina or India, so it is with our character. They
grow and learn to balance between two worlds.
A new setting teaches a character who they
are. Sometimes it’s magical. Hari of Blue
Sword is just awkward until she is kidnapped and carried to the severe
desert kingdom. There, she finds the magic she was born to coming alive.
Sometimes, it’s realistic. In Brooklyn,
Eilis simply learns what she’s capable of by moving from Ireland to a bustling
American metropolis.
An old setting
defines a character with ever-increasing tension. Whether it’s the sacred
Jewish character of Hasidic Brooklyn in The
Chosen or the passionate, family-oriented character of a small Georgia town
in A Place to Call Home, as the
novels progress, the character find out in ever-deepening ways how their
settings claim and define them.
Of course,
that’s just a small sampling of ways that setting can change character. How
about the reverse – how can characters
change setting?
Characters
improve their setting.
Sometimes, it's a big thing -- bringing a town to life in A Town Like Alice. Sometimes it’s just a small thing – a character restoring a rundown cabin or painting
a room. As they make their setting more livable, the reader feels vicariously
as if they’ve been given a do-over.
Characters
change the course of events that define the setting. That is, they change the
course of a war or unjust colonization. Sometimes, they heroically bring goodness
back to their home. But ever popular, especially in sci-fi, is the character
who unwittingly sets a course for destruction to a story world – Orson Scott
Card’s Ender’s Game or Mary Doria
Russell’s Sparrow.
Characters
Humanize an Inhumane Setting. Whether it’s a musician playing their heart out in
war torn Bosnia (The Cellist of Sarajevo)
or an athlete who won’t be beaten down in a concentration camp (Unbroken), the character who lives well
in spite of overwhelming odds turns a bleak setting into a place of hope.
I always learn from you. You see things in such an extraordinary way.
ReplyDeletePshaw! You taught me half of what I know :)
DeleteWe could go back and forth on that all day. :o)
ReplyDelete