The Importance of Place

The Importance of a Sense of Place

I remember being told in a graduate fiction creative writing course by John Dufresne 

that I use “excruciatingly tangible details of place.” And this is still true in all of my

writing.  I want to put the reader there.  PLACE is super-important in fiction, memoir

and poetry.  It is where you ground your characters, so the reader has a clear picture of

where the action is taking place.  And because they are grounded when these character

use dialogue they are not just “talking heads” suspended in space.

Place to some extent is synonymous with setting and if it is strong enough can

almost portray a character in the work. For instance Jack London’s wilderness

(place) is so convincing that it becomes the actual antagonist in his short story,

“To Light A fire,” in which the main character dies because he’s out in the wilds

and doesn’t know how to properly light a fire.  London gives us the setting of

the outdoors in severe, frigid, wintry weather, and plenty of snow with night

descending while his character is trying to light a fire from a single match to

keep from freezing to death. 

Place can be a kitchen, the woods, a church, the dining room table, etc.  Once

you chose the location here’s what happens—let’s say I chose the dining-room

table at Thanksgiving.  Mood and theme immediately enter our brains as well. 

Is it a happy time, sad? Perhaps because of a recent death in the family we have

the added perspective of grief looming.  Crepe is hanging from the mirror over

the sideboard.  Is the food on the table going to speak to the reader about what

kind of family this is, what kind of kinky hang-ups they have?

In reading Jonathan Franzen’s quirky, wonderful novel, The Corrections, we get

a scene at the dinner table where Al and Enid and their two little boys Chip and

Gary are partaking of a really yucky meal.  Enid has served the small children a

mound of overcooked rutabaga, liver, and turnip greens, if recollection serves me

well.  So the older boy Gary eats up everything and pleases the mother, while the

younger son goes through all sorts of machinations not to eat, and at first the

father helps him by polishing off some of the food on Chip’s plate and then says

that if the Chip eats everything he can have dessert.  The mother states she has

pineapple, the father says that if he eats the dinner he should get something like

a cookie. The mother doesn’t budge, the older boy eats the pineapple, and the

Dad feels threatened, guilty what-have-you—lots going on in his thoughts as

well as the table.  I think I got this right—finally the father gives the order that

Chip will not have dessert and will not move from the table till he finishes eating.

This creates conflict and tension and many other opportunities for motivation,

cause and effect.

Another example of the significance that a scene can play using a strong sense

of place is from Amulya Malladi’s The Mango Season. Malladi makes use of place—

the heart of the house, in this case an Indian kitchen.  It is here where three

generations of women, plus a sister-in-law and a cousin are cutting mangoes in

order to pickle them, and where a lot of intimate family details are revealed with

a quite a bit of cattiness, which displays each characters’ personality, traits, and

gives the reader insights into family and its hierarchy.

These are only a few examples of place in fiction.  In poetry, what first comes

to mind first is the strong sense of place that echo the themes and geography

of New England.  Maxine Kumin uses features and topographies of her world

and in her poetry.  In her fourth collection, Up Country, the poems are inspired

by her life near the woods and on the farm, and the collection was awarded the

Pulitzer Prize. Another poet who uses terrain and countryside as background

for his poetry is Robert Frost.  Yet another is Mary Oliver.  But any good poet

worth his/her words knows instinctively that the backgrounds, backdrops and

backcloths of good poetry are necessary elements of craft to build the poem.  

When I write poetry, fiction or nonfiction, the people I use for characters are

portrayed in different scenes. Usually images of places come to mind first before

I start a first draft. In my poem “The Death of August” the reader knows

immediately where the scene is happening.  We get the landscape and panorama

and a picture is sharply painted. Here are the beginning lines:

            Last eventide before Corsican starfall

            we watched sunfire slip to its descent

            beyond the mountain that is Bonifacio.

In my short story, “The Other Side of the Gates,” the main character Oreste Spano

is a prison cook. So naturally we will see him at work cooking in that old kitchen. 

Here’s the opening of this story.

Oreste Spano struck a match against the Regina Coeli prison's kitchen wall.

Lighting a cigarette, he thought of his children.  He'd risk anything to see them.

When the cigarette burned down and he felt the heat on his lips, he took three

long drags and flicked it upwards.  The cigarette ricocheted off the rusty iron

window frame. It glanced off his shoulder, bouncing onto the floor.  Spano

crushed it.

The use of solid, concrete objects and characters in a particular surrounding

or place can only infuse the writing with force that spells control and the sense

that this writer knows where he’s leading me, the reader.

Excerpt from my short story “The Thief” published in the collection: 

The Other Side of the Gates (10/2014)

           

Thieving always came easy to me, and I enjoyed it.  I practiced, raising

my skill to an art form, but never realized there was something more

important I needed in my life until I walked onto the promenade deck

of the Oceana.  It was a revelation that shook every fiber of my muscles,

but I didn't learn its importance until that day in May, 1988 when I

reached the marketplace in Cairo, and stepped into the El Calili souk. 

             

I stopped by the railing as the ship hit some nasty weather. 

The boat rocked and pitched and my footing was unsure.  I had

noticed a knockout bookish type with a beard and horn-rimmed

glasses at the fire drill earlier.  He seemed a little stuffy, and

reminded me of someone, but I couldn't place whom.  The man

was six feet of delicious.  I'm a tiny girl, bottle blonde and have

been described as a pixie, a word I hate. 

From the corner of my eye, I watched him stroll around, and

then it happened.  He casually bumped into an elderly gentle-

man and lifted the man's wallet.  Now, for sure, I was

determined to make his acquaintance. 

           

I pretended not to have seen him, turned abruptly, and crashed

him.  Fortuitous?  Hell, no.  Calculated! 

           

"I beg your pardon," he said and introduced himself. "I am

Count James Ausberry-Bickerford Contraire." 

           

In my heart I knew he wasn’t a Brit, and no way a count, but

my lineage couldn’t even lay claim to being a Jewish-American

Princess from New York’s lower eastside.

 "Pleased to meet you." I offered my hand.  "Marchesa Titi

Patagonia,” I said, dreaming up a title and hoping we would

hit it off.  Our meeting electrified the air like the ensuing storm. 

He kissed my hand, and with him still holding it, my other hand

was on his money clip.  Destiny? I left nothing to fate's whimsies.  

I laughed at his formality.

            "My dear,"

                                                                        "You have a wonderful laugh."  He extended his palm for his

money clip,                                                      money clip and moved his fingers as if to say, Give it back.

           

"Caught!"  Not just me, but him too.  I wanted him to think he

was dealing with a rank beginner.  

             "It doesn't appear that you're in need of money."  He sounded

aloof, but no way off-putting.  He gave me a gander, approved.

             

I was about to hand him back his money clip when I declared,

“Sorry, I never restitute stolen goods—contrary to my principles. 

I’ll treat for coffee.  This type of stealing isn't my specialty, but I

was dying to try it after observing you at work with that man over

there."  I pointed to the elderly gentleman, struggling to open the

heavy door that led to the game room. 

           

The Count hooked my arm, and his touch registered TILT on my

mental pinball machine so much so that I placed my hand on my

racing heart.  

            “Are you unwell?” he asked.

I couldn’t be better, but went mute, thinking maybe romance

was also in store for me, not just a possible business partnership. 

He escorted me towards the old man. "You saw me relieve the

gentleman of his purse?  I had mistakenly assumed that my

performance had gone unobserved.  An oversight."   He bent down

with the man's wallet in his hand, straightened and said, "Sir, I

believe you dropped this." He then opened the heavy steamer door

for all three of us.

This essay first appeared on www.bridlepathpress.com 11/2013