The Power of Place

"Let your fiction grow out of the land beneath your feet." Willa Cather

All fiction needs to unfold in a specific time and place, neatly imbedded with reminders that characters live in a world as vivid as our own. I've read many manuscripts where scenes are enacted on a sort of empty sound stage, or where the writer doesn't know the species of trees that grow in the region, or fails to note the time of day. Setting requires accuracy and a flair for choosing precise details that bring a place to life.

In Sue Grafton's latest novel, P is for Peril, the reader is continually reminded that her stories takes place in the 80s-there are no cell phones, web sites or laptops. While some of the mysteries in this series have fallen short (and there are problems with one of the climatic scenes in this book), in this novel Grafton is in rare form. It also showcases one of her most effective uses of setting.

The plot evolves around the troubling disappearance of a nursing home administrator, a puzzling event since he is happily married and is beloved by co-workers and patients. Grafton cleverly uses place to enhance the characters, plot and conflict. First, she uses setting to create mood, tone, and atmosphere. In a final scene, a discovery is tragically underscored by the setting details dripping with gloom.

Second, she does a terrific job at creating a consistent milieu. Her fictional town, Santa Theresa, California is in the midst of the rainy season and Grafton peppers the story with showers and cloudbursts, slickers, umbrellas, puddles, and overcast skies. Third, she also uses the weather to cause things to happen. For example, a character postpones a run because of the weather. In another scene an attack comes in the dark, when her character is most vulnerable. Fourth, she uses houses and interiors to characterize. The characters' houses reveal more than their decorating style and an ocean view, they illustrate characters' tastes, personality, class, habits, and wealth. They also provide hiding places for important clues. There is an office for rent in the story and Kinsey, the protagonist, almost rents it. But the story of why she does not, which involves the building's owners, adds conflict and a subplot that weaves throughout the main story line.

But perhaps what works best in P is for Peril is how the setting is omnipresent, woven into every scene. Here is an example of Kinsey arriving at the nursing home: "When I pulled into the parking lot at Pacific Meadows, the sky was dark with clouds, and the lights in the windows make the place look cozy and warm. I shut down the engine and waited until the squall had passed before I emerged. Even then, I had to pick my way across the half-flooded tarmac to the relative dryness of the sheltered front entrance. I shook off my umbrella and gave my slicker a quick brush before I stepped through the door. Dripping raincoats and wide-brimmed water-repellent hats were hung on a row of pegs. I added my slicker to the mix and propped my umbrella in the corner while I took my bearings."

Notice how she makes the neat transition from outdoors to indoors? Her next paragraph gives the reader Kinsey's first impressions of the nursing home-always a rich opportunity for a writer: "Along the wide hallway ahead, I could see a row of six elderly people in wheelchairs arranged against the wall like drooping houseplants. Some were sound asleep and some simply stared at the floor in sensory-deprivation daze. Two were strapped in, their posture eroded by osteoporosis, bones melting from within. One woman, very thin, with long, white limbs, swung a bony leg fretfully over the arm of the wheelchair, moving with agitation as though prompted by pain. I felt myself recoil as if I were at the scene of a four-car pileup."

Notice also how the setting details are filtered through the character's viewpoint. The author is adding an emotional undercurrent to the scene, but she's also using it to characterize Kinsey. Since the story is told in first person, she will never be invisible, but instead is a sassy 30-something with plenty of opinions.

The scene continues: "At the far end of the corridor, two women in green uniforms piled sheets on a laundry cart already heaped with soiled linens. The air smelled odd-not bad, but somehow alien-a blend of disassociated odors: canned green beans, adhesive tape, hot metal, rubbing alcohol, laundry soap. There was nothing offensive in any single element, but the combination seemed off, life's perfume gone sour."
Here Grafton is employing a useful technique, using smells to describe unpleasant elements. Too few writers employ smells in their setting and they are especially effective to describe the grotesque or sensual, or to evoke memories.

The description of the nursing home continues. As a former cop, turned private investigator, Kinsey is trained to notice. Note also how Grafton's metaphors add layers of resonance: "To my right, aluminum walkers were bunched together like grocery carts outside a supermarket. The day's menu was posted on the wall, behind glass, like a painting on exhibit. Saturday lunch consisted of a ground chicken patty, creamed corn, lettuce, tomato, fruit cup, and an oatmeal cookie. In my world, the lettuce and tomato might appear as a restaurant garnish, a decorative element to be ignored by the diner, left behind on the plate to be thrown in the trash. Here, the lettuce and tomato were given equal billing, as though part of a lavish nutritional feast. I thought about fries and a QP with Cheese and nearly fled the premises."

Grafton rarely misses an opportunity to showcase Kinsey's humor and junk food cravings.

"French doors opened into the dining room, where I could see the residents at lunch. Evan at a glance, I noted three times more women than men in evidence. Some wore street clothes, but the majority were still dressed in their robes and slippers, not bedridden but confined by their convalescent status. Many turned to stare at me, not rudely, but with a touching air of expectation. Had I come for a visit? Was I there to take them home? Was I someone's long-overdue daughter or niece proposing an outing in the clean, fresh air? I found myself glancing away, embarrassed I was offering nothing in the way of personal contact. Sheepishly, I looked back, raised my hand, and waved. A tentative chorus of hands rose in response as my greeting was returned. Their smiles were so sweet and forgiving I felt pricked with gratitude."

This offers a nice glimpse into the character, who is often more prickly than charming, more impatient than compassionate.

"I backed away from the dining room and crossed the hall. A second set of doors stood open, revealing a day room, currently empty, furnished with mismatched couches, upholstered chairs, a piano, two television sets, and a cluster of game tables. The floors were done in a glossy beige linoleum, the walls painted a restful shade of robin's egg blue. The ready-made drapes were a blend of yellow, blue, and green in a vaguely floral pattern. Countless throw pillows had been needlepointed, cross-stitched, quilted, and crocheted. Perhaps a clutch of church ladies had been afflicted by a fit of stitchery. One pillow had a saying embroidered across the face---YOU'RE ONLY AS OLD AS YOU FEEL-a disheartening thought, given some of the residents I'd seen. Metal folding chairs were stacked against the near wall for quick assembling. Everything was clean, but the "decorating" was generic, budget-driven, falling somehow short of good taste.

Most of us will not employ this much setting description in one scene, but Grafton is using these opening impressions as a backdrop for major actions to come and to lay important clues. She's also creating sympathy and empathy for the missing administrator.

As this scene ends, she employs another tidy transition and we're brought back via our senses to the outer world: "At the entrance, I retrieved my slicker and took a moment to re-assemble myself in rain garb. When I emerged from the nursing home, the rain had slowed to a drizzle and mist seemed to float on the tarmac like smoke. The eaves still dripped water at irregular intervals. I bypassed a puddle and crossed the parking lot to the slot I'd taken. …"

The continuity of detail, including the sense that the rain ebbs or sometimes drenches, provides verisimilitude-a necessary ingredient in fiction causing a reader to believe in the fictional world. In another scene she records the layout of the offices-particulars which might seem tedious at first, but are crucial later when Kinsey sneaks in late at night and becomes an unwilling, but amused witness to a late night tryst.

There are many other places where the setting details pull us deeper into the story. For example, she returns to the nursing home and describes the office's after-hours atmosphere: "The Saturday-morning cleaning crew had come and gone. Wastebaskets had been emptied. The air was scented with Pledge, and I could see rows of fresh vacuum cleaner tracks on the burnt-orange carpeting. The quiet was divine."

Tips for creating the power of place:

Look for details that are arresting, quirky, telling.
Try to use details that can change over the course of the story such as a garden that hibernates, blossoms, then fades.
With "it was a dark and stormy night" firmly in mind, look for ways to use setting to suggest mood.
Conversely, don' t be afraid to break the mold, or pair the incongruous. A corpse discovered in cheery sunshine or ala P.D. James, two corpses splayed in the nave of a church, are doubling shocking.
Insert weather in your stories and make it cause things to happen in the plot. Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson is a stunning example of this technique.
Use lighting in your stories and be sure to differentiate between the qualities of light that filter in during various seasons.
Be wary of overkill. Description slows the pace of fiction. Choose the most distinctive details to make the place leap off the page. Also opt for breaking up the description with sentences and phrases scattered throughout the text, or broken up with dialogue or action, instead of clumped together on the page.
The first sentence or paragraph is often the most compelling entrée for introducing or immersing your reader to place. Use the beginning as a foundation, and add more bricks as the story progresses.
Physical detail is not the only way to introduce setting. In fiction and nonfiction, lists or statistics are also effective.
Reflect on all aspects of setting including the make up of the population including; attitudes, mores, ethnic and cultural backgrounds, class, and education level. How are outsiders and strangers treated? Are they welcomed? Distrusted? Are there only a few churches in the community or do Catholic parishes dot every few blocks? What denominations populate the town: Lutheran, Baptist, Nazarene? What do the religious affiliations suggest about the people who live there? What type of cars are parked in the neighborhoods? What does this mean?
Note if a place is remote or isolated, famous, or infamous. Using a well-known locale-Paris, New Orleans, New York-requires strict attention to accuracy and a flair for capturing the essence of the place.
Don't explain the obvious or the normal. Contemporary readers are sophisticated and don't need every nook and cranny explored unless the writer has a specific purpose in mind.