Welcome back, my fellow creatives!

I thought we’d take a respite from the memoir-ish updates and explore an important element of fiction and nonfiction: setting.

I’m convinced that we all are better off when reminded that there are beings and forces not made by human beings but worth our attention; that there are energies larger, older, and subtler than our little human knots. Just placing ourselves among them is worth something, especially if we aim to be the sort of writers whose work responds to more than our private personal concerns. So the sort of writing I am advocating here begins with getting out into the open.

Jeff Gundy, Walking, Gathering, Listening

Now typically I like to think about this when it comes to worldbuilding in fantasy fiction, as that’s my favorite place to be. Since I’m a nonfiction editor for my university and need to do a workshop related to nonfiction, we’ll stick with a less fantastical approach in crafting powerful settings readers crave.

For those keen on creative nonfiction, Linda Lappin wrote a beautiful workbook called The Soul of Place. Admittedly, the title got my attention as I was researching prompts with a nonfiction focus. I actually got lost in her chapters and forgot to look for prompts! Lappin explores how landscapes stir our emotions, our spirituality, our inner psyche, and more. Highly recommend.

In the West, our emotional response to landscapes both real and imagined has largely been influenced by the aesthetic beliefs informing the Romantic movement, which drew inspiration from even earlier schools of philosophy investigating the restorative role of nature in human life.

Linda Lappin, The Soul of Place

One particular method Lappin highlights is the “deep map,” which is a map created for a location that charts not only natural elements, but cultural and personal histories connected with that place, too.

A deep map, then, is a sample swatch of the multiple manifestations of the genius loci. The deep map configures narratives. It is a matrix of intertextual storytelling, charting our movements through the landscape or cityscape, tracing the pathways of our habits and rituals, depositing our experiences over time in its folds, intersecting at every turn the mesh of lives and stories that have preceded us.

Linda Lappin, The Soul of Place

It didn’t hit me until now that I made an attempt at such a map long ago during my first year blogging: I wanted to explore a place once owned by relatives generations ago, but had since been turned into a prairie reserve.

In Upstream, poet Mary Oliver does beautiful work describing the woods of her past and present and their impact on her creative spirit. The book feels very stream-of-consciousness, where moments of reflection or insight come to a halt for an image, a sensory experience of action within her beloved woods that summons readers to stand on the river’s shore and watch:

Deep in the woods, I tried walking on all fours. I did it for an hour or so, through thickets, across a field, down to a cranberry bog. I don’t think anyone saw me! At the end, I was exhausted and sore, but I had seen the world from the level of the grasses, the first bursting growth of trees, declivities, lumps, slopes, rivulets, gashes, open spaces. I was some slow old fox, wandering, breathing, hitching along, lying down finally at the edge of the bog, under the swirling rickrack of the trees.

Mary Oliver, Upstream

Such an immersive moment! There is the physical act of Mary Oliver’s walking and how she walked. There is a vivid list of perspectives from that particular posture–no generic aerial views here. And the relatable metaphor provides us not only with a visual, but a sense of character: a fox is cunning, yes? Swift? She may have her wits, but she is no longer swift, that old fox.

That’s what we aim to create, as writers. We want to immerse our readers in the story-places, be they real or imagined. Oliver is here to remind us that often, we must seek a bit of human solitude and a wealth of Nature in order to uncover the potentially extraordinary:

No one yet has made a list of places where the extraordinary may happen and where it may not. Still, there are indications…. It likes the out-of-doors. It likes the concentrating mind. It likes solitude. It is more likely to stick to the risk-taker than the ticket-taker…. Its concern is the edge, and the making of a form out of the formlessness that is beyond the edge.

Mary Oliver, Upstream

Now some settings do require more of us than just “being there,” sure. I love immersing myself in the woods, the fields, the rural hamlets. But other times I must research–I am finding that to be the case for my new creative endeavor (information coming soon!). I need to learn more about specific places so I can transform them to fit my story. Or, perhaps for you, you see the significance of some historical detail in order to more effectively create the “deep map” of the location you wish to explore in your writing.

Frank White’s Where Do You Get Your Ideas? has some fine tips for studying newspapers and even family memorabilia to attain concrete information and inspiration of that other-time, that place-of-past. His advice reminded me of my research for my western novella Night’s Tooth and the discovery of an unknown event on the western shores of Wisconsin. The conflict provided me an excellent backdrop for real history in my fictional story, which you can check out here.

He urges the use of brainstorming and research questions, for instance, just as many of us teachers recommend our students. Having those specific who/what/when/where/why/how questions related to your place will help you tailor your search words. Plus, it helps you trim the irrelevant results from your research pile pretty quickly. We’ve got to make every minute count!

To close out here, let’s end with a return to the beginning of this post. Jeffy Gundy shared some lovely advice with Rose Metal Press on writing inspiration for flash nonfiction. To him, much can be learned simply by stepping out into the world…and then out of oneself. It reminded me of Mary Oliver’s fox-walk, so I thought I’d share the exercise for you here:

A Little Exercise for You to Consider from Flash Nonfiction:

Do some wandering…be alert for anything you can pick up: any specific elements of the surroundings, small or large, that catch your attention for any reason: because they are beautiful, strange, unexpected, uncomfortable. Record them in your notebook. Don’t be restricted to visual images–use as many senses as possible.

Write a sentence from the point of view of some animal, plant, or natural object…Keep the perceptions and voice as close as you can to the actual qualities.

Shifting points of view like this may feel a bit awkward, but we as writers must find that comfort. We are preparing to change to the perspectives of those of a different age than us, of a different sex than us, of a different species than us. Working with a grounded natural setting will help your human imagination take those first steps slowly into the shift. Would the smell of the place still be pleasing, or is it now repulsive? Are its sounds harmonious, or agony to your ears? 

Whatever Place we create, it must be a place that readers can feel beneath their imaginary feet. This often means putting our literal feet in that place to study it. If this is not possible, then what place shares characteristics? Then that is where you must go. You must be the old fox, skulking slowly upstream, hunting for that which is lost to the unfocused eye.

Read on, share on, and write on, my friends!