A Sense of Place: Introduction

First off, I owe an apology to novelist Ralph Ellison, possibly on behalf of my entire 2002 literature class, which is where this whole thing really started to grow roots.  We received a handout of an essay, "The Sense of Place", by Wallace Stegner.  It's an excellent essay, but Stegner appoints his key thought - we can't know who we are until we know where we are - to nature writer and activist Wendell Berry.  For over 15 years now, I've been thinking it was his.  It's only until I went to look it up for this blog entry that I discovered, well ... it isn't.  So, thank you to Quote Investigator, and my apologies to Mr. Ellison.

Now that that's out of the way, let's start this new blog feature properly, with a quote from the proper author himself:

I think most of us Americans are challenged, to be very, very conscious of where we are and that’s not an easy thing to do, and I do believe that knowing where we are, has a lot to do with our knowing who we are and this gets back to the theme, I hope, of identity ​...

It's a Big Thought to wrap your head around, to be sure.  That literature class took it one step farther, when our professor, the lovely, inimitable, and quite memorable Dr. Ann Page Stecker, posed something to us: that the concept could be just as easily applied to literature.  Setting affects our characters on the page just as much as it affects us in our daily lives... like the setting of that particular class.

It was a little classroom, with long, short rectangular windows at the ground level, and for some reason, we were having said literature class in the science building.  I remember, because we all seemed so out of our element: a bunch of hopeful authors and essayists and brimming minds surrounded by shelves of gradiated flasks and posters detailing the layers and ecosystem of the nearby swamp.  In contrast to the tall, thin, balding professor I'd taken introductory Biology from in the same room as a freshman, Ann Page was short and round, with an elegant gray bob and fringe that moved as emphatically as she did from side to side of the room as she gave her lectures, thoroughly undeterred by the change in venue.   During this particular class, I realized the reason my first draft of a certain novel had been floundering for the past two years: it had plenty of characters, and the story was a whip-cracker, but the setting needed work.  Lots and lots of work.   After class ended, I approached her and shared my revelation.  

"Angelaaa D'Onoffrioooo," she said, in the mockingly stuffy tone that always made me feel not only welcome, but at ease.  "That is exactly the sort of thing I wanted you all to take from this.  Walk with me and tell me about your setting."

It wasn't a particularly long walk from the science building to the hall where the literature and communications courses were held, but we lingered outside her office for a moment, then moved right on into it.  I hadn't really been invited into a professor's office just to hang out before, so this was a particularly validating and amazing thing for me.  Over the course of that visit, we devised a brilliant idea together: that she would host an independent study for me in my next semester, where I would make it my goal to develop my characters' sense of place: a little town called Aviario.

I knew what it felt like: the towns in Connecticut where I spent holidays visiting family, with a heavy dose of stereotypical New England charm and heritage, proud of its history.  I'd never drawn a map before, but grew up loving fantasy books or other novels which started with one.  So of course, a map was required.  The first draft is long since lost to coffee stains and time, but the version you see above was lovingly copied from it to make room for more houses and locations as it grew, some time around 2009, when I started thinking about Buster Heywood, and what kind of story he would have to tell.  His apartment building isn't even numbered above, yet: but Charlie's Bar is.  Those with keen eyes will find it at the northwest corner of Centre Circle, #30.  In this early version, places like Millstone Antiques and Cameron's apartment building aren't present yet, either.  I've got an updated version with a page for each quadrant of the map, which I'll be posting piece by piece in the future.  Which brings us right  back around to the beginning ... and this new feature, Sense of Place, which will serve as a partner to What A Character. 

By the end of my sophomore year of college, Aviario had a map, and I had a mock travel guide which laid out some of its history and important locations.  I also wrote a narrative of a walking tour, where a tourist encountered a few townies who pointed out local landmarks, and each landmark segued into a flashback of the town's history.  While I'm brave enough to share a 17-year-old map, I don't quite have the courage to share writing of the same age.  I may clean it up for a future installment of Sense of Place, though!  Expect future installments to focus on specific locations in the Lines Of Power novels, with photographs of the places which inspired them, their place on the map (if applicable), and excerpts or anecdotes which help bring them to life.   I hope you'll enjoy them!  If there's a particular locale you'd like me to feature, leave a comment below! 

Until next week, I remain your hostess,