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Senses of place as character
May. 19th, 2022 05:43 pmOne thing I enjoy is fictional spaces – especially those limited, self-contained and set-aside-from-public-life spaces – that have a distinct sense of character and life to them. The Hub in Torchwood, for example, or the SID Headquarters from 镇魂 | Guardian. (Or even, if I think about it, the Taskmaster House and caravan from Taskmaster. Always check the shed.*) In computer games, too, I often gravitate toward places where I can create and maintain a self-contained but complex and multifunctional space: building elaborate solar-powered scavenger havens in Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead or a walled garden rife with advanced automation in the Minecraft: Crash Landing modpack. And some games come with those complex, palpable places premade: the gang hideouts from Red Dead Redemption II come to mind, with their individual quirks and personalities and the implied stories in how they're organized and arranged.
*To be said to the tone of Always Read The Plaque.
My sense is that this is something easier to do richly and immersively in visual media like TV shows and video games, because so much of how we interact with a space is visual and movement-based. (And tactile, but I don't consume that much tactile media. I suppose I could start going to escape rooms?) But I'm sure it can and has been done in prose fiction.
In trying to think of examples in fiction, I didn't, initially, come up with any – but, to be fair, it's not something I'm in the habit of reading for. Thinking a bit longer on the topic, I thought of Redwall Abbey from the Redwall series, and the rabbits' warren from Watership Down, both of which I read a long time ago.
Does anyone have examples in books or short stories that they've found particularly effective? I'd love to see how people approach the task.
*To be said to the tone of Always Read The Plaque.
My sense is that this is something easier to do richly and immersively in visual media like TV shows and video games, because so much of how we interact with a space is visual and movement-based. (And tactile, but I don't consume that much tactile media. I suppose I could start going to escape rooms?) But I'm sure it can and has been done in prose fiction.
In trying to think of examples in fiction, I didn't, initially, come up with any – but, to be fair, it's not something I'm in the habit of reading for. Thinking a bit longer on the topic, I thought of Redwall Abbey from the Redwall series, and the rabbits' warren from Watership Down, both of which I read a long time ago.
Does anyone have examples in books or short stories that they've found particularly effective? I'd love to see how people approach the task.
Tags:
- *(not) hiding under things,
- *comments make the post,
- *sensaplace,
- *well that was random,
- book: redwall series,
- book: watership down,
- entry: musings,
- game: cataclysm dark days ahead,
- game: minecraft crash landing,
- game: red dead redemption 2,
- metafic: worldbuilding,
- show: torchwood,
- show: 镇魂 | guardian,
- stuff: audience participation,
- topic: writing
