The Power of Place by Jeanette Grant-Thomson

 

Some of you may have noticed I love creating a sense of place. The setting of a novel can produce a definite atmosphere and can almost be like one of the characters. It can drive the plot, although not the underlying story. If you’ve read all my books, you’ve particularly visited Launceston, outback Queensland with Yandina and Nambour, Brisbane during the 1974 floods, New Ireland (PNG), and King Island or its counterpart in Moreton Bay.

I love immersing myself in the setting, then seeing it through the characters’ eyes. I’m not alone in this interest. Have any of you read Poison Bay (Belinda Pollard)? Or James Cooper’s interesting Something about Alaska? And so many others. In Belinda’s novel, I felt the setting (the wilds of southern New Zealand in the Milford Sound area) was almost the main character. The awareness of that dangerous place dominated all the characters and, by its nature, steered important parts of the plot as well.

Then there was The Light between Oceans, Stedman’s moving story about a couple keeping a lighthouse on Janus Rock. Where would that novel be without the highly unusual setting?  (Obviously it wouldn’t be, as the story depends on the place.)

In The Lost Man, author Jane Harper brilliantly brings to life Australia’s bare, scorching, unforgiving outback as a necessary backdrop and plot-driver of her story.

 In Lantern Light, I’ve created a strong sense of place describing the brooding jungle with its sights, sounds and smells. The dangerous water areas, too, add a sinister feel to the atmosphere. This is then ‘fleshed out’ (well, typed out) in the ensuing events. The timely flood of the Brisbane River reinforces the underlying dark, ominous mood. Both these settings and the incidents resulting from them were times and places I’d lived through myself so I was well equipped to write about them.

Admittedly, I checked some of the exact details of the flood on microfilm in the State Library. The machine kept sticking and delaying me, or whizzing past the dates I hoped to look at. Frustrating! The library assistant was very helpful though. 

I realise we all know this, but it’s so important: to create a place with atmosphere, the writer needs to appeal to more senses than sight. How often has a whiff of salt air taken your thoughts to the beach? Or the song of a magpie reminded you of a happy spring day? All the senses – sight, sound, smell, touch and taste – are intrinsic parts of a particular place.

 Walking along a jungle track, I was aware of the strange sweetish smell of rotting leaves underfoot as well as the colourful collage they made. The chittering of small animals and the sudden shriek of large birds. The mounting heat and heaviness in the air as the day grew hotter. I intended all this as a backdrop to the plot and a motivating force in Lantern Light.

In some of the books I’ve mentioned, the setting provides obstacles so the theme is partly man against a hostile environment. (Poison Bay, The Lost Man). In others, the environment affects the characters’ moods and decisions (as in Lantern Light).

The plot of Lantern Light ‘lives out’ the feel of dread, the sense of ‘Before and After’ that even the characters acknowledge. This feeling of something sinister is echoed by the jungle with its dim, seductive paths and ever-encroaching growth.

   Apparently AI can now do your descriptions if that is not your forte. But that would lack the author’s own voice and types of observations. Those nuances of atmosphere.  I love slipping in bits of description that nudge the characters in the right direction. As far as I know, at this stage AI can’t interweave those reactions to environment that I love writing. Please let me know if I’m wrong there.

Above all, when one chooses an unusual place to set a novel, the question arises: What might happen in a place like this?

Does anyone else enjoy creating settings? Or reading novels where the sense of place is an important feature?

Jeanette Grant-Thomson is a North Brisbane based author who has been writing and having work published since her childhood. Currently she is writing a novel set at beautiful Kenilworth where she lived part-time for about ten years.

You can find her books on www.facebook.com/jeanette.grantthomson