Feature Article: Where You From? The Influence of Setting on Character

Article by Kathy Teel

I’ve recently been rereading an excellent writing book, Dynamic Characters: How to Create Personalities that Keep Readers Captivated, by Nancy Kress. It’s one of those books that make you realize that you actually already know this stuff, or at least all the component parts of it. You’ve just never quite put it all together like this.

One of the component parts that Kress talks about is setting. She spends one of the earliest chapters on this important aspect of character building—where a character is from has a huge influence on who the character is. One of the earliest exercises you have to do when exploring a character—right after name and general appearance—is geographical background. What country, region, state, or town is that character from?

Of course, within geography there are more things to be discerned. Did the character like or hate living there? What social class was she part of? Does she have an accent, and in what context? For example, there really is no “Southern” accent—for one thing, Southerners think it’s everyone else who has the accent, and for another, there are discernible differences in the accents of social classes and various locations. A Vidalia onion farmer doesn’t sound quite like a Mississippi lawyer or a New Orleans street performer.

One mistake that authors make, especially new authors, is that they fail to explore the influence setting has on their characters. Most characters simply reflect the author’s own values and modes of expression. Those of you who read historical romances, how many dozens of books have you read that show a spunky, strong-willed proto-feminist heroine insisting on equal standing with her man…in 1803? But that makes no sense… “strong-willed” wasn’t exactly a feminine virtue in 1803. These authors aren’t letting the character’s cultural setting form the character—instead, they take characters formed by 21st century North American norms and plop them down in Regency England. Where they don’t belong, and don’t fit.

I recently edited a manuscript in which the heroine was a young woman in her 20’s who had moved from the Midwest to California. Every couple of chapters this heroine would fly back home to visit her parents in the small town she grew up in, and everything would be wonderful and happy. I didn’t buy it. Midwesterners don’t just move to California without a very good reason. And once they get there, they either think, “What planet is this?” or “Finally, somewhere I fit in!” But this manuscript held no indication that being a single professional woman in California was any different from being one in Kansas…and it is. Her character would know it… it was why she left Kansas in the first place!

Nancy Kress points out that once you do this work on setting, dozens of different plot threads can open up. Every place and every time has its own cultural conflicts, and those could be expressed as internalized conflicts in the hero or heroine. For example, what if California Girl above falls in love with a man she meets while visiting her parents in Kansas?

Nora Roberts explores this exact quandary extremely well in her book, Born in Shame, in which American hot-shot ad exec Shannon Bodine makes a trip to Ireland and falls in love with earthy Irish farmer, Michael. He’s as Irish as the hills of Tara, but she’s got a fast-moving career back in the States—how will they resolve it? The places they were born, raised, and come to claim as home are a central influence on the conflict, plot, and above all, character development.

So, the next time you’re struggling with your character or plot, try this exercise. Sit down with your character, pen in hand or fingers poised over your keyboard. Then ask them, as we’d say here in the Missouri Ozarks, “Where you from?”