Mapping worlds in fiction, however, is different because we can produce
a much more fluid sense of place, and of the relations between places and
people: we can make the map move. The exercises in this chapter encour-
age you to evoke a sense of place which is never determinate. Place in
fiction is sometimes referred to as setting, but this is an unsatisfactory
term. The word ‘setting’ suggests that a place is a backcloth to the action:
it also gives a static impression. I prefer to use the word location to suggest
a more dynamic and interactive relationship between places and people.
An explicit sense of place
In most fiction a sense of location is established through descriptive
techniques like those you learnt in Chapter 2 for the person-in-action
exercise. When constructing a sense of place, you need to think of a
‘place-in-action’.
The following passage by Indian writer Arundhati Roy captures the
dynamism of the landscape:
Example 12.1
May in Ayemenem is a hot, brooding month. The days are long and
humid. The river shrinks and black crows gorge on bright mangoes
in still, dustgreen trees. Red bananas ripen. Jackfruits burst. Dissolute
bluebottles hum vacuously in the fruity air. Then they stun them-
selves against clear windowpanes and die, fatly baffled in the sun.
The nights are clear but suffused with sloth and sullen
expectation.
But by early June the south-west monsoon breaks and there
are three months of wind and water with short spells of sharp,
glittering sunshine that thrilled children snatch to play with. The
countryside turns an immodest green. Boundaries blur as tapioca
fences take root and bloom. Brick walls turn mossgreen. Pepper
vines snake up electric poles. Wild creepers burst through laterite
banks and spill across the flooded roads. Boats ply in the bazaars.
And small fish appear in the puddles that fill the PWD potholes on
the highways.From The God of Small Things (Roy 1998, p. 1)This passage uses familiar descriptive techniques, but in an extremely
effective way. It employs strong sensory images, but does not simply rely
on the visual. We are made aware of colours (black crows, red bananas)
and sounds (the hum of the bluebottles). But, above all, the countryside is
256 The Writing Experiment