Location as a character ?

Hey,

So I am currently working on some short stories based around peoples reaction to a deadly outbreak of a virus where the characters are restricted to a certain location. The story unfolds around that location in an attempt to create a claustrophobic feeling.

I have one where a newly wed couple have just moved into their new apartment when the whole building is quarantined and they are effectively prisoners in their own apartment while the virus is contained around them. ( or is it??). I have the chapters structured in a day by day format but not in an epistolary way more just to give the passage of time. I currently have it very character based in terms of the characters reaction but i'm also wondering if I should give more importance to their actual apartment and the building itself to enhance the feeling on enclosure and entrapment. I'm sure in that situation the walls would feel like they're closing in.

Should I make the location more important or keep the focus on their reactions to the other characters in the building?
Thanks in advance for any feedback.

 

I would definitely put more importance on the location to build the drama and the picture of the characters being imprisoned.

In terms of your title I wouldn't describe the location as a character as such. I would rather try and emphasise the environment/location by the characters point of view and maybe use some personification to some degree to build the suspense and over all feel of the scene.

For example

Amy was sure the room was getting smaller, as if the ancient conspiring walls were marching towards her.

Maybe this is a poor example and not what you are after but do you get the idea?

 

This is only a suggestion but, depending on how varied your locations are, it might be interesting to do this as "just unpacked for their honeymoon" instead of "just moved into their new apartment"? Obviously there's nothing wrong with what you've done here, I think it's a great idea! Nothing worse than being trapped somewhere that should be safe like a home.

On the other hand, being in an unknown place adds a sense of danger (as well as being more exotic, buenostias, mira este tiburon etc etc) just a thought

 

Yeah, like...the two can go hand in hand? Building characterisation and atmosphere of your characters through the description of their apartment/building.

Finding mold when it was supposed to a be a new build...their food going off in their new fridge, stinking up the fridge+the apartment...the cheery yellow wallpaper mocking their situation..an old crumbling building in contrast to their shiny new marriage. That sort of thing?

Don't know if I'm getting what I mean across with those examples, but I think adding more detail to locations can only be a bad thing if you take it too far and bore the reader who doesn't need to know unnecessary details and it adds nothing to your story. But if it loops back to the characters? Yeah, it's necessary, and hopefully interesting

 

Such great suggestions thank you all,
Homer - I actually have them trying to distract them selves early on in the bedroom when the situation doesn't seem so dire in the beginning maybe I can make a bigger deal of that.

The Piper/ Penny Dreadful - I see what you mean yeah, I think I should play up the relative newness of the location and their inherent unfamiliarity from that. I can then maybe mix in the mundane annoyances and the extreme situation. Like any of us the small things can really get to us when there is a larger issue looming over and even the small things can overwhelm people.

 

You can have the location being important (like the house in a ghost story) or focus on the relationships between characters (like the building in the movie "Quarantine"). It's about creative choice. You can focus on the relationship while showing how the location influences that relationship ( they may get cabin fever because they are confined for a long time and that won't turn the location into a character). Showing how the location influences the characters doesn't have to be direct (as when they feel like the walls are closing in). The same can also be shown through the way you describe the place. You can show it to be cold, or rooms having dark corners, use words like "bleak", "grey" etc when describing it. The reader should get that claustrophobic feel as well.

 

When you talk about handling setting imagery as a theme in a story, "Fall of the house of Usher" by Edgar Allan comes to my mind.

How the author basically wrote the entire story describing how the house made him feel, and as a reader you could read it and be content with just the description of a house.

I think you could do the same thing with your story, to a variable degree, and it would be great.. Or I could imagine it being great.

The thought of a setting having more to say than the actual characters in the story have to say, long monolouges of description about dark corners, and blood stained walls.

I guess you want a sense of feeling to reach your readers from you story. I wouldn't put it past letting the setting having a hand in that

 

I wouldn't make the location an actual character, but I think personification is fine - attributing human traits or motives to objects within the environment for emphasis (like in @OB1's example above). For even more emphasis you could state it as though these things were actually happening:

Amy grimaced and curled tighter still as the ancient conspiring walls closed in on her.

This metaphorical phrasing will suggest that from the character's POV the walls actually are conspiring against her. The reader will know you're not suggesting that's actually what is happening, only that it is how it feels to the character. That would really ramp up the claustrophobia as it would make the reader feel that the characters feel trapped in an environment they cannot trust.

 

Here's an example of this from my WIP:

The room darkened behind him. Arlo held his breath and looked over his shoulder. The blackness pressed in towards his face. He shrunk away from it. The darkness folded in closer. Arlo froze, staring into the dark.

These events are not actually happening. The character is in a pitch dark room, but there is no increase in the darkness, no pressing in or folding in. It's all in his imagination. But stating that it is actually happening and is focused on the character personifies the darkness and implies intent as perceived by the POV character.

 

Think about how your environment influences you at any given moment. There will be places where you feel safe. Some places will inspire you. Some places make you uncomfortable. Some places will scare the shit out of you. Some places make you want to stay longer. Some places make you want to get away. Some places you hardly notice. Some places make you want to take photos.

If you can tune into every setting you write, and figure out how you (the character whom you're writing) feels in each one AT THAT TIME, I think this notion of personification of setting will just become another tool in your writing box. If you can worm personification into all your settings, then when the settings become overpowering and scary—such as the environments being described by folks on this thread—it won't come across as melodrama. Melodrama is always a danger when you start scaring people with settings that take on human qualities. So get comfortable with personifying all your settings. When they shift from being comfortable to scary, the shift will lose some of the melodrama while keeping the impact.

 

Nah, I actually think the "new home" idea is much better than "honeymoon location". Both locations are supposed to be positive and turned into a nightmare, so both are good ideas. But there's something about your very own home - esp if in this couple's case it might have been the dream home, the home that's supposed to be where they start their happy marriage and build a family together - that makes it far worse than any unknown location. It's the concept that your own home is your prison. It's more powerful than a hotel.

 

I actually resided for a while in the notorious Hotel Cecil. In a place like that you ask yourself, "is it the environment creating the inhabitants or the other way around?" Ultimately it comes to seem as a sort of symbiosis or even an ecosystem; they're interacting to bring this environment into being and interacting to mutually reinforce these pathological elements that people get trapped within and are forced to become a part of.

 

I would go all-in for the evil personification of the building. That sounds fun to me. I.e. find creative ways to reveal the building's past, and future intentions for new occupants. Give it full human-like status, and you'll have a creepy and fun tale.

 

'Shadows on the distressed wallpaper made faces as the room closed about us, arms reached and fingers grasped mere inches from...'

 

I agree with @Homer @The Piper. What makes your story unique is that they are newlyweds, who have just moved into a new apartment together. There's something naturally disorientating about waking up somewhere new, so adding some valid claustrophobia to that means you can play with their state of mind without it getting too Stephen King.

Aside of the pressure of being in a confined space, you've got a whole host of props to play with. A Wedding Photo album that the wife looks at, as she reflects on the anti-climax of their marriage; wedding cards and gifts; maybe there is a spare room which they haven't on a use for yet; perhaps one of them really wanted to redecorate but they can't because of the fumes?

Hope my spitballing has helped somehow, even if it makes you sure you don't want your story to do any of this stuff