Building Your Characters’ World
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Hogwarts. Panem. Grin And Bear It, Nebraska.
These places are all made up, but they don’t feel that way when I immerse myself in the stories that take me there.
Both Hogwarts and Panem, from the Harry Potter novels by J. K. Rowling and the Hunger Games novels by Suzanne Collins, required significant world-building.
Rowling created a whole curriculum for her school of magic, all the beliefs related to “pure-blood” wizards and witches, as well as a Ministry of Magic and all of the politics that go with it—not to mention all the different kinds of candies wizard children can buy, the spells they can cast, etc.
Collins created a whole country divided up into 13 different districts, a history of annual games to the death for children selected from each district, and the history of the games, which had been happening for decades.
Rowling and Collins had to think through their world’s history, government, technology/magic, and social customs. Those kinds of concerns are often thought of as belonging to fantasy, science fiction, and historical fiction.
But novels set in the realistic here and now may also use these issues to compelling effect.
In her contemporary middle grade novel, Simon Sort of Says (which I highly recommend), Erin Bow created a National Quiet Zone in rural Nebraska. It’s a place where TV, radio, and Internet signals are banned so that the big satellite dishes outside of Grin And Bear It, Nebraska, can “hear” potential radio signals from space.
The radio telescopes outside of town are the reason for many of the town’s scientists to live there. The scientists, who are relative newcomers, conflict in minor ways with the area’s farmers, people who’ve lived there much longer. While this adds verisimilitude to the small-town setting, it also seeps into other aspects of the story.
The lack of outside signals is a big attraction for Simon, the main character. He doesn’t want people Googling him. If they do, they’ll find out that he’s the lone survivor of a school shooting back in Omaha. A video of him being rescued went viral, and it’s the first thing that comes up if you search his name.
So moving to the small town of Grin And Bear It sounds just fine to Simon. But if that were the only reason he and his parents moved there, it might seem a little too contrived.
Instead, Bow creates a town that meets the needs of Simon’s parents too. The town recruits Simon’s mom, who’s an undertaker, to take over the local funeral home. The town’s been without an undertaker for some time. And for Simon’s dad there is a weirdly large (for such a small town) Catholic church where he can work as a deacon.
These aren’t minor details, as it turns out. Simon’s parents have their own character arcs related to their work in this new town.
Bow has not only created a quirky, interesting setting. The details of her world-building are woven together with her characters’ wants and needs. And all of that adds up to a novel that’s not only funny, but rich with meaning.