[This article was originally published in StoryCraft – for the full article, click here]
I have always been drawn to place when I write — whether in fiction or travel writing. Place is never mere backdrop — it is a character in its own right, intrinsic to the storytelling. But what does that mean in practical terms?
Think of some classic pieces of writing. James Joyce’s Dubliners, or Manderley in Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. What about Zadie Smith’s London in White Teeth, or postcolonial India in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. Would Wuthering Heights have worked if it had been set anywhere else?
If you can’t imagine the story working in a different setting, then more likely than not, place is a character.
In my own writing, my novel Lenny is set in the desert in Libya, and in the Bayou in Louisiana — I could not have told the story if it had been set anywhere else. The desert sands echo with the stories of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry‘s The Little Prince (key to the storytelling) and the Bayou’s sinkholes swallowing up towns by the water are at the heart of Lenny’s story.
So how can you draw on place as a character?
Try these techniques:
Let Place Reflect Emotion
Think of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. The stormy moors mirror the passions and violence of Heathcliff and Catherine. The weather doesn’t just describe; it embodies.
Let the energy of the place reflect in the emotions of the writing.
Use Place as Obstacle or Ally
In The Grapes of Wrath, the Dust Bowl isn’t just context—it’s the antagonist pushing the Joads westward. In The Road, McCarthy’s barren landscape forces the father and son into acts of brutal survival and tender care.
Think about how the place can make things harder or easier for your characters. Whether swamp, crowded city, a desert, or a perfectly maintained suburb — each setting can exert pressure or support your characters.
Give Place a Voice
Writers like Zadie Smith or Junot Díaz let their neighbourhoods speak through slang, food, rhythms of conversation. Place isn’t just seen – it’s heard, tasted, and smelled.
Try writing without visual detail. Use only sound or smell, or physical textures instead.
Show Place Over Time
Places change. Houses decay, cities gentrify, landscapes shift with weather and season. Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse moves us through years in a single house, showing how absence and time alter its meaning.
Revisit the same setting in two different moods or times of day. How does it differ? Has the atmosphere and mood shifted?
Treat Place as Relationship
Place doesn’t exist “out there”; it exists in how characters experience it. One character might see a dark alley as dangerous, another as a shortcut home. Their relationship to the place tells us who they are.
Think about to what extent place is a part of who we are and how we see ourselves in the world.
Reading List – When Place Becomes Character
One of the best ways to learn how to write place as character is to read stories where setting refuses to stay in the background. In each of these books, the landscape, city, or house is as alive as any protagonist. If you want to see place as character in action, I recommend reading any of these books.
Wuthering Heights — Emily Brontë
The Yorkshire moors don’t simply frame the story—they mirror the wildness and passions of Heathcliff and Catherine, their moods rising and falling with the weather.
Dubliners — James Joyce
Dublin itself ties the stories together. The streets, pubs, and river Liffey embody a city caught between tradition and the new.
Their Eyes Were Watching God — Zora Neale Hurston
Florida’s landscapes—the swamp, the hurricane, the farmland—become forces that shape Janie’s transformation, nurturing and threatening her in turn.
The Grapes of Wrath — John Steinbeck
The Dust Bowl is more than backdrop: it drives the Joad family westward, stripping them down while also creating moments of resilience and dignity.
A Passage to India – E.M.Forster
India is more than setting — it is the vast, complex force the characters struggle to understand.
To the Lighthouse — Virginia Woolf
The Ramsays’ summer house and the Isle of Skye absorb the passing of time, memory, and absence. Place becomes memory’s anchor.
Rebecca — Daphne du Maurier
Manderley, the estate, is as menacing and unforgettable as Rebecca herself. It haunts every room, every relationship, every page.
The Road — Cormac McCarthy
The ashen, ruined landscape is oppressor and witness. It forces intimacy between father and son and strips the world to its barest bones.
White Teeth — Zadie Smith
London doesn’t just set the scene – it is the engine of identity, multicultural tension, and humour. The city itself is the connective tissue.
Americanah — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Nigeria and the U.S. are not simply locations – they are opposing forces that press on Ifemelu’s sense of self and belonging.
Wind, Sand and Stars — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The desert isn’t just a backdrop to aviation adventures: it becomes existential terrain for the writing.
These are just a few examples of how place can function as character in narrative. Are there other books you think do the same thing?
[For the full article, see Storycraft]
Laura McVeigh is a Northern Irish novelist and travel writer. Her latest novel, LENNY is told between the desert sands of Libya and the Bayou in Louisiana. Her writing has been translated widely. She has authored books for Lonely Planet and DK Travel, bylines in national newspapers, featured in BBC, Newsweek, New Internationalist and many other publications. She is founder of Travel-Writing.Com and Green Travel Guides – a platform for sustainable, regenerative and slow travel content and community. Laura writes on storytelling, travel writing, and green travel issues on Substack.