Worldbuilding

Is there Room for Fictional Worlds in Place Writing?

‘The House has three Levels. The Lower Halls are the Domain of the Tides; their Windows — when seen from across a Courtyard — are grey-green with the restless Waters and white with the spatter of Foam. The Lower Halls provide nourishment in the form of fish, crustaceans and sea vegetation.’ (p6)

Susanna Clarke won the Women’s Price for Fiction in 2021 with Piranesi. The novel is set in the House, which is strangely given a capital letter. Indeed, many of the nouns in this book have capitals, just like in the German language.

Susanna describes the place so clearly that readers can imagine themselves there. Room after room, linked by corridors and staircases, with niches and statuary, hidden nooks, capacious halls, and high ceilings, the house seems vaguely familiar, yet we know it was built in the imagination. Piranesi is the name of the protagonist and the spaces he inhabits are cold and strange, and the structure is vast and complicated.

Fantasy genre

I never thought that I would actually read Piranesi because fantasy isn’t a genre that I would naturally be drawn to, but I was interested to know more since the action all seemed to take place in a building and, as many of you will know, before I became a full-time writer I was an interior designer working within the residential sector. Themes that incorporate the way we live and the design of our homes fit neatly into the field of Place Writing so I needed to read this book! Besides, I’d heard about the real life Piranesi while studying for my Art History Degree. Giovanni Battista Piranesi was born in 1720 in Venice, Italy; he was a classical artist, accomplished architect and archaeologist, and famous for his drawings and etchings of real and imagined buildings.

Process

I learned more about Susanna’s writing process and how the book came about in an online seminar organised by the Arvon Foundation held in August 2022. Apparently, the location was in Susanna’s head long before the story. Due to chronic fatigue, a debilitating illness that caused her to be almost totally housebound, Susanna had time to vicariously travel through this world with her protagonist. There was a sense of expedition, even if it was only in her head, and it made up for her lack of ability to travel in the real world.

Susanna said she used the eight points of the compass to keep track of her imaginary world, and arranged the halls accordingly. She didn’t make a map of the whole world but did make extensive notes for the first vestibule and the halls surrounding it because a lot of the action happens there. Piranesi sees things very clearly so she mapped the three seas that converge on, and flood, the house—at all times she had to be clear on his whereabouts.

Worldbuilding

Or world-building, or world building? Though it feels odd to me, it seems that the contraction of these two words, without a space or a hyphen, is the correct way of presenting it, this concept of designing a fantasy world. And, during one of my occasional dips into the Reedsy blog, I came across this concise description:

‘Worldbuilding is the stage in the writing process where authors create believable settings for their stories. This may involve crafting a fictional world's history, geography, politics, and economy, as well as religions or power structures.’

Susanna incorporates many of these aspects and additionally portrays the architecture of the space and the climatic forces that affect it. I tend to view buildings as containers, and this one, comprising rooms of stone reminiscent of roman temples, has a profusion of holes in its framework. If you’ve read the book you’ll know there’s a lot of water sloshing about, salty sea water, and the house is continually being flooded, and sometimes items have to be moved to higher areas in the building. Since the globe is suffering more and more weather events that involve flooding, this is a theme many readers will identify with.

Place Writing?

I’ve often heard the view that place becomes a character in a work of fiction and I think when it has this level of attention, where the narrative evolves and remains in a particular place, then there is a good argument to say that a novel could be designated as Place Writing. However, in my PhD thesis, I struggled a bit with this thinking, it is a fuzzy area; if I really wanted to be definite about what Place Writing is, I would have to say it is confined to creative non-fiction and that fiction sits in the outer reaches of the genre.

I think different skills are required of the fiction writer in order to develop places such as the house that Piranesi lives in which, to some extent, has to be based on real-life experience just as much as on the imagination. In this house there are echos of buildings some readers will recognise, some are in existence now, others have played their part in history.

Place Writing is very much about peeling away the layers of place, being in tune with the vibrations of its past, and exploring ways to live in a changing environment.

• What do you think? Can fiction sit easily in the genre of Place Writing?

• Have you read Piranesi?

• What imaginary worlds have you read about that give you a strong sense of place?

I look forward to chatting in the comments.

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Credits & Links:

• Image: The Colosseum, by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, courtesy of R. S. Johnson fine art.

• Clarke, S. (2020). Piranesi. London: Bloomsbury. Available via Bookshop.org (affiliate link).

• The Reedsy Blog article is quite comprehensive, see more here.

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Place Writing is more than just a newsletter publication, it’s a resource. I went into the archive and found these two posts which I think you’ll enjoy. They’ll help you to think about Place Writing in formats other than creative non-fiction. If either of these posts resonate with you, the comments are still open so please add your thoughts to the discussion.

Five Tips for Fiction Writers

Inspired by Grapes