Starry my lovely! Your fics always feel so satisfying and rich in terms of the setting and world-building. Do you fancy talking about how you like to create that vivid sense of place/setting, and maybe tell us what bit of your own world-building is your favourite?
My dear Tacky, you spoil me with this lovely question 🥺 Thank you so much for taking the time to ask it! And for such lovely words about the sense of place and setting -- aspects of my writing that I struggle with the most. My betas can attest to my issues with spatial things (i.e., jumping from the bottom of the stairs to the top with no clear transition) and visual things (inconsistencies with what someone’s wearing or if they’re still drinking that damn cup of tea that they’ve actually finished twice-over).
All that said, I’m in the art world by trade, and I spend a great deal of time thinking about how objects can tell us so much about people. Objects they can change our feelings when well-placed in a room, objects shape and reflect trends, and so-on The things we choose to surround ourselves with (and the things that survive and are preserved) are ways of telling stories again and again. And I think that’s true in fictional objects too - they can tell us so much about the characters.
So perhaps I can answer the second half of the question -- my favorite bit of world-building has been that which I’ve worked hardest at, the world of A Room Up There. I loved building out the Black family’s stories and, in the process, Harry’s new life through all the objects and if I’m allowed to say, I think it has worked neatly. Tho I’ll be honest - I cheated a bit with it! I really wanted to work on writing with strong setting and objects, so I picked a character who is possibly more obsessed with objects than I am and wrote him into a fic all about cataloguing said objects 🤷
My favorite bit of Room Up There is the great balustrade (which I and my Draco will obsess over to the end of time). Sometimes, a balustrade is just a balustrade. But in this fic it’s also a sign of a great many things; it being large and mahogany handrail indicates wealth and age and association with a rich and long-seated family. The bannister goes all through the house, and I have imagined it at the center of the very house (parlor to the right, kitchen forward, dining room at left, the door behind). It’s the heartline of the house, if you will, running along the steps from floor to attic. Looking up a staircase signals that there’s something more yet unseen, and putting it at the front of the house invites a guest to explore, as my Draco, of course, does. And that same balustrade also became a site to tell other stories - of other houses that Draco had worked on (with little hidden portrait miniatures purely for the heck of it in one bit), and a little plot reveal tying the phantom to this central line of the house...
The only other thing I can say to world-building is that I like to put pieces of myself into my writing. There’s a still life and vase vignette that reoccurs in Room Up There purely because I’ve been studying vases & flowers this month. My fic Matching Pair grew from me falling utterly in love with a beautiful queer portraitist’s work at the Centre-Pompidou a few years ago. Draco takes his tea like my best friend does (extra sugar, no cream). I used to think I was meant to hold myself back from my writing, and then I stepped back from a piece I’d finished to find that it was chock-full of details about my then-partner (i.e., loving eggs and hating omelets, a trait inherited by my MC). Now I’m a firm believer in leaving as many little crumbs of myself in the fic as I can. It’s such a special joy to get to see bits of my loved ones woven into it. The words are the richer for it, I think.
Thank you for asking dear lovely <3 would love to hear other’s thoughts about creating setting and space too!