Richard Russo: Place in Fiction (January 1995)

While many beginning writers may recognize the importance of interior settings for establishing character—their characters’ homes, and the objects around them—the connection between external landscape and character, Richard Russo suggests, is less direct and more mysterious; yet, he argues, it is crucial. In his own fiction, place serves as both the generating ground and central “character” from which all else emerges; he then offers advice on how writers can powerfully render place in their own work.