LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION!!!
(ON THE PROFUNDITY OF KNOWING WHERE YOU ARE, AND WHERE YOUR STORY IS SET, PRECISELY)
by John Skipp
Dear kids –
You wanna talk about ADVENTURE!
Over the last week, something happened that changed the course of my actiive creative life, both temporarily and forever.
Which is to say, we locked down the actual central shooting location for JAKE’S WAKE: as both a book, and a motion picture.
It’s a very weird, very eccentrically designed home in the middle of fucking nowhere (which is to say, Claremont, CA): a single-story ranch house that looks like it got hit with a flame thrower from God until it loosened up its structural integrity, and then was stretched to three times its natural length.
As such, it’s got a canted ceiling, and a single hallway that extends down the middle of its entirety – passing room after room, both doored and otherwise, in an almost Kubrickian fashion — and once you’ve gone as far as you think you can go, the hallway VEERS SHARPLY TO THE LEFT, and then proceeds for what seems like another whole house’s length.
It doesn’t look anything like the house I envisioned, over the slightly-more-than-a-year I’ve spent actively visualizing this story.
But now that I’ve seen it – and know that it’s ours – I can finally physicalize my story.
And I can’t tell you how enormous that is.
Cuz here’s the thing: I don’t like to even start writing a story if I don’t know precisely where it’s set.
If I can’t taste, smell, see, hear, and touch every part of it. explicitly, then I don’t know where the hell I am. I can’t put my hands on stuff. I can’t look at and describe it with authority.
From a literary standpoint, I cannot do shit.
When Skipp & Spector wrote the early New York splatterpunk novels – THE LIGHT AT THE END, THE CLEANUP, DEAD LINES – we were infinitely aided by our jobs as street messengers. We were all over Manhattan, all day, every day: sussing the streets, the offices, the subways, the kiosks and coffee houses, the elevators, the parks, the penthouses and slums, and everything between.
We knew where we were, every step of the way. Had everything geographically located. And sensorially nailed.
That made it very easy to make everything feel real.
And that, as a storyteller, is the best feeling in the world.
If you know your story’s place, then it’s easy to put real live people in the middle of it. Easy to notice the details they catch. Easy to live in there, too.
And that’s another thing: LOCATIONS TELL ME STORIES. The second I walk in, and look around, I start thinking about what could happen here. Locations speak to me. Tell me how they want to look, and how the ways they ACTUALLY look bespeak their soul.
Kinda like everything and everyone else.
So I could go on and on about how cool it is that I get to create this next story ON THE ACTUAL SITE OF THAT STORY: visualizing everything, painting the walls, tearing down walls and creating new ones, inhabiting every room, wall, floor, and ceiling with doodads that illuminate the people and story involved.
And the most astonishing is that I’m gonna live in that house – and on that set – for the next four months.
Not everybody gets a luxury like that.
In all my years of creativity, I’ve never had a playground quite precisely this flexible, palpable, and entirely all-encompassing.
But my point for you, tonight – no matter what you’re working on, or how you’re hoping to play it – is this:
THERE IS NO SUBSITITUTE FOR A SOLID LOCATION. It grounds you in innumerable, inarguable, and inescapable ways.
All of which are to your advantage.
And to your readers, as well.
The more fantastic and transcendent your stories get, the more they demand this sort of grounding.
I hope this was helpful.
Yer adventurous pal,
Skipp
Related posts:
Share on TwitterIf you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
First the house talks to Skipp. Then Skipp talks back. Pretty soon they are having a conversation about this movie they are going to make–together. Isn’t that the way it is for everyone?
Seriousness aside, It’s a small miracle that you were able to get the storyline down without a locational anchor. Oh, I suppose you had one at the time. But now you are tossing it for this new love. Man, you go to the top of my list for creative risk takers, right next to Gaugin as he dumped his stockbroker job and headed to the South Pacific. Look what happened to him!
Frank
Ohhh, you must’ve creamed yourself when you first saw the house and realized the possibilities.
That hallway, especially: So are you going to resist the obvious, or give into temptation and do that visual disorientation trick where you zoom the lens in/out while moving the camera back/forward?
And living on-set the whole time, no less. Never mind Kubrick — I predict that madly obsessive Herzogian adventures lie ahead in these next months, my friend.
Place is major character in everything I write.
It forms and informs the protagonists. Wonderful
to feel your joy in what you’re doing.
–Janet
I envy you the ability / opportunity to live your life in the center of your work instead of bringing your work into your life. It’s got to be a solidifying experience to stand there and say YEAH BABY — this is it.
Now, get crackin’ on that film. I’m making popcorn.
DNW
Hey, John. LIGHT AT THE END is one of my favorite books and I recommend it often. Those who know me are aware that I use disposable cameras all the time, taking photos of intersections and foundations and alleys that will turn into something else. I miss seeing you in person, if only to see who has the last amount of blond hair. (I have fourteen strands left, counting the two on my keyboard).
Hi Skipp,
Your entry got me thinking about how important FOCUS is not only for writing in general but also for preparation. I have just moved to the Caribbean (never been here before, and it’s gorgeous!) and it occurred to me that I will be far better off going to ONE building and getting to know a SMALL part of the island intimately, rather than doing the usual travels. Thanks for the reminder!
George Guthridge
Dear gang –
THANKS FOR KIND SUPPORTIVENESS! This is truly one of the most exciting things that I have ever done.
Dear Brian — Yes, cream I did! (Ewwwww!) And when I took my team to the location yesterday, the possibilities burgeoned even wider. We now know specifically what happens, in which rooms. Which walls are coming down to make larger rooms. Which walls are coming out to be replaced with moveable walls. Which walls will have arms reach through them, to grab somebody by the hair. Etcetera.
Will I do the simultaneous push-in/pull-back shot? Verdict’s still out, cuz it’s a pain in the ass shot to execute properly, and takes time. (Time, of course, equalling money.)
That said: maaaaaaybe…
Dear Wayne — I MISS YOU, TOO, MAN! And it would appear that you are twelve strands up on me!
Dear Frank — Aw, shucks. Jumpin’ headfirst into shit? That’s just what I DO!
Dear George — Wow! ENJOY THE ISLAND!
Dear Dave — I would like the real butter, not the fake butter, please!
Dear RC — No barn will be left unburned!
Dear Janet — Big love back to you!
And to all you guys and gals!
Yer slap-happy Herzogian pal,
Skipp
As a TRYING TO BE WRITER from Turkey I would say it was a very good recommendation!! at least I see it that way for my person!
Many thanks,
Ozge
Yes. Absolutely. There’s nothing like being able to taste and smell and feel the way the light falls across the place you want to write.
While reading your essay, I couldn’t help but feel the energy of your convictions about your subject. Your piece does a great job in illustrating how details of a realistic location can support and enhance fiction. Your reference to the house as being a flexible, palpable, and entirely all-encompassing playground does more than hint that the resulting story will be a barn burner.
RCJ
RCJ