Designing the Spaces My Characters Occupy

The opening scene of a movie establishes so much – world, character, tone, genre – that getting it all on the page can be overwhelming. That’s why your first couple of pages are likely the ones you edit the most. They’re certainly mine.  

I find it helpful to have a clear image of the space and how it flows into, or acts as a counterpoint to, what comes next. As the screenwriter, you decide which visual details matter. Whether it’s a lonely cottage on a bluff overlooking a small fishing village, an 18th-century colonial mansion replete with inherited relics, or a tony street in Roma, Mexico City, specific visual choices orient the reader and set expectations. How each space is arranged, what it contains and what it conceals need to set the tone and reveal character without exposition.

The cottage overlooking the fishing village opens Heavenly Manna. It’s the home of Blaize Redman, a reclusive former investigative journalist. Although protective of her privacy, she maintains a watchful eye over the village. Her elevated position makes that contradiction visual. That instinct to protect the village drives the dark comedy thriller. She masterminds a bachelor auction to raise funds for the church destroyed by arson and help the locals find love. Meanwhile, she sacrifices herself by misdirecting her sister’s abusive husband.

The colonial mansion is the setting for my supernatural horror, Before We Were Afraid. The opening scenes ground the reader in the house and its inhabitants, including the ghostly ones, while establishing what is off-limits. Centuries of history create an appearance of solidity and stability. Yet the story unfolds in liminal tunnels where nothing is solid or dependable.

Good Taste opens on a neon-lit, rain-slicked sidewalk in Roma, Mexico City. It tracks a pair of iconic red-soled stilettos, leading the reader to expect a sexy woman. When their wearer bumps into someone, we discover she is a drag queen, face-to-face with Clarissa, a sassy young woman in genuine Louboutins. As Clarissa sashays away, we realize her long platinum hair is a wig. The opening establishes the psychological thriller’s theme of identity and perception.

An opening space creates a first impression. I’m equally interested in what happens after that impression is established. Rooms change hands, doors open and objects disappear. As characters gain power or surrender it, the spaces around them acquire new meaning.

In Good Taste, the protagonist Leo gradually occupies Clarissa’s world. Her bedroom and bathroom, initially their shared refuge, become his. The kitchen is his province and where he keeps secrets. The library, where she keeps her secrets, becomes his as he sells her valuable objets d’art and wears the diamond engagement ring from the proposal she never received. His transformation is mirrored by his surroundings.  

In Ode to Violeta, Alejandro’s expansive nature is reflected by the one grand open room where he entertains and dances the tango. Rose’s house has the same footprint, yet it contains rooms that have been closed off for decades. Entering her father’s den and the parlor where her mother committed suicide is integral to confronting her past and forgiving herself.

By the end of my stories, a space rarely means what it did at the beginning. Characters claim it, abandon it, violate it or finally enter it.

The space changes because they have.