Using Houses in Your Fiction
House (plural houses) is a form of dwelling or home, a building where people live permanently. A house is a structure designed to provide shelter, protection, and warmth. It can be built of wood, stone or bricks. It may be large or small, with one or more stories. Houses may also be furnished or unfurnished. The term can also refer to the community of people living together in a particular place, or a person’s family and social relations in general.
Throughout history, houses have provided mankind with the safety and security needed to survive, as well as providing a symbol of wealth and status in society. A house is more than a physical structure, however; it also offers emotional attachment and memories. The word house is derived from the Latin word domus, meaning “home” or “couch.” Other words for the idea of home include dom, casa, mansion, or bach.
As a literary device, houses are an easy element to incorporate into any story. Depending on how you use them, they can add a sense of realism and verisimilitude to the scene in which they appear. Often, a house is the setting for many important events in a story; it can be a place where love blooms or a life comes to an end. It can be a refuge from the chaos of the world or the source of tension between characters.
To help your readers connect with the people in your story, you should make a point to describe the house. If it’s old, you can use adjectives to convey its condition–for example, musty or cluttered–or you can go the other way and use a more poetic description. You can also use the house as a symbol of character–as in a quaint, cozy cottage or an expansive mansion.
If you want your readers to understand how the house influenced the inhabitants, it is a good idea to research its history. This can be done by looking through historical records–maps, city directories, newspapers, and genealogical files are a few of the most common sources. Historical societies also often have a selection of local documents for people interested in tracing their roots.
The history of a house can also be explored through music. DJs like Frankie Knuckles helped develop the style of house in Chicago during the early 1980s. This genre of music incorporated techniques from disco, garage, and post-disco styles of music. In addition, house has influenced pop music by being incorporated into works by major artists such as Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, and Madonna. Recently, tropical house has emerged as a popular style at dance music festivals and on the mainstream charts, with artists such as Kygo. The influence of house has even begun to spread to Korean K-pop, with songs such as f(x)’s “4 Walls” and SHINee’s title track featuring this sound.