Setting: Stairwells
As an English teacher, one of my favorite things to do is inspire students to see possibilities for stories in unexpected settings. It’s important to remember that stories don’t need to take place in foreign or fancy locations to be utterly thrilling. Sometimes the most riveting scenes can occur in places we take for granted.
Today, we’re looking at stairwells.
Here are a few general observations:
They are often cold.
They are not usually aesthetically pleasing.
They have FANTASTIC acoustics. (I have it on good authority that it is deeply embarrassing to be singing at the top of your lungs and then run into someone at the top of the steps.)
Stairwells hold a world of possibility when it comes to sparking fascinating scenes. The acoustics themselves could be the source of endless character and plot development: a heated argument between floors, a whispered conversation that wasn’t meant to be overheard, the echo of purposeful footsteps.
Or how about the power-dynamics that can enter into a stairway conversation. One person is higher, the other is lower. If they are on the same step, they end up knocking one another off-balance. Characters might move slowly away from one another, step by step, and even carry on the conversation leaning over the banister.
If your character lives in an apartment or works in a multi-story building, I urge you to consider what could happen to them in the stairwell. Do they have an unanticipated conversation? Do they find an unexpected object dropped on the steps? Are they chasing someone (or being chased)? Do they hear something significant from two floors up? Do they sled down the stairs in a laundry basket? (Sounds silly, but maybe your character is totally that type of person.)
These are just A FEW ideas of the many, many possibilities that exist. If you think a stairwell scene would work nicely in your story, look at the stairwells you come across in your everyday life. What details do you notice that could add realism to your work? Remember, a few specific details will set the scene a thousand times better than a bunch of wordy description.
Here are a few real-life observations and experiences I have made regarding stairwells to help inspire ideas in your own writing:
Hospital: I had a friend hear the announcement for “code blue” over the intercom, directing staff to the exact location in the stairwell where she was walking up from the parkade. Was she having a medical emergency without knowing it? Unlikely, but we’ll never know as she left before anyone could come to assist her.
Apartment building: This particular apartment building is less than five years old and yet the stairs are already falling apart. Someone has drilled screws into the rubber edging to keep it in place over the wood poking out beneath.
Office building: While the building itself is lovely, the stairwell is cold cement with metal pipes and a bed of sharp nails poking down from the tin roof. The stairs are covered in dead beetles. If the exit door isn’t closed properly, the wind sneaks through and creates an alarming, high-pitched whistle that sounds like an engine. There is a grey, metal ladder on the wall leading up to the roof.
Care-home stairwell: One day, while visiting my grandpa on the third floor of his care facility, I tried to take the stairs instead of the elevator. However, the door to the stairwell had been locked, I assume to keep patients from leaving. I had the horrifying thought that you could get trapped in that miserable little stairwell if someone hit the automatic lock while you were inside. Possible book scene that could either be humorous or deeply stressful.
Period stairs in a historical village: 18 steps leading almost vertically up to the second floor of a bakery built in 1912. I have taken these stairs a number of times and I swear my life flashes before my eyes every time. They are wildly steep. We’re talking steps of Cirith Ungol steep. One slip and you’re going to break something: your leg, your back… Definitely your dignity.
Writing Challenges:
Write a stairwell scene where a character hears something shocking from a different floor.
Write a stairwell chase scene.
Write a stairwell scene where a character meets their arch-enemy on the stairs.
Write a stairwell scene where the stairs don’t look like regular stairs and lead somewhere unexpected.
Stories that use excellent stairwell scenes:
Dial “M” for Murder by Frederick Knott
The Big Bang Theory
Encanto (“Bruno, your room is the worst!”)