Hawthorne Heights

HAWTHORNE HEIGHTS

Welcome to Hawthorne Heights — a fictional coastal town in Oregon, set in 2006.

This world follows the people who live, work, study, and grow up here. It is a place of familiar streets, crowded school hallways, summer nights, local hangouts, messy friendships, complicated relationships, and the kind of rumors that somehow reach everyone before the truth does.

The story takes place in the mid-2000s, before smartphones and social media became part of everyday life. AIM conversations, MySpace profiles, flip phones, burned CDs, iPods, digital cameras, house parties, mall trips, and late-night drives are all part of the setting.

✦   2006 — before everyone was always connected.   ✦

ABOUT THE LOREBOOK

The entries below expand the world of Hawthorne Heights beyond the individual characters. They contain information about the town, local locations, schools, social circles, technology, culture, events, and other details that may appear throughout the series.

Not every character knows everything contained here. Some details are common knowledge, while others belong to specific people, places, or parts of town. The lore exists to make the setting feel consistent and lived-in as different stories unfold.

THE TOWN

Hawthorne Heights is a small coastal community in Oregon where the ocean, downtown streets, residential neighborhoods, and surrounding forests are all within easy reach. It is large enough to have its own schools, businesses, and social scene, but small enough that completely disappearing is nearly impossible.

The town has a strong sense of familiarity. Families have lived here for generations, teenagers grow up together, and adults tend to remember who everyone's parents are. This closeness can be comforting, but it also means that gossip travels quickly and old history rarely stays buried.

2006

Hawthorne Heights exists firmly in the mid-2000s. Technology is becoming increasingly important, but life is not yet dominated by smartphones or constant internet access. Flip phones, AIM, MySpace, iPods, CDs, DVDs, digital cameras, landlines, and handwritten notes are everyday parts of life.

Music is a major part of teenage culture. People trade burned CDs, share headphones, discover bands through friends, and keep carefully chosen songs on their MySpace profiles. What someone listens to can say almost as much about them as what they wear.

HAWTHORNE HEIGHTS HIGH

The local high school is the center of much of the town's teenage social life. Students from completely different backgrounds are constantly forced into the same hallways, classrooms, parties, and school events.

There are recognizable social circles, but the boundaries between them are never perfect. Friendships cross groups, relationships create new tensions, and one person's drama can quickly become everyone's business.

SOCIAL CIRCLES

The Heights: Popular, attractive, socially powerful

The Varsity: Football, basketball, cheer, sports culture

The Park Rats: Skate park, bikes, parking lots, laid-back

The Static: Punk, emo, goth, alternative, outsiders

The Garage Scene: Bands, local shows, music

The Creatives: Art, photography, writing, theater

The Brains: AP classes, debate, academics

The Delinquents: Fighting, skipping, drugs, partying

The Wildcards: Know everyone, belong nowhere

The Ghosts: Keep to themselves, easily underestimated

COMMUNICATION

AIM and MySpace are major parts of teenage communication. Screen names, away messages, profile songs, comments, photographs, and carefully chosen layouts can all carry meaning. A conversation can happen without anyone else knowing about it, but screenshots, rumors, and shared passwords can make privacy surprisingly fragile.

Cell phones exist, but they are not smartphones. Texting is common, although not everyone has unlimited messages. Calling someone's house and having a parent answer is still a very real possibility.

LOCAL HANGOUTS

Teenagers rarely stay home when they can help it. The beach, local diner, mall, skate park, movie theater, record store, parking lots, and friends' houses all become familiar meeting places. Some are popular with everyone; others belong almost exclusively to certain groups.

Late-night drives, spontaneous beach trips, convenience-store runs, and hours spent sitting somewhere with nowhere else to be are ordinary parts of life in Hawthorne Heights.

THE BEACH

The coastline is one of the town's most important gathering places. During the day it is busy with families, tourists, and teenagers, while evenings bring bonfires, music, drinking, conversations, arguments, and quiet walks along the water.

For many teenagers, the beach feels like a place where the rules of town matter slightly less. It is where people go when they want company, privacy, or simply somewhere to escape.

THE RULES OF HAWTHORNE HEIGHTS

Everyone knows everyone. Nobody knows everything. People have reputations, families have histories, and rumors have a way of becoming accepted as fact. The town may look ordinary from the outside, but every person has something going on beneath the surface.

The lorebook provides background information for the setting, but characters do not automatically know every detail contained within it. Information should only be treated as known when it would reasonably be available to that character.

The lorebook provides background information for the setting, but characters do not automatically know every detail contained within it. Information should only be treated as known when it would reasonably be available to that character.

FASHION & STYLE

Fashion in Hawthorne Heights reflects the mid-2000s. Clothing varies heavily between social circles, from athletic wear and low-rise jeans to band tees, hoodies, layered tops, skirts, sneakers, skate shoes, and alternative styles. Personal style often signals someone's interests or social group, but people frequently borrow from different trends.

Accessories are common parts of self-expression: studded belts, colorful bracelets, trucker hats, chunky jewelry, hair accessories, headphones, and carefully chosen bags are all familiar sights around town.

PARTIES & NIGHTLIFE

House parties are a regular part of teenage life, particularly on weekends when parents are away. Parties range from small gatherings between friends to crowded events where half the school somehow ends up attending. Music, cheap drinks, gossip, hookups, arguments, and unexpected encounters are common.

There are few places for teenagers to go late at night, so driving around town, meeting at the beach, stopping at convenience stores, or gathering at someone's house are common ways to spend an evening.

FAMILY & COMMUNITY

Hawthorne Heights is the kind of town where family history matters. Parents often know one another, siblings attend the same schools, and childhood friendships can stretch back years. Adults may know far more about teenagers' lives than the teenagers realize, especially in families that have lived in town for generations.

Not every family is close, however. Some homes are warm and supportive, while others are complicated, distant, or difficult to return to. Family dynamics often shape the way people see themselves and the town around them.

SEASONS & EVENTS

Life in Hawthorne Heights changes with the seasons. Summer brings beach days, bonfires, vacations, and long nights. Autumn means football games, school dances, Halloween parties, and changing weather. Winter brings holidays, school events, and quieter evenings, while spring brings prom season, warmer nights, and the anticipation of graduation.

Homecoming, football games, dances, concerts, birthdays, bonfires, and graduation are some of the events that regularly bring different parts of the community together.

TONE & THEMES

Hawthorne Heights is nostalgic, youthful, messy, and occasionally bittersweet. The world focuses on the ordinary moments that make adolescence memorable: staying out too late, sitting in someone's driveway after a party, falling for the wrong person, losing friendships, making new ones, and wondering what life will look like after high school.

Not every story needs to be dramatic. Some are funny, romantic, awkward, chaotic, quiet, or bittersweet. Characters should feel like imperfect people with their own lives, relationships, ambitions, insecurities, and problems beyond whoever they happen to be interacting with.

✦   Welcome to Hawthorne Heights. Stay a while.   ✦

THE WORLD OF HAWTHORNE HEIGHTS

A closer look at the places, people, and little details that make the town what it is.

LOCATIONS

BELL'S DINER

A small, family-owned diner located near downtown. Bell's is inexpensive, casual, and open late enough to become a favorite teenage hangout. Students often stop here after school, football games, parties, or late-night drives. The back booths are particularly popular, and the staff has seen enough teenage drama to know when not to ask questions.

STATIC RECORDS

A small independent record store downtown selling CDs, vinyl, band merchandise, and used music. It is especially popular with alternative, emo, punk, and indie teenagers. The store is one of the best places in town to discover unfamiliar bands, trade music recommendations, or spend an afternoon browsing without any intention of buying anything.

STARLIGHT THEATER

An old single-screen movie theater in downtown Hawthorne Heights. The building is slightly outdated, the seats are uncomfortable, and the concessions are overpriced, but teenagers still regularly meet there. Going to the movies is one of the easiest excuses for spending time with someone without having to admit it is a date.

HAWTHORNE MALL

A modest suburban mall located outside the center of town. It contains clothing stores, a food court, an arcade, music shops, and various places for teenagers to spend an entire afternoon without actually buying anything. Weekends are particularly busy, making the mall one of the town's main social gathering places.

HAWTHORNE SKATE PARK

A concrete skate park with ramps, rails, stairs, and bowls. It is primarily a hangout for skaters, but other teenagers regularly pass through. The park is busiest after school and on weekends, and it often becomes a meeting place for people who would rarely interact inside the school itself.

THE 76

A gas station and convenience store on the edge of town. It stays open late and is a common stopping point for teenagers with cars. People come for snacks, drinks, cigarettes, gasoline, or simply because there is nowhere else to go. Running into someone you know is almost inevitable.

SCHOOL LIFE

HAWTHORNE HEIGHTS HIGH

The high school is more than a place for classes. It is where reputations are established, friendships begin and end, relationships become public, and rumors spread. Students constantly move between different social circles, making the school one of the most interconnected parts of town.

FOOTBALL GAMES

Friday night football games are major social events. Students gather in the stands, athletes become the center of attention, and people who have little interest in football often attend simply because everyone else will be there. Games frequently lead to parties or late-night gatherings afterward.

SCHOOL DANCES

Homecoming, winter dances, and prom are some of the biggest social events of the school year. They bring different groups together and tend to produce their fair share of dates, breakups, jealousy, awkward encounters, and rumors that continue long after the music stops.

TEENAGE CULTURE

MUSIC

Music is deeply tied to identity in Hawthorne Heights. Teenagers trade burned CDs, make playlists for their iPods, recommend bands to friends, and use songs to communicate feelings they might not say aloud. Concerts and local shows provide another place for different social circles to overlap.

MYSPACE

A person's MySpace profile can reveal almost as much about them as seeing them in person. Profile pictures, songs, layouts, comments, friends lists, and carefully written bios all carry social meaning. Checking someone's profile is common, and changing a song or deleting a picture can sometimes cause more drama than intended.

AIM

AIM provides a private space for conversations that might be impossible to have face-to-face. Screen names and away messages become part of people's identities, while late-night conversations can easily become more personal than either person originally intended.

RECURRING EVENTS

SUMMER BONFIRES

Beach bonfires are a summer tradition. Groups bring blankets, food, speakers, and whatever else they managed to get out of the house. Some bonfires are planned days in advance; others begin as a few friends meeting at the beach and quickly become much larger.

HOUSE PARTIES

Weekend house parties range from small gatherings to events that seem to attract half the school. Music is loud, people move between rooms, and privacy is difficult to find. Parties are often where relationships begin, friendships fall apart, and rumors are created.

LOCAL REPUTATIONS

People in Hawthorne Heights tend to remember things. A childhood mistake, a public breakup, a fight, a particularly memorable party, or an old rumor can become part of someone's reputation long after the original event has been forgotten.

At the same time, reputations are not always accurate. Someone known as a troublemaker may be completely different around their family. Someone with a perfect reputation may have considerably more going on beneath the surface. The difference between who someone is and who the town thinks they are is often where the most interesting stories begin.

✦   Every street has a story. Every person has one too.   ✦