UPDATE: I FINALLY GOT A JOB!
Yep, and it’s writing/editing related! I’ll be proofing reports for a local company, along with various administrative duties. I’m pretty excited about it. It seems like a very cool place to work.
Sorry for the long delay in posting. I had to rest my brain after NaNoWriMo. The space between when I finish and when I can stand to even look at NewBook has been larger than it was for Rose’s Hostage.
Instead, I’ve been reading Robert J. Sawyer, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, and Brian Keene, and absorbing lessons on characterization, chapter structure, and speculative / thriller elements.
There’s a lot to do, and I promised I would share that process with you. I’ll start with these remarks about setting.
Whether your story takes place in a village, a city or on another planet, your setting has its own identity that may or may not be wrapped up in that of your protagonist. The right name and some attention to its population, geography and infrastructure provide valuable backstory that will give your place depth and realism, even if you don’t use all the material.
The sounds of the words can tell you something about your setting. Consider J.R.R. Tolkien‘s hobbits, who live in Hobbiton, the Shire. Tolkien’s place names are representative of the folks living in them. Shire sounds pastoral, peaceful, like the hobbits themselves.
Looks like it, too. No wonder Gandalf loved it here.
Gondor sounds mighty, as its warrior Boromir was before the Ring tragically unmasked his failings. And Mordor—the name alone is enough to conjure writhing black spirits in one’s mind.
Batman’s stomping grounds are based on New York, a city that can be dark and looming, although Chris Nolan’s movies are filmed in Chicago. Gotham, which was a nickname for the Big Apple long before Batman came to be, sounds metropolitan but also gothic in a broody way. Considering Batman’s tragic origin, it fits. Metropolis (hello, Captain Obvious) is the bustling city where Superman hangs out.
Sometimes writers use real places in their work, especially ones with which they are very familiar. Tons of movies and books are set in New York City. . In Betty Smith’s classic A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, the borough itself is as much a character as the protagonist.
I prefer to make up settings. Unless I know a place very, very well, I’m liable to get it wrong. If one of my books happened in Los Angeles, I would have to either do a great deal of research (which sucks – I set something in Spain once and know NOTHING about it) or travel there to get it right (Ha! Not likely with my bank account!).
Rose’s Hostage is set in a fictional city in Illinois called Ralston. Yes, like the cereal. To me, it sounded Midwestern, solid, slightly industrial. I picture a drive into it as close to entering St. Louis–not as factory-infested as Joliet, with rural satellite communities like my small city. To make it interesting and keep my detective busy, I added:
- A self-contained rough area downtown, like the Narrows in Gotham City, with lots and lots of bars and hookers.
- Federal law enforcement and an entrenched Mafia presence.
- Motorcycle gangs. Both they and the Mafia are augmented by a reasonable proximity to Chicago, which I can mine for all sorts of criminal goodies.
- Lots of public areas—parks, a museum, etc. where disaster-ish stuff could happen.
Thinking about where Ralston is, who lives there and what kind of activity they would engage in made a difference in all sorts of details. The population is mostly descended from Western European immigrants, which affects what names I choose for people. All this comes together in a flavor for the area.
Most of the places in NewBook are grounded in reality. Some are speculative. There are several places where the story happens:
- Martinsburg (working title)—a nice, middle-sized city, nothing huge, smaller than Ralston, but not rural. It’s home to a prestigious university that has spawned a pretty good scientific community, central to some elements of the story.
- A couple of other dimensions. No, really.
- Heaven. Yep, you heard me.
- Brief visits to Los Angeles and New York.
WTF?? What is this story about, anyway?
You’ll find out, youngling. You’ll find out.
Image: David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
There are larger social ramifications to the protagonist’s actions, but I simply could not expand the scope of my settings and still manage the story. So I’m condensing the majority of it down to Martinsburg. I’m not sharing just yet because so many things still need work that what I say now may be completely different in a month or two.
Keep an eye out for April’s Blogging from A-Z Challenge. I’m planning yet again to participate, with more enticing tidbits about how my book is coming together.
NewBook’s settings are still mostly in my head. It seems kind of back-assward to write them down now, but this book has not followed my usual process, so don’t take it as gospel on how to work. For most of us, it’s worthwhile to take time and plot your setting before you put your characters there.
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