A Reader's Question About Setting

LUCY BURDETTE: A friend of JRW (name suppressed to protect the innocent, LOL) wrote me recently with a question about setting. She wondered how the Reds would answer, but I thought lots of you might like to weigh in. So here goes...

Here's the dilemma: suppose you come up with a whole story that you like, pretty high concept. BUT for some reason in your head it is based in a place you don't know very well. Would you develop the character in a setting you knew better, assuming the plot points would work the same (and adapting to do so) or would you stick to the way it plays out in your head and research the area? Boy, I hope that makes sense. It feels like such a fanfic question. 🙂 But I suspect the reason the setting is stuck in a place I don't know is the idea came to me while watching TV. Not the same character, but loosely based on one.

LUCY again: I use real settings, including of course Key West, and find the more I immerse myself in them, the easier it is to write. But there are drawbacks such as what if reality doesn't work for the story? And what if you get something wrong? And what if reality changes?

What do you all think?

What We're Writing: The Perfect Setting by Ingrid Thoft

"What are you writing these days?"

It's the question that can elicit either dread or elation, depending upon where you are in the process.  These days, I'm somewhere in the middle of that continuum, although the constant is that I never feel I'm writing enough.  I remind myself that is a common affliction among writers!

I always consult the best reference books!

To answer the question, I’m writing a stand alone suspense/thriller, a departure from my Fina Ludlow series.  I still can’t tell you much about it, but I can tell you that the process has been daunting at times, but mostly exciting.  It’s been liberating to create a new universe populated by an original cast of characters.  I don’t have to worry about adhering to the rules of Fina Ludlow's world, which gives me a lot more wiggle room.

The new book is entitled SUBMERGED, and it’s set in an idyllic town on the New England coast.  Two families, who are neighbors, are bonded through friendship and time, but they find their charmed lives shattered by a violent event.  I look forward to telling you more in the coming months!Like my Fina Ludlow books, I’ve set this one in Massachusetts, where I was born and raised.  Many people have asked why I don’t set a book in Seattle, my home for the past ten years.  As much as I love my adopted hometown, I don't feel quite ready to use it as a setting.  Not yet.

Many of the Reds write about far flung destinations, but I admit to feeling intimidated by the prospect of writing a book where the action unfolds in an unfamiliar location. There’s something about the place where you grew up—where you learned to drive, had your first kiss, cheered for the home team—that would be challenging to replicate.  Obviously, writers do so with great success, and perhaps once I get this stand alone under my belt, I’ll feel inspired to choose a brand-new setting!

For the writers out there, how do you choose your setting?  Is it a place you’ve lived or visited or do you branch out to the unknown?

And for everyone, where would you set a book if time and money were no obstacle in the research process?

Sheila Connolly Talks about Place

 JUNGLE REDS: Sheila Connolly is a prolific New England writer who manages to juggle three bestselling mystery series. Three! We're happy to have her visit the blog today to talk about the magic of where and how she sets her books. Welcome Sheila!

 
SHEILA CONNOLLY: When I was young, my family moved around a lot. My father had issues with authority figures, but luckily he also had marketable technical skills, so we always had a place to go. But moving—and changing schools—every two or three years can be hard on a kid. By the time I started high school, we had lived in four different states and seven different towns.

For college and grad school, I picked yet another state. When I married, I added another couple of states to my life list. I never thought I’d be grateful for all this shuttling around, but as it turns out, my ragtag collection of homes and jobs finally proved useful when I started writing. It was almost like I’d been collecting material all my life.

I write three different series,  set in Western Massachusetts, Philadelphia, and County Cork, Ireland—all my choices rather than the publisher’s. Massachusetts, particularly the rural western part, was where I had always wanted to live. I lived and worked in the Philadelphia area for a big chunk of my life, and I thought an urban cozy would be a nice change of pace, both for me and for readers. I know the city, both the good and bad parts of it, the historic and the modern, and the cultural community there works pretty much like a small town—everybody knows everybody else.
And then there was Ireland. My father’s parents were both born in Ireland, but my parents’ marriage didn’t last, and I never even met my grandparents. I didn’t even set foot in Ireland until about fifteen years ago—and I was blown away. But in a quiet way: it felt like coming home, like slipping on an old shoe. It was comfortable, familiar, easy. Of course I had to write about it.

In the County Cork Series, I created a young protagonist who grew up with an Irish grandmother in Boston. She has no particular love for the Irish, because she’s seen only the worst of them, the down-and-out immigrants scrabbling to get by. Then she inherits a pub and a cottage in Ireland, thanks to a relative her grandmother never told her about, and she makes her way to West Cork. Guess what: she’s still there.

I wouldn’t presume to write a book with an Irish protagonist. While I’ve visited several times, I’ve never lived in Ireland, and I know I’m still an outsider (although the name Connolly helps!). So is Maura Donovan, my heroine: she’s skeptical and she doesn’t trust others easily. But Ireland is winning her over, bit by bit. A lot of that is because of the people, and the sense of connection they offer her, something that’s missing in her life. She’s not leaving any time soon. (I won’t let her!)
The third book in the series, An Early Wake, is about music at the pub. The pub itself is based on a real pub that I stumbled over, called Connolly’s of Leap, that I discovered on my first full day in Ireland, and that I’ve been visiting ever since. The owners used to bring contemporary musicians from all over Ireland to play there. Paddy McNicholl, who made that happen, died a few years ago, but his wife kept the place, and his son Sam, a musician himself, is working hard to bring it back. When I asked Sam how it had happened, back in the day, he said, “It was magic.” He meant it.

And he’s right: there is a magic in Ireland, like nowhere else I’ve been. Ireland gets under your skin in unexpected ways. It’s full of small surprises. Irish people love to talk, and they tell tales that are too good to pass up—and stories keep falling into my lap, and working their way into my books.

I love all three settings, and all the characters involved, and I love writing about them. But it may be Ireland that’s dearest to my heart. As if I need an excuse to go back each year!

What do you want to know about the setting when you read a book? What makes it come alive for you?


Sheila Connolly, Anthony and Agatha Award–nominated author, writes three bestselling cozy mystery series for Berkley Prime Crime. Her Museum Mysteries are based in Philadelphia, her Orchard Mysteries take place in rural Massachusetts, and her County Cork Mysteries are set in Ireland, and include Buried in a Bog and Scandal in Skibbereen, both New York Times bestsellers. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and three cats, and visits Ireland as often as she can. Read more or pre-order the books on her website.

Cathy Ace on location, location, location!

HALLIE EPHRON: It was my pleasure to find myself sitting next to Cathy Ace at the Surrey Writers Conference in British Columbia. We got to chitchatting as we longingly watched the lines of readers snaking their way up to get books signed by Diana Gabaldon and Anne Perry.

With a brand new book just out (The Corpse with the Emerald Thumb), I invited Cathy to talk about Cait Morgan, her "Welsh Canadian foodie criminologist sleuth" who definitely gets around. She travels, she eats, and one can only hope that Cathy writes that aspect of her adventures from firsthand experience.

CATHY ACE: I’ll tell you a secret—I’ve been everywhere she’s been, eaten everything she’s eaten, and drunk  everything she’s drunk. Who? My protagonist, Cait Morgan, my Welsh Canadian foodie criminologist sleuth. Luckily for her, I’ve travelled a lot. And luckily for me, she manages to find a dead body, or two, wherever she goes.

If I’m honest—and I understand the Reds like that—the real reason I move Cait about so much, and have her eat and drink her way through her books, is because it gives me the chance to revisit places, and flavors, I miss. I truly believe a location can become a character in a book, and I try to make sure that the story I am writing could only have happened in the specific locale I have selected.

My first Cait Morgan Mystery, The Corpse with the Silver Tongue, is set in Nice where I lived for several months each year for almost a decade. Good friends of mine owned an apartment in the block that was Gestapo Headquarters during WWII, and whenever I visited for dinner, or l'apéro, I couldn’t help but want to set a murder mystery there. Wherever you walk in Cimiez, you’re constantly treading upon thousands of years of human history. So a tale which involved a “Collar of Death” which had travelled from Wales to the south of France, and had a history reaching back millennia, nibbled at the fringes of my mind, even as I nibbled at the foie gras.

I couldn’t ignore the Province of British Columbia, where I live and have  a great fondness for the Okanagan Valley and the vineyards around the lake. Yes, my research for The Corpse with the Golden Nose involved exhaustive wine tasting, but I applied myself, and spent a good deal of time in and around Kelowna observing, nibbling, and sipping. But I didn’t want my fictitious ageing rock-star vintner to be confused with any of the real ones who live there, and I think I managed it. (No law suits yet!)

Mexico attracts a great deal of press coverage about the crime which, sadly, is all too real there. A rich cultural heritage lies beyond the inevitable stalls laden with tourist crafts, and bars selling cheap beer-and-shots combos. In The Corpse with the Emerald Thumb I wanted to use the Pacific coastal towns around Puerto Vallarta as a backdrop for a cast of mixed ethnicity and, only because the book needed it, duplicitousness. The book is set on a tequila-producing agave plantation, so once again I had to carry out some onerous research. Believe me when I tell you that the recuperative abilities I possessed when researching Cait first mystery are not what they once were!

In September 2014, Cait, who usually grapples with closed circle mysteries, takes on a closed room mystery in The Corpse with the Platinum Hair.

Luckily for her she’s trapped in one of the most exclusive restaurants in Las Vegas. Yes—Vegas, Baby…but maybe not the one you think you know.

Am I the only person who visits a place, and immediately starts to work out how it can become a great location for a murder? Please tell me I’m not alone?

HALLIE: I confess I read Donna Leon for a trip to Venice, Rhys and Susan for a trip back in time to England, Debs to London, Lucy to Key West. Where do you like to travels take you in your mystery reading?