 Mystery: August 10, 2016 Issue [#7793] |
  Mystery
This week: Location - It Matters! Edited by: Gaby  
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Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.
~ Mark Twain |
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Have you ever considered whether or not your reader cares for the place you're describing?
Inspiration for writing may hit us at any moment of any given day. Locations for writing might not. You've heard that one sentence often enough "Stick to what you know." True enough, but we do like to experience other places as well. However, we cannot write about them if our research is limited. By limited I mean more than staring at a geographical map to pinpoint a road a house is on. You have to know the place before you can create a picture for the reader.
I'll share a few different locations with you from the books I've read and how they've made me feel. Perhaps it sheds some light on how we choose the setting for our writing.
First: San Francisco
I've seen the Golden Gate Bridge many times on television, seen the buildings, the hustle and bustle, and I loved reading books as well as watching shows whose chosen location is in this particular city. I used to read specific writers because they'd choose this city as their backdrop for the story. In a way, I traveled along with those characters. Even if the stories ended up being almost repetitive and rather boring, I was hooked on the location itself.
Second: St. Louis
It hasn't been easy finding a book where the setting is set in this particular city, but I stumbled upon a writer who might be from here and therefore all their crimes and mysteries happened to be in St. Louis. Rather curious about how the writer described the city and which part of it, I read a few. Since I am living in St. Louis, imagination went out the window and to my own surprise, it rather bored me to read something set in the town I'm lining in. To top it off, I don't think the writer included a lot of aspects of what the town is about, but that might have been only me.
Third: New Orleans
I've always wanted to visit this little beauty. Due to my old job, I've seen the airport many times and also seen the entire city from the sky, but never had the chance to go downtown to see it all. When I grabbed hold of Anne Rice's books, I fell in love with it. Her descriptions are vivid, clear, and almost written in prose. An invitation to go there. So, I did, but I didn't see all that I wanted to, which means I'll have to go there again! 
Being there and visiting Anne's old home in the Garden District, the place she used for inspiration to write The Witching Hour has rather been a curious experience. She hasn't left out any details and I felt as if the characters may open the front door and step outside or a nurse may bring good old Deidre out onto the porch. Quite a feeling.
Traveling may not be a requirement in order to write and yet I feel it's a vital experience which broadens our horizons. It opens our eyes to more than we see and know on a daily basis. Sometimes, we have to leave the place we live at for a bit to learn more about it as well. Many things become irrelevant in our mind until we step back and look from afar. However, if you're planning to take your reader on a journey, no matter how turbulent, make it worth their time.
I've only mentioned two places here mentioned by two writers. There are many more which have taken me on a real journey and every time I get to a particular place, I'm in awe and feel a connection to the reader without touching a book they wrote. It takes skill to make a reader travel just for the sake of a story. 
'Til next time!
~ Gaby 
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