By Leeann Betts
So you have a great idea for
a book. You’ve done some character sketches. You know where the story is going.
The only thing that’s left, apart from the writing, is to decide where to set
your book.
Your hometown? No, too many
people know you there. That little town where you went on vacation last year?
You loved the soda shop, the green grocer’s on the corner, the barber with the
cool twirling red, white, and blue sign. And what about the man at the post
office? All the stories he told you about bank robbers and--wait a second. Was
the main street through town called Main Street? Too boring. You want a street
name that goes with the title of your book. Something more literary, more
foreshadowing.
Scrap that town.
But wait a minute. Maybe not.
Maybe that town is perfect. Except for the Main Street thing. And the fact that
Pelican Lane--perfectly aligned with your book’s character arc, by the
way--runs the wrong direction.
What’s a writer to do?
Simple. Do what you do best.
Make up a town. Sure, draw from this town that you liked so well. But give it a
new name. And while you’re at it, maybe it needs to be in another state.
I choose to set all my books
in fictional towns for a couple of reasons. I don’t want to be constrained by
what a real setting would be, and I like to make things up.
Blame it on the writer in me.
Here’s how I come up with the
name of a town:
- I look at my book and my title and come up with something that
goes with it. For example, in my latest Carly Turnquist mystery, Five and Twenty Blackbirds, Carly
and Mike are at Mike’s college reunion in Raven Valley, AZ. The college
team mascot is a blackbird, so Raven Valley was pretty close.
- I checked to make sure there wasn’t a Raven Valley, AZ by
searching on the Internet.
- I looked at towns near my desired setting and saw how they were laid out. I did this by some actual visits to the area, and you can also go on Google Maps and look at the Earth View of addresses in the real town.
So go ahead. Put on your
thinking cap. And make up a town. Or a city. Or an entire world.
_______________________________________________________
Leeann Betts writes
contemporary suspense, while her real-life persona, Donna Schlachter, pens
historical suspense. No Accounting for
Murder and There Was a Crooked Man,
books 1 and 2 in her By the Numbers series, released in the fall of 2015. Book
3, Unbalanced, released in January.
Book 4, Five and Twenty Blackbirds,
is released in April, with more planned for later dates. If you like accountants or
are an accountant, check out Counting the
Days: a 21-day devotional for accountants, bookkeepers, and financial folk. Leeann
and Donna have penned a book on writing, Nuggets
of Writing Gold, and Donna has published a book of short stories, Second Chances and Second Cups. You can follow
Leeann at www.AllBettsAreOff.wordpress.com
and Donna at www.HiStoryThruTheAges.wordpress.com All books are available at Amazon.com in
digital and print, and at Smashwords.com in digital.
No comments:
Post a Comment