Location, Location, Location!

By Judith Keim

Real estate agents have a mantra – Location, location, location! And they’re right. Location can mean the difference between a successful choice or one that doesn’t quite work out the way you’d thought.

           

In writing, a book’s location is really it’s setting. And that setting can change from chapter to chapter, sometimes scene to scene. Setting done well becomes a character in your story. Many writers do a wonderful job of including fabulous descriptions in their books, making their settings come alive and inviting readers to spend time there. Even what some might consider ordinary places come alive with good description that includes use of the five senses.

            In BREAKFAST AT THE BEACH HOUSE HOTEL the setting of a property on the beach encourages all kinds of description:

Stepping onto the balcony, I gazed down at the pool below. The waterfall at one end sent glistening ripples dancing across the pool’s surface. The sound of the tumbling water was almost drowned out by the lapping of the Gulf on the broad, white beach beyond the house. Peace, such as I hadn’t known for a long time, wrapped around me.

             It doesn’t have to be a glamourous setting. In THE TALKING TREE, setting is used to show her pain:

My mother’s death brought me back to upstate Barnham, New York on this crisp April morning. Chills rolled across my shoulders in paralyzing waves as I stared at the peeling paint and darkened windows of my childhood home. Cruelty and rejection had formed its core. I clutched my hands, drew a deep breath, and told myself this place no longer mattered, but I knew better. Until I could work through past issues, I’d always be bound in some horrible way to this house and the people who’d caused such pain.     

            In FAT FRIDAYS, a suburban Georgia neighborhood looks something like this:

She stood a moment, admiring her surroundings, so full of promise. Plantings of various sizes and shapes filled the landscaped spaces between the large houses and served as a playground for the birds flitting among the budding branches. The trees would soon leaf out in pale green glory. Bradford Pear trees were about to blossom, and then their white flowers would coat the branches like fallen snow. Redbud trees would soon add patches of brilliant pink, making the world seem a fairyland of spring colors.

As you work on your book, take a look at the setting around your characters. I’m sure you have a vision in your mind as to what they’re doing and saying, but make the scene come alive with enough description of their “location” to pull the reader into the moment.

Good luck with sharing your world with others!

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Judith Keim was born and raised in Elmira, New York, and now makes her home in Idaho with her husband and long-haired dachshund, Winston, and other members of her family. Growing up, books were always present - being read, ready to go back to the library or about to be discovered. Information from the books was shared in general conversation, giving all of us in the family a wealth of knowledge and a lot of imagination. Perhaps that is why I was drawn to the idea of writing stories early on. I particularly love to write novels about women who face unexpected challenges with strength and find love along the way. As J.S. Keim I write children's middle-grade stories. I love writing about kids who have interesting, fun, exciting experiences with creatures real and fantastical and with characters who learn to see the world in a different way. I have a story in Chicken Soup to Inspire a Woman's Soul and a story in Belle Book's Mossy Creek Series - A Summer in Mossy Creek. Some of my stories were finals in RWA contests and three of my children's stories have been published in magazines - Highlights for Children, Jack and Jill and Children's Playmate. I hope you enjoy my stories as much as I enjoy telling them! My Website: http://www.judithkeim.com/

My Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/Judith-Keim-184013771644484/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel My Twitter Page: https://twitter.com/@judithkeim

My Linked-in Page: https://www.linkedin.com/profile/preview?locale=en_US&trk=prof-0-sb-preview-primary-button

Getting Closer to Elvis

by Doyne Phillips, Marketing Editor

I was once checking through customs in Rome and the young lady, seeing I was flying into Memphis TN, asked me if Elvis was still alive. I answered, “Some think so”. She said, “Before I die I am coming to Memphis to see Elvis”.  

Have you ever been to Graceland? Millions have gone there to get closer to their idol; “to see Elvis.”  

The Turner-Ingersoll Mansion, a seaside home in Salem, Massachusetts, was built for Captain John Turner in 1668. Having visited the home I can easily see the attraction. But the draw is Captain John Turner’s cousin Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne wrote a book about the home and due to the popularity of the book the home is better known by the title of the book, The House of the Seven Gables. Seeing the home with its secret staircases and notable architecture makes the book come alive. 

In Oxford MS, not far from the Greek revival home known as Rowan Oak, you can find seated on a bench in front of City Hall a life size bronze statue of Rowan Oaks' former owner William Faulkner. Faulkner’s writing about the area in which he lived went so far as to have a detailed map of the fictitious county of Yoknapatawpha. From this many locations were spoken of in his books As I Lay Dying, Sound and the Fury, Absalom, Absalom!, and TheUnvanquished. It was believed to have a strong connection to the county of Lafayette, the county in which he grew up. Tours of the home, the city and surrounding areas are available.   

The question is, like the chicken or the egg, which came first? Were people drawn by the book, the author, or the location?  I think the answer is not which one came first but how wonderful the connection is. It is like Graceland and Elvis!

Let’s take that concept one step further. What if you wrote a book about a specific area that was a popular tourist area and also used the location to market the book? In April 2011 Andrew Andrews published The Noticer, which made the New York Times Best-Seller List. It is about a mysterious man suddenly appearing to certain citizens of Orange Beach and Gulf Shores, AL and assisting them with their problems by using common sense. This was based on a true encounter Andy Andrews had years ago in that same location. Orange Beach is now Andy’s home town. It is also the Gulf Coast destination of hundreds of thousands of beach goers each year, my family included. 

 

On a recent trip to Orange Beach I discovered in a gift shop Andy’s book The Noticer displayed alongside a Points of Interest brochure. The brochure compiled points of interest in Orange Beach and Gulf Shores AL "that have special meaning for New York Times best-selling author Andy Andrews.” How brilliant! The connection with the book and the author are much stronger when you can see where the story took place.  

If you have written a book and have used a well-known destination a brochure like this may be of help. If you are considering writing a story and have yet to decide on the location, again this may help. Help your readers to make the connection. You can’t leave Graceland without feeling a little closer to Elvis.  

You Are Here

by Gary Fearon, Creative Director


If you’ve ever gone into an unfamiliar shopping mall trying to find a particular store, you know the feeling.  An endless maze of shops and kiosks clamor for your attention and you hardly know where to begin.  But before you can say “Where am I?” you spot the friendly sight of the mall directory and search for the reassuring red arrow that tells you “You are here.”

It’s only common sense that the directory is always parked near the entrance door, so shoppers have an opportunity to get their bearing right away.

By the same token, consider the opening shot in any film you’ve seen.  From the very beginning, the first thing you see tells you where you are.  It can be as obvious as an airport terminal or as subtle as a closeup on a bathroom faucet.  Before you learn anything about “who,” “what,” or “when”, the first thing your mind goes searching for is “where”.  Once we know where we are, we’re no longer geographically disoriented.

Reading a book, we have no such visual cue to establish our whereabouts.  Thoughtfully, the classics of literature provide readers with that information very early on.  Consider these opening lines from famous novels:

“Amerigo Bonasera sat in New York Criminal Court Number 3 and waited for justice…”

—Mario Puzo, The Godfather

“Renowned curator Jacque Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum’s Grand Gallery.”

                                                —Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code

“At the beginning of July, during a spell of exceptionally hot weather, towards evening, a certain young man came down on the street from the little room he rented…”

                                                —Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

“He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream…”

                                                —Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say they were perfectly normal…”

                                                —J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

“Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he stayed up all night, was seated at the breakfast table.”

                                                —Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles

(Sir Arthur liked getting who, what, when and where out of the way very quickly.)

This is not to suggest that the first sentence always has to declare “where”.  “Call me Ishmael” (Moby Dick) and “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” (A Tale of Two Cities) had other business to get out of the way. But within moments you do discover your whereabouts.

When we’re coming up with our own scenarios, we are intimately attuned to our characters, their actions and their dialogue. We have vivid images of all that. The location, however, can often seem merely incidental to us; almost a nuisance to have to include. But the reader needs that comforting sense of place very early on, and of course anytime the scene changes. All those establishing shots in movies answer what would otherwise be a continually nagging question. We never have to even think about where we are. But we sure would if we hadn’t been shown already.

Admittedly, coming up with something interesting to write acknowledging each changing scene isn’t nearly as fun as describing the characters’ personalities or penning their clever patter. But your readers will appreciate that nod of consideration. They will be right there in the scene with you if you give them the mile markers that say “You are here”.

In the words of George Burns, “It’s good to be here. At my age it’s good to be anywhere.”