Location as Muse

~ susanoleksiw ~ 2 Comments

The question of place has been in the air and on blogs lately, including here in a useful post by Donalee Moulton. I’ve been thinking about another perspective that came up in my reading lately—location as muse.

Few writers or artists stay in one locale but if they do so it’s because of a special affinity for that one place. Wendell Berry is well known for his series of novels and short stories about the fictional Port William, set in his beloved Kentucky, as well as for his nonfiction on the issues besieging farmers and farm communities. By focusing on one location, Berry creates an entire community of interrelated families, histories of growth and change, and effects of changes in the larger, surrounding world. His narrow focus on one place, one he knows well, has led to a prolific career in both fiction and nonfiction, including poetry. Reading even one book introduces the reader to an entire family, way of life (farming), and community (Port William).

Sally Mann, the photographer, has made the same choice by focusing on Lexington, Virginia, her home state. She’s known for her photographs of children and families as well as the area in Virginia.

I think of these two artists because their work stands out for its depth and breadth while not straying far from home. Each piece is linked to another, and each location is explored in several ways. I think of these two writers also because I understand their sense of rootedness and its importance. It’s a truism to say that our place shapes us, but it is less often observed that we are still most often limited in our understanding of what that location means, of how it shapes us, of what the consequences are.

When I began writing crime fiction I created a fictional town, Mellingham, which is really the town I grew up in. Several readers have asked if that town is really X or Y, usually referring to a small town in Essex County they’re familiar with. The only people who recognize the place are those who live there, and have for some time. (The key, which few seem to consider, is the layout of certain streets.)

There are seven books in the Mellingham series, and I have long considered these enough because these seven stories complete the trajectory of Chief Joe Silva’s adult life, his progression from a chronically reluctant bachelor to a devoted stepfather in a committed relationship. But there are more stories in Mellingham, and more corners of the town that have yet to be explored. I’ve been struggling with this question for some time—do I continue the Mellingham series, or let it go (as I have) and continue with the two other series that haven’t reached their finale. Anita Ray, in the Anita Ray series, isn’t getting any closer to finding a partner or changing her carefree life of sleuthing with and without a camera. Felicity O’Brien, in the Pioneer Valley series, is more likely to reach her fitting ending, which includes changes to her beloved farm. But I’m not sure I want to write that one either.

The commitment to a single place means we see more of it. We see what we don’t need as well as what we think we need for a particular story. For me, knowing the town’s history also means a cacophony of voices from the past calling to me to resolve the mystery of the unusual tools found in the shed of what was once a furniture workshop in the 1930s. Or the story of a small freestanding ballroom converted to a condo in the middle of a pasture where no flock of four-legged animals ever roamed. The loss of craftsmanship in modern industry circles around the first history and the changing world of New England social life is hidden in the second. 

For me, writing a crime novel isn’t a question of merely coming up with an idea and planting it in a preferred location. I struggle with setting as much as with character. The ideas I spelled out above are organic to the place, and understanding how that can be so defines the story. To tell the story of one particular small-scale furniture workshop I have to resuscitate the Mellingham series. Some stories are so insistent. They can be worse than some characters (alive and fictional).

I’ve had the Mellingham series on my mind because Worldwide Mystery is reprinting the last two books in the Mellingham series for its book club as well as general sales. Chief Joe Silva retired, but the town is still there, and its history unhidden. What to do, what to do.

He Landed on His Feet in a Hail of Bullets

~ dzchurch ~ 5 Comments

I was watching an Amazon movie the other night, and doing what I so often do, especially when I’m bored. I try to write the scene. It is a sort of mental exercise, meant, I hope, to sharpen my writing skills. Especially for action sequences.

I practice while watching boring scenes of mayhem. That night, the first description that came to mind was: “He landed on his feet in a hail of bullets and leveled everything and everyone standing.” But who is that guy on the right? “A man emerged from the shadows cast by the lowering sun. His assault rifle leading the way.” Why did the pillar just explode? “Another figure stepped into a sheen of light, a silver box clutched in his left hand, his index finger tapping a red button.” Why did he hesitate in his tapping? “A slim figure emerged, a revolver pointed at the back of his dark curls.” Then, he, I, the hero, leveled everything and everyone standing. “The structure roared with the sound of weapons. Ragged breaths and soft moans punctuated the silence that followed.”

I see the scene in my head as I write. My fingers pound it out on the keyboard. I mutter the next sentence, the words coming in a rush. I’ve been stopped by difficulty breathing from the effort of creating mayhem.

Then I read what I’ve written aloud. Is it even possible (cue the research)? Does any element fight the immediacy? Is it the scene I dreamed, saw, thought I wrote? Does it promote the emotions I want? What does it say about my characters? Good and bad, does it show what each character is willing to do to survive, win, be triumphant? Will the reader be caught up in the moment?

Here’s an action passage from “Saving Calypso”, which I’m glad no one observed me writing:

“Grieg elbowed downhill to the flipped travois, where it angled over Boomer’s broken body and considered the tools at his disposal. Rex. Frisco.* The broken branch from the travois. He searched Boomer’s pockets for anything he could use as a weapon. Nothing, except the arrow lodged in the dead man’s throat and Callie’s pocketknife.

Grieg steeled himself before yanking the arrow from Boomer’s neck. It was as awful as he anticipated; Boomer’s blood splattered the front of his shirt and his forearms. He wiped the arrow with leaves, not questioning why it mattered given how he planned to use it, then fingered the two-inch blade out of the pocketknife. Armed, he cozied up to Boomer’s cooling body for cover. A sharp whine descended. An arrow bored into the uphill side of the travois. Grieg counted the fletched shafts he’d seen in Bolt’s quiver. Six, maybe seven. He’d lofted three at Grieg the day before. One in Boomer. Two now. One left. Then, the knife or a bullet.

The next arrow pierced the blanket, lodging in Boomer’s right shoulder. Grieg grunted for effect. The third arrow grazed Grieg’s right calf. Okay, eight.”

And, in reverse, I cast the parts and imagine the scene on screen. In this case, Ryan Gosling, as my lost soul geologist with “a certain set of skills” and wry self-awareness, and Tom Hardy as the newly revealed arrow-launching predator. I have Gosling dye his hair, and Hardy grow his, then I play the scene in my head.  

Does it work? Is it too gross for the genre? Yes, I can get pretty gritty. That pops when you cast the parts and play the reel out in your head. If it works, it works; if it doesn’t, it’s back to retooling, jiggering, and writing.

In other words, writing a great action sequence is as easy as landing on your feet in a hail of bullets.

  • Note: Rex and Frisco are horses. In Grieg’s words: “As for my buddy Frisco, make sure he gets a good scrubbing, groom him until he purrs and feed him as much as he can eat. Believe me, I’d stand him to a beer if I could.”

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Location, location, location

~ donaleeMoulton ~ 4 Comments

By donalee Moulton

Where your characters live, work, and solve mysteries can be central to the story. Or not. I’ve discovered that location is not a requirement or an irrelevancy. It is a spectrum.

cover of Conflagration! by donalee Moulton
book cover from Hung Out To Die


At one end of the spectrum, location is essential. As a result, you spend time bringing that location to life, making it real, and of real interest to readers. This requires knowing whereof you write or researching whereof you write. Or both. Conflagration!, a historical mystery, is based on the real-life story of Marie-Joseph Angélique, an enslaved Black woman accused of burning the lower town of Montreal to the ground in 1734. Montreal as a place and as a community is intertwined with the plot and the characters, fictional and otherwise. As a result, I had to immerse myself in a time and place that no longer exist.

Move further along the location spectrum and you’ll arrive here: the location could be anywhere. The town, island, futuristic community where your characters go about their daily lives is woven into the story but not predetermined. It’s up to you. You may choose a place that is familiar, that fits within the theme of the book, or simply resonates with you.

My first mystery book Hung Out to Die introduces Riel Brava to readers. Riel is originally from Santa Barbara but now living in Nova Scotia, which is where I live. Fact is, Riel could have been uprooted to almost any location where cannabis production is legal. (Riel is CEO of the Canadian Cannabis Corporation. He’s also a psychopath (not the nasty kind), but we’ll save that for another blog.) I chose Nova Scotia because I know this location. Less research would be required, but I also have a deeper connection to this place because it is my place. Many readers have told me how the book feels so much like Nova Scotia. That was not intentional, but it reflects a knowledge of place that goes beyond street maps, tourist locations, and Yelp reviews.

Finally, we reach the other end of the spectrum: place is irrelevant. Indeed, a specific geographical location may not be necessary. I wrote a short story called “Moist,” that for the most part takes place in the main character’s home. Where that home is situated doesn’t matter.

After the story was published, there was a call for stories for an anthology Santa Cruz Ghost Stories. I reached out to the editor to explain that my story wasn’t really set anywhere so it could be set in Santa Cruz. She agreed. Minor changes were made (like changing Canadian spelling to American (“savour” became “savor”) and using the name of a dollar store Santa Cruz residents would easily recognize.

Ultimately, location is about character. The two go hand in hand.

I HATE to miss deadlines.

~ patyjag ~ 6 Comments

I’m an Indie author. That means I make all the decisions from characters to plot to the endings of my books and when they will be published. I have a whiteboard that I use to keep track of a year’s work/publishing schedule. When I get behind or have to erase and change the dates, it makes me edgy and angry. I like to stay on schedule.

I knew the move I made in March would mess up my schedule. I made concessions for it on my whiteboard. Fast forward to June when I had expected to have a good chunk of the next Cuddle Farm book written and I was slogging in indecision.

Sorry about the reflections in the middle of the photo.

From the moment I finished book 1, Merry Merry Merry Murder, I knew what book 2 would be about. I’d run some scenes in my head and had already researched what I needed to know. I started the book, but it wasn’t flowing. Things didn’t feel right.

I took a break and went to a play with my daughter in an opera house built in 1912. I fell in love with the building and the ambiance, and then my height-conscious daughter walked along the balcony railing and was scared. The railing didn’t come to her knees, and the balcony felt as if it were pitching you forward onto the stage.

After that visit, I couldn’t stop thinking about that opera house. A story was forming in my mind and I had to go back. I bought tickets to the next play and dragged my daughter along again. The play was good, I paid more attention to the stage, the exits, and the short railing. When the play finished, we waited for everyone to leave the balcony and I did some experimenting and then we went down and I took pictures of the balcony from the stage. I wanted one for the cover the next Cuddle Farm book.

Yes, I set the book I’d been working on aside, realizing I needed more time (another book) in between book 1 and the book I’d been writing. It has to do with the discord between the main character and her sister. I wanted to show a bit of a change there before, what is now book 3, is written since it deals with the reason for the discord.

Back to my switching books. Because what had started out as book 2 was now book 3, and I had been brewing that story in my head for almost a year, I was switching to a book I hadn’t even thought of until 4 months ago. As I’d glance up at my whiteboard and see the looming date for the release of book 2 in the Cuddle Farm mysteries and I was still trying to pull all the suspects, the motive, and everything else into place so I could start writing it, my tension grew that I was going to miss the publish date and it would throw off all of the release dates through the rest of this year.

When I was complaining to a friend, she asked me, “But will it be a better book for the series if you write it now?”

My answer was yes.

“Then that’s the book you need to write and move the other publish dates out. They aren’t made in stone.”

Oh, but they are chiseled in my head. My greatest flaw is my greatest strength. I don’t like to be late for ANYTHING. It makes me nervous when I think I’m going to be late. I purposely give myself extra time for everything. And I had for book 2 in the Cuddle Farm Mysteries. But I had to wipe off my whiteboard and redesignate publish dates for this book, the next Spotted Pony Casino book, and the next Gabriel Hawke book. I wasn’t happy, and it made my stomach twist as I erased the dates and reset them.

However, this is going to be a good book and will hopefully pull more readers into this series. It also gives me more time to decide the direction I’m going with the next Spotted Pony Casino book. I’ve been back and forth on how to approach it, and hopefully by the time I am ready to start, I’ll have that story ready to rock and roll.

Summertime–and the Reading Was Easy

~ Margaret Lucke ~ 8 Comments
Banner showing author Margaret Lucke and some of her books

by Margaret Lucke

When I think about summer, I remember my parents’ screened porch.

The house I grew up in had a large square porch, with a sturdy roof to shade us from the sun and three walls made of mesh screening to let in the breeze and keep out the mosquitoes. I lived on that porch in the summertime.

Lemonade and books

A chaise lounge angled out from one corner, offering a view of the holly tree in the backyard and the umbrella table on the patio. It was a heavy piece of furniture, crafted from redwood, with a thick, dark green cushion for sprawling on. Next to it was a table just the right size for a tall icy glass of lemonade and a book or two.

Nowadays my summers are much like any other season. Sure, daylight lasts longer and temperatures are hotter, but the patterns and rhythms of my routine are much the same in the summer as the rest of the year. But when I was a kid summer was different. Summer was magic. Summer was freedom, and an endless opportunity to do what I wanted to do.

And what I wanted to do was read.

I did plenty of other things too, of course. My summer memories include swimming and biking and going on family vacations and playing hide-and-go-seek and hanging out with my friends. But I reveled in having lots of time to read, and to read anything I chose, just for fun, no homework assignments or book reports required.

I spent long hours on that porch, reading. Depending on what book I was immersed in, the chaise lounge became my pirate ship, my covered wagon, my police car, my rocket to the moon. I’m sure other people – my parents, my sisters – spent time on the porch too, but I thought of it as my private domain.

 When I was eight I read my way through the Bobbsey Twins. About that same time I discovered the wonderful Childhood of Famous Americans series. Unlike most biographies, these concentrated on what a person of accomplishment was like as a kid, someone I could relate to. The books had bright orange covers and were illustrated with silhouette drawings, and I loved them. I still have half a dozen in my personal library. (The series still exists, but with different packaging, and it’s just not the same. Buy the old ones used for some child you love.)

A year or two later I fell in love with mysteries. I started with Trixie Belden, Ginny Gordon, and Nancy Drew, then graduated to my mother’s shelves of Agatha Christie and Ellery Queen. I dabbled in science fiction and Westerns and an occasional romance. I read The Secret Garden more than once, and I loved books like Little Women and Black Beauty and Caddie Woodlawn and The Witch of Blackbird Pond. But I always came back to mysteries.

When I was twelve I put kids’ books aside in favor of Gone with the Wind, The Diary of Anne Frank, and Marjorie Morningstar. My mystery reading branched out to include the likes of Dorothy L. Sayers, Rex Stout, Ross Macdonald, and John D. MacDonald.

As much as the books themselves, what I loved was having long stretches of interrupted time to read. That’s a luxury now. On average I manage to read three books a month, one every ten days. In the Julys and Augusts of my childhood, stretched out the green cushion on the screened porch, I might polish off five or six times that many.

How about you? What are some of the books and reading experiences you remember fondly from when you were a kid?