Think back to your first attempt at a work of fiction. Perhaps you were in middle school, sweating bullets over a creative writing assignment. Perhaps you were even younger. When I was seven years old I wrote a three page story called “The Winged Platypus and the Evil Miser.” I created this masterpiece, complete with original illustrations, on the occasion of my mother’s birthday and presented it with great fanfare. Initial reviews were favorable.
The problem was, I didn’t know what a miser was, much less what one looked like. It was just a word I’d picked up, understanding merely that misers were evil beings. I wasn’t one hundred percent on platypi, either. Why did I select these two exotic creatures for my tale? I have no idea. But the result, as you might expect, was that I found the story difficult to write. What did misers do all day? What about a platypus? What did they eat? Could a platypus be expected to bite a miser? Illustrating this story was even more difficult. What did either of these exotic creatures even look like? When I offered apologies and excuses to my mum, she kissed away my concerns and then gifted me with one gentle suggestion. I share it with you now, because it is almost universally the first, and quite possibly the most often given piece of advice to writers of all ages and abilities: Write what you know.
It’s good advice. Even fantasy novelists must root their vampires’ and wizards’ characters and motivations within the realm of the human—or humanesque. If readers can’t connect, they don’t care. And if they don’t care, they stop reading.
This golden rule also applies to setting a story. When Tolkien wrote about Mordor, he’d obviously never been. Yet we can see, feel and taste the dust, the thirst, the acrid tinge of sulfur, the smoking sky. He relates every image to things his readers could recognize from the real world. That, in a nutshell, is the foundation of a well written setting. Does it move and breathe? Can we picture it in our mind’s eye? Can we envision the characters of the story living in and interacting with the people, places and things the author has given them? If so, then the author has delivered.
Fantasy writers like Tolkien, Stabenow or LeGuin have a special challenge as they build their imaginary worlds from the ground up. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t do it, as my epic fail with the miser and the platypus clearly shows. But that doesn’t mean those of us writing about Planet Earth get a free pass. I’ve read plenty of novels set in real places in which it’s painfully clear the author has never set foot. How the people treat one another, how they speak, the ways in which they embrace or reject change, whether or not college kids are coming back home or moving away, the shared history of tragic events—the writer’s knowledge of this stuff is either genuine or it isn’t. When a writer is faking it, when there’s no emotional connection, then the setting languishes on the page, flat as a pancake.
If you’ve checked out my bio, you know I applied the Golden Rule of Know to the Oakwood Mystery Series. Except for college and a brief sojourn in Colorado, I’ve lived in Oakwood, Ohio my entire life, over half a century. We’re a small, affluent bedroom community, landlocked by Dayton and Kettering. With an area of just 2.19 square miles, it’s tough to get lost. With a population of about 9,000 souls, it’s even tougher to hide. I can describe every street, every alley, every shortcut. I know the people and how they’re likely to react in any given situation. Granted, a series of murders is an untested scenario, but you get the picture.
For the first book in the series, I kicked the Rule of Know up a notch. In THE BOOK CLUB MURDERS, a serial killer arranges each victim in imitation of scenes from murder mystery books that The Agatha Book Club has been reading. Each book on the Agathas’ list was chosen by me because I’d read and loved it, but also because one of the crime scenes echoed a suitable locale with which I am intimately familiar. In Chapter One, when Detective Marcus Trenault descends to the abandoned tracks-cum-bike trail under Patterson Road and stands over the first victim, I tell you exactly what he sees, hears and smells. You’ll understand how he feels when he realizes who the victim is, because he’s from Oakwood, just like me. And when amateur sleuth Charley Carpenter is forced to accept that one of her neighbors is a serial killer, you’ll feel her anguish—as well as the murderer’s. Our killer is not doing this for funsies.
A few locations in the book are fictional, but most exist, awaiting the unwary visitor. When you come for a visit—and you really should—you’ll find the Community Center (sans dead body), the Tudor style magnificence of Oakwood High School (murder victim tidied away), and a host of others. I’ve tried my best to do justice to a lovely community with deep roots and, yes, a darker side. My readers must decide whether or not I’ve been successful.
The problem was, I didn’t know what a miser was, much less what one looked like. It was just a word I’d picked up, understanding merely that misers were evil beings. I wasn’t one hundred percent on platypi, either. Why did I select these two exotic creatures for my tale? I have no idea. But the result, as you might expect, was that I found the story difficult to write. What did misers do all day? What about a platypus? What did they eat? Could a platypus be expected to bite a miser? Illustrating this story was even more difficult. What did either of these exotic creatures even look like? When I offered apologies and excuses to my mum, she kissed away my concerns and then gifted me with one gentle suggestion. I share it with you now, because it is almost universally the first, and quite possibly the most often given piece of advice to writers of all ages and abilities: Write what you know.
It’s good advice. Even fantasy novelists must root their vampires’ and wizards’ characters and motivations within the realm of the human—or humanesque. If readers can’t connect, they don’t care. And if they don’t care, they stop reading.
This golden rule also applies to setting a story. When Tolkien wrote about Mordor, he’d obviously never been. Yet we can see, feel and taste the dust, the thirst, the acrid tinge of sulfur, the smoking sky. He relates every image to things his readers could recognize from the real world. That, in a nutshell, is the foundation of a well written setting. Does it move and breathe? Can we picture it in our mind’s eye? Can we envision the characters of the story living in and interacting with the people, places and things the author has given them? If so, then the author has delivered.
Fantasy writers like Tolkien, Stabenow or LeGuin have a special challenge as they build their imaginary worlds from the ground up. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t do it, as my epic fail with the miser and the platypus clearly shows. But that doesn’t mean those of us writing about Planet Earth get a free pass. I’ve read plenty of novels set in real places in which it’s painfully clear the author has never set foot. How the people treat one another, how they speak, the ways in which they embrace or reject change, whether or not college kids are coming back home or moving away, the shared history of tragic events—the writer’s knowledge of this stuff is either genuine or it isn’t. When a writer is faking it, when there’s no emotional connection, then the setting languishes on the page, flat as a pancake.
If you’ve checked out my bio, you know I applied the Golden Rule of Know to the Oakwood Mystery Series. Except for college and a brief sojourn in Colorado, I’ve lived in Oakwood, Ohio my entire life, over half a century. We’re a small, affluent bedroom community, landlocked by Dayton and Kettering. With an area of just 2.19 square miles, it’s tough to get lost. With a population of about 9,000 souls, it’s even tougher to hide. I can describe every street, every alley, every shortcut. I know the people and how they’re likely to react in any given situation. Granted, a series of murders is an untested scenario, but you get the picture.
For the first book in the series, I kicked the Rule of Know up a notch. In THE BOOK CLUB MURDERS, a serial killer arranges each victim in imitation of scenes from murder mystery books that The Agatha Book Club has been reading. Each book on the Agathas’ list was chosen by me because I’d read and loved it, but also because one of the crime scenes echoed a suitable locale with which I am intimately familiar. In Chapter One, when Detective Marcus Trenault descends to the abandoned tracks-cum-bike trail under Patterson Road and stands over the first victim, I tell you exactly what he sees, hears and smells. You’ll understand how he feels when he realizes who the victim is, because he’s from Oakwood, just like me. And when amateur sleuth Charley Carpenter is forced to accept that one of her neighbors is a serial killer, you’ll feel her anguish—as well as the murderer’s. Our killer is not doing this for funsies.
A few locations in the book are fictional, but most exist, awaiting the unwary visitor. When you come for a visit—and you really should—you’ll find the Community Center (sans dead body), the Tudor style magnificence of Oakwood High School (murder victim tidied away), and a host of others. I’ve tried my best to do justice to a lovely community with deep roots and, yes, a darker side. My readers must decide whether or not I’ve been successful.