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Location! Location! Location!
Ahhh! Puerto Rican Sunset.
This tropical land offers a rich variety of culture and incredible landscape for all who visit.
When you look at this scenery do certain words come to mind?
Beautiful. Seductive. Enticing.
Deceptive. Frightening. Deadly.
In Dark Waters, my debut book that comes out in September, I’ll show you the dangers that lie beneath this gorgeous setting. What we see isn’t always the reality.
Dark Waters is set on Vieques, a small island off of Puerto Rico. The island with its small towns and land covered by mangroves offers a combination of paradise, steamy nights and hidden risks that made it perfect for the story I wanted to write.
Setting is often overlooked when we think about a fiction novel. We talk about characters or plot, but often, setting can be just as powerful as a solidly written character. Many of the stories you read in high school probably stood out because of the setting. I recall Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles which I read in ninth grade. Setting dominated that book.
In a more contemporary context, think of the numerous authors who set their books in New Orleans because you can’t set a book there and not talk about the city and the history and the culture of that place. Or what about Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series? Trenton, New Jersey colors the entire set of novels. You can’t read the novel and not get a feel of the place, the attitude and the people.
So, let me ask you: What types of settings do you love or hate? What books have you read where setting played a huge part in the novel and how did it influence your feelings towards the story?
I think place is underrated, too. A book can gain its whole flavor from where it’s located. Speaking of New Orleans and bayous, seems I read a Tami Hoag a long time ago that was steeped in that local color. Can’t remember the title though.
If that title and setting description weren’t enough to lure me, the picture does! I can’t wait to pick it up. It sounds like DARK WATERS has a really important ingredient, a setting so integrated, the story could not take place anywhere else.
I’d love to escape the traditional English shores for my Regency-set novels, to more exotic lands like the West Indies, but traditional publishing has been leery of them. With Samhain, though, I’m feeling the freedom and opportunity to expand beyond the horizon. I can at last take my readers with me to experience those wonderful, exciting places and times that have always intrigued me
Bonnie—I hear you on New Orleans. I think that city is the one that comes to mind most when I think really dramatic US settings, though so many other places fit the bill too.
Delle—I love going back in time for historicals. I just can’t write them! But location plays a tremendous role in historicals, from Regency London to the old West.
It was a lot of fun to set Dark Waters in Puerto Rico. The land is beautiful and the lifestyle different enough to really lend color to the story. I hope you do pick it up and let me know what you think!
Anybody else want to talk about location? I’ll be stopping by all day to chat.
Great post. I’ve heard that setting should be another character in your book. It’s easy to forget though, when we’re so worried about conflict and character arcs and the rest.
I seem to set a lot of my stories by the water – lakes, oceans, doesn’t matter. The weather you find in different locations can affect a story too. I love to use weather.
And I think the Tami Hoag story you’re thinking about is Lucky’s Lady – I still can picture them going through the bayou…although I don’t remember much about the story itself. See, it IS the setting that can be memorable.
I’ve found setting to be an even bigger deal when you use little of the city of choice.
When you limit your expansion into the city outside of your characters, each thing you choose has to be carefully set so in a simple thing like reference to Puget Sound, everyone knows you’re in Seattle.
It gives me a great respect for those who use little known locations or who create them from nearly whole cloth. Setting Otherworld flesh over real world skeletal systems is tricky and rewarding as you give just enough to make a city recognizable and then turn it on it’s head.
I’ve just gone through this with my novel. I changed the setting to the Midwest from the Northwest and have had to pick and choose what to keep of the city and what to let yield to my inner world. It has been a world wind of edits but certainly worth it in the end.
~Xakara
P.S. I introduced myself a long while back as Jada D. Charles, but that’s no longer the name that my novella SHIFTING PASSIONS is coming out under in ’08 so I thought I better get acquainted here as Xakara.
Hey again to everyone. :)
Sigh
Okay, there we go with the correct information and name and what have you.
Must be my sign to quit stalling and head out to edits. LOL
~Xakara
Natasha—I think it’s really easy to forget setting. I know I’m generally focused on plot and character and have to force myself to put in those details. Having a setting that lends itself to the story makes it easier, believe me.
Jada/Xakara—I have to say both are very cool names! You’re so right about creating something from nothing. It is much harder to use the bare bones of a place or to write from scratch. Some sci fi authors really blow me away with their imaginations when it comes to place. Sounds like you had to spend quite a lot of time on this in your own novel, too.
What a gorgeous pic! I would love to visit!
I wrote my book Ain’t Misbehavin’ with the backdrop of Europe. It was almost as big of a character as my hero and heroine. I love having a fun city or place to set the story against.