Location
So I didn't have time to actually develop a character. Instead we took our nephews out fishing and spent a lot of time with friends, and also my laptop is almost dead and I forgot my charger for our weekend away.
Instead I wanted to talk about locations in novels. I live in the middle of nowhere surrounded by cornfields, but I enjoy placing my novels around the world. Sometimes, for plot purposes and sometimes just to put my characters some place different than where I am. With locations it's easier for me to stray from what I know.
Except I never feel like I do that location justice. For instance, trying to place my characters in Scotland. I have never actually been to Scotland so I don't know the true beauty of it. I can look at pictures of it and look at a map to get distances and locations of things, but I know it won't be the same. I would hate for someone from Scotland to read it and say "that's not what it's really like".
Since this isn't my career I can't justify traveling to a location to get a better idea of a place. However, I have traveled a lot and able to use that knowledge for what I write. I wish I could travel for it. The last novel I wrote was located in Arizona, a place I've never been to. For plot purposes. But trying to write a Native American character in Arizona, trying to go back and find her roots when I have never even stuck a finger in that part of the world was VERY difficult for me. I had a lot of fun writing the novel and it was all fiction but I knew it was all very wrong. To me things were very wrong and I couldn't do it justice.
Instead I wanted to talk about locations in novels. I live in the middle of nowhere surrounded by cornfields, but I enjoy placing my novels around the world. Sometimes, for plot purposes and sometimes just to put my characters some place different than where I am. With locations it's easier for me to stray from what I know.
Except I never feel like I do that location justice. For instance, trying to place my characters in Scotland. I have never actually been to Scotland so I don't know the true beauty of it. I can look at pictures of it and look at a map to get distances and locations of things, but I know it won't be the same. I would hate for someone from Scotland to read it and say "that's not what it's really like".
Since this isn't my career I can't justify traveling to a location to get a better idea of a place. However, I have traveled a lot and able to use that knowledge for what I write. I wish I could travel for it. The last novel I wrote was located in Arizona, a place I've never been to. For plot purposes. But trying to write a Native American character in Arizona, trying to go back and find her roots when I have never even stuck a finger in that part of the world was VERY difficult for me. I had a lot of fun writing the novel and it was all fiction but I knew it was all very wrong. To me things were very wrong and I couldn't do it justice.
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