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Many authors specialize in recording where they live. Others travel or leave a place in order to write about it. I think Melville wrote Moby Dick while landlocked in the hills of western Massachusetts.This vacation, I've been realizing that I'm freer when I write from memory or imagination. I think I feel tied down to what I see when I write about what's right in front of me. Is this a true for others?
What's your relationship to location?
(PS - a huge thank you to the awards I've received from L'Aussie and, before his summer break, Samuel Park. And I'm posting this while crossing the George Washington Bridge into Manhattan. Wireless and the view are cool.)
I feel you getting ever CLOSER R. Can't wait! Since my setting is accurately portrayed in your above picture, I can say that it would help me a ton to be there, but that is probably not going to happen. :) See you soon!!
ReplyDeleteHi Robert,
ReplyDeleteSometimes I write on location, but mostly from memory.
Have a great time in the city!
I usually don't write about places I have been, but rather places I've never been. More scope for the imagination that way, I find :) I feel that writing from memory (or imagination) allows you to be more creative.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first wrote my WIP it was set in my hometown down to classroom layouts, but I found it constricting, so I've gone forward with changing the location afterwards. They're still set in the Boston area, because that's what I'm most familiar with. I'd love to write about somewhere else, but I would need to do a lot of research.
ReplyDeleteMost of my writing lacks location. not necessarily setting, but if I were to write from memory, I have few options. everything I write would be secluded to West Michigan. Chicago could work, I have been there numerous times. Instead, I am vague about location. The Midwest. A town on the Lakeshore. A small town name Somewheresville.
ReplyDeletePlaces can definitely be inspiring. Whenever I visit a locale, I really want to write a story or something about that place, to give myself a better connection to that area.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to write about other places. I have to really sit down and think it out before I can put it on paper.
ReplyDeleteI've written both - places I've been, places I haven't been. Research is amazing. Hope you had a good visit in NE!
ReplyDeleteThe place I'm living in didn't fit the story I'm writing...so I moved it. Started out using a vague unnamed location but now I'm re-writing it to a specific city. More research but I like the feel better.
ReplyDeleteI envy you the trip to Boston. One of my favorite places.
I'm horrible with real locations. I just don't see them, if that makes sense. Which is probably why I write fantasy. O:)
ReplyDeleteI write fantasy and scifi so I don't often write about a specific known location.
ReplyDeletemy first book took place partly in another world but partly in seoul where i live. At the time i wrote it i was in canada but i gave one of the characters my old apartment and set some of the scenes in my favorite places around the city.
ReplyDeleteMy second book i havent given a location. I based the area off of where i lived in the US (and where my parents and sister still live) but changed and added things as needed.
I guess i write what i know.
by the way, thanks for stopping by my blog and following.
Interesting post. My last half dozen books have been set where I live (Lancashire, UK) so the research is easy. Before that though, I wrote one set in the Yukon during the early 1900s and another in 1920s Shanghai. I think researching those made me grateful to a) write contemporary novels and b) set them on my doorstep. :)
ReplyDeleteEast Coast has always seemed to me as the perfect place on earth, and one of my biggest wishes in life is to visit it at least once - NY, Boston, Washington ...
ReplyDeleteThe story I'm writing now is set in Colorado Springs--right near where I live. I think I'd have to either set my stories in a place where I live, lived, or have spent an extensive amount of time. Lucky for me, Colorado Springs is pretty interesting!
ReplyDeleteHappy travels!
I'm definitely an imagination kind of guy. All I need is a quiet place to write.
ReplyDeleteThank you all for your comments.
ReplyDeleteLocation, imagination, memory... Wherever we go, there we are.
Here's to another week of being and writing!
The last few things I've written seem like I have to choose California or places that became popular through television: Florida, New York, Texas. I put a lot of thought in this idea. I remember reading the first few pages of A Walk to Remember because it was sitting around and I opened the first few pages to find the location Beaufort.
ReplyDeleteI don't know a Beaufort! I had to talk about places like Sacremento and Riverside. It's very meh.
I love using my settings to show more about the characters (just did a post about this a week ago). I think it can go either way; many times, the setting can reveal a lot of other things (ex. how the characters travel every day, how they live, whether or not they enjoy where they live)
ReplyDelete