Oh give me a home…they sing…where the buffalo roam, and Clare can put two cute, misunderstood guys together and let them struggle for many (many) pages with a tortured backstory, clumsy communication and a truck-load of unrelieved sexual tension.
But on looking over my recent stories, I can’t help but notice my backdrop is not the rolling plains or the wasted tundra, not a sun-baked beach or bustling metropolis. It’s usually a kitchen. Or living room. Definitely a bedroom. (Dammit, even sometimes a closet). My writing seems to be very domestic.
It suits me, of course. My priority is the characters and what’s going on in their heads, rather than the scenery around them.
That’s just my way, of course, not to say it’s the right or wrong one – just the way I write. One of the nicest compliments I ever received was praise about how I can sit two guys in a room with nothing more than one of them stirring a cup of coffee, and create pure sexual tension. Though sometimes I’ll get to the end of a short story and realize I never described any of them physically, or their house, or their office, or their local town, or the color of the bathroom curtains…
You get the picture? Or….do you? ?
How much do you like described in your books as a reader? Do you like a strong sense of place, a sweeping vista, a glamorous backdrop? Do you love to find a story set in places you know – or would like to visit? Does it add to the fiction, or distract from the fun?
I admit the situation is different for fantasy writing – in that case, it’s important to set the scene as well as the players. In Gold Warrior/Twisted Brand I needed to ground myself in Aza City alongside my soldier hero Maen, so I spent more time on it. Though I confess, it was all from his point of view, so I spent less time on describing it than an observer-narrator would. How often do you find it odd that a character starts talking about the town he’s lived in for years and must surely take for granted, or the office cubicle he’s banished to the back of his bored mind during the working day, or the bedroom he barely looks at except to wonder where the hell he left his socks after that passionate encounter last night…?
I really admire the ability to create a whole panorama. It’s a genuine art to describe these things without jarring – and so many
authors do it beautifully, transporting me to that world, that city, that room to stand alongside their heroes, and to experience all their trials, tribulations and – hopefully – triumphs. But personally I seem to leave a lot to the reader’s imagination. Maybe I’m afraid of making a mistake – of getting the balance wrong, of boring my reader, of describing a shop that’s now changed name, a bar that’s been demolished, a town that I haven’t visited and therefore what the hell am I doing, thinking I’m entitled to park my story there? Yes, Clare, you pretender, get back into your kitchen and take your guys with you!
I wrote Freeman last year, set in my home town of London. And yet, at the last moment, I kept it un-named, leaving the image open for the reader’s imagination. But I plan to write more fiction from my own experience, city-wise, that is. I’ve just had a contract offered for another mystery tale I wrote, set in a London art gallery, and I’m very excited about that. Clare’s British Boys are coming! ? (pun unintentional, yet probably very apt…)
Meanwhile, Amber Quill is issuing a paperback collection this month, Heart and Home, of four of my short stories, which
Wave has welcomed very generously on the site already. And again, I see the settings are domestic and, some may say, quite claustrophobic – two nearby neighbors in A Good Neighbor, an artist’s studio in Muse, a car and a train in Upwardly Mobile, and – oh look! – a kitchen in Home Sweet Home ^_^.
Michael Breyette Studios
PSST: and watch for Charlie Chuckles at Dreamspinner this June – I don’t think I let the poor souls out of the kitchen the whole time…LOL.
This is a lighthearted look at the topic today, and I’m perfectly happy with what I write and where I write it. But feel free to tell me what you think about Place and People – both, either, or? As always, I strongly suspect the best books bring both humanity and hinterland into play and blend them well.
It all brings us some wonderful fiction! Sez Clare ^_^.
www.clarelondon.co.uk
http://clarelondon.livejournal.com
clarelondon11@yahoo.co.uk
*thinks*
I’d have to say even your ‘other’ short story fiction was mostly set in a home setting. On a couch, in a bath, on the floor, at the door… Definitely a theme. 😉 But a wonderful one you are so very apt at. I love your British boys, and will be happy to see more of them.
Another mystery? Can’t wait, Clare!
Hi Merith! *lol* I can remember those stories, too, they’re fun to write! And remember when we did a couch ‘n bathroom one together?! (or at least it was mostly couch, then I think the bathroom might have been needed for someone to wash his hair….*smirk*). Thanks for the encouragement and the British Boys blow kisses to you :).
Hi Clare, great post :).
I love that your stories are so domestic. In fact one of my favourite short stories of yours is set mostly in the downstairs loo :). It means that the focus is more on what the men are saying (or not saying) to each other; on their body language and facial expressions, rather than getting bogged down by long passages of what colour the lino is in the kitchen and whether the cabinets are hand-made or from MFI.
Obviously, if an author is writing a fantasy, or sci-fi or an epic historical, then there needs to be long descriptive passage setting the world for the reader, but if the setting is in a house or a cafe or park, then the minimum of description is needed to ‘ground’ the reader in place and then let the reader imagine the rest for themselves.
I’m thrilled to be able to *talk* about a downstairs loo with someone without feeling alien LOL. I think you’ve put your finger on it (as you so often do), I like spending more time on the men and the human reactions. Of course, hubby will also tell you I personally go about life without noticing much of my surroundings and have NO sense of direction, wherever I am :).
London is good because I have been there. I know how it looks and feels like.
As for any story set in the US/ Canada I have no clue really (for that matter it could be fantasy *g*). I have seen lots on tv and in films but somehow I don´t think it is the same.
So I do like a description of the livingroom or kitchen or whatever.
Ingrid, so glad that London is popular! I think there’s lots of scope in other parts of Europe, too, and even better now we can travel across it more easily. I did have a story planned for the train ride from London to Venice, so maybe that’ll get written one day. And I’ve spent some time in Delft, so maybe I should be brave and step my guys out there sometime! 🙂
*behind me in the kitchen, someone whoops and starts searching for his suitcase*
Clare
Because I love to travel and obviously can’t go everywhere I would like to, I sometimes wish that more books are set in places that I haven’t visited such as Rome, Egypt, New Zealand etc. However I do love the more intimate settings as well especially if it’s a short story.
I think it’s a matter of personal taste and some authors aren’t comfortable with foreign settings because readers who live there or have visited can always point to an error in the locations. 🙂
Whatever you do Clare, it works, so you must be doing something right.
Wave, you make a really good point, it can be an adventure for a reader, too. I do like reading stories in other cities, I admit, though I have to stop myself racing ahead to find out *what happens to the people!* LOL. But you’re right, I do worry about making mistakes with locations I haven’t visited personally. Of course, I live with a husband who can tell you in a movie that the railway station they’re using isn’t accurate – and probably the train is travelling in the wrong direction through the surrounding countryside! You see how I’ve been repressed all these years?! 🙂
I am also guilty of being domestic (in my writing, that is. Certainly not IRL!). I was just noticing the other day how much of what I write involves people either cooking or eating dinner. I think it’s a manifestation of my own obsession with food.
Wave, you are definitely correct that some authors (me) aren’t comfortable with foreign settings. I tried to convince my husband I needed to go to Paris before I could right my latest book, but I failed. 🙁
Hi Marie, and no need to feel guilty – we can start our own domestics club! 🙂 I read a blog post recently about how people *don’t* describe enough about their characters eating, so you’re probably making a lot of readers very happy. And if you discover that conclusive argument to allow travel for the sake of writing our books – let us know so we can all use it! 🙂
I tend to want the focus on the characters as well and setting isn’t so important, however if someone IS going to make the setting very much a part of the story then I like it to be somewhere new for me that I can learn about through the story. However I don’t think I need to read pages of the beauty of X location only to have it have no bearing on the story when the rest of it takes place in a boardroom/bedroom. It has to make sense.
Sometimes it’s fun to read books set in my city (not very many) because then I can be a critical bitch and go “you go UP that street to get to X, not down”. 🙂 But that’s just me.
I’m kind of go with the flow. But as I said at Kassa’s the other day, I’d love to see stories set somewhere more exotic for a change of pace rather than the large unnamed mysterious North American city. To me London is more exotic so you’re on the right track. I suppose for you it’s not so much.
Tam, I like to ‘travel’ that way too :). (Marie’s still working on getting us travel passes in reality). And my God, you’ve met my husband, playing ‘spot the continuity error’…LOL
It always intrigues me to think that London is exotic to some readers, where it’s bread and butter to me. That’s not to say I don’t find it exciting though – so I’ll enjoy writing more set in my own manor (as we say). And yes, I need to wean myself off that ‘unnamed N. American city’ *blush*. 🙂
I like to set my stories in a place. In my books set in L.A. I make Los Angeles as much as character as the people in my books. You do an incredible job of not needing a setting to bring your boys to life. I’m not sure I could do that as well.
Pat, thanks so much for those kind words! And I think you describe your writing perfectly – LA is a character alongside your protagonists, it works with them and colours their lives. That’s what brings your series to life for the reader! Guess this is what makes authors different and adds to the variety and fun for the readers…:)
Clare, this is a fascinating topic for discussion. I think there are all different ways to write setting in a successful story; far be it from me to limit our many talented writers to one. It’s obvious that your approach has been much beloved by readers.
While writing one of my earlier novels, I once stopped mid-way and looked back to count the number of scenes that took place over food. After picking myself up off the floor, I rewrote half of them! What is it about food? Even now I have to strictly keep watch lest I over-do my meal-time scenes.
Does anyone else do house-planning when writing? I draw up sketches of room arrangement within the house and how furniture is arranged within the most important rooms. When I can, I tend to base my fictional dwellings on houses I really know well, but even when I create the house out of thin air I have sketches to help me very thoroughly ground the scene in a real space. I think this is especially important in a novel where you might set several scenes in the same room; I don’t want to contradict myself in the way the characters move. I think it also helps the setting become more real for me. Hopefully I can translate that into reality for the readers.
I used to write sci-fi, and so never felt the need to travel to outer space to set my scenes! When I started writing contemporary fiction several years ago, it just didn’t occur to me that visiting my setting would help. But when my spouse suggested we visit one of my “places” on a family trip, I jumped at the chance and found it enormously helpful.
Best of luck to you, Clare, in your new releases! Yeah!
Hi Jenna! You’re another author to join the foodie club :). I don’t think many readers mind too much of that LOL.
I can’t say I’ve ever drawn a room plan. Mind you, I’m a terrible pantser when it comes to writing, and maybe sometimes I should. I did set up a convoluted colour-coded critical path analysis-type chart for my bodice ripper, I remember finding that stuck to the inside of my wardrobe door every time I went to change LOL. Then the stickies started to drop off and I found one character in 3 places at once, and I lost heart :). But you make a very good point – even if we don’t use a description specifically in a story, if it’s stuck clearly in *our* mind as we write, the story will likely be richer for it.
And you’re talking to a gal who followed a ‘Inspector Morse’ fictional mystery to the parking lot in Oxford where they found the body, in bay 3B….
Hubby and I were very childishly excited :). Happy courting days, eh? LMAO.
I think you’re very right–making characters feel very at home lets us get right into what makes them tick!
Great attitude, Amy! That’s probably what I’m doing – portraying them as comfy in their own environment, then they’re prime material for me turning their safe world upside down with romance and drama! 🙂
Hi Clare, I love your domestic settings, that home feel, and the way you always manage to create sexual tension with so few outside ingredients.
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But on the other hand I am not so keen on anonymous towns/cities. I think outside the front door local knowledge should be used and can add so much extra colour. Actually I think British authors in particular should make use of their home background; it’s such a refreshing change from All-America.
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But of course that’s just my personal opinion.
Hi Liade, and thanks so much for the encouragement! And especially for inspiring me to set more fiction in the UK. There’s plenty of scope, I do love my home country. Smaller and cuter, maybe, but with all the same action going on :).
And I agree with you, I wish there was more fiction set here. I think many authors in our genre are from the US of course, but also a lot of them assume most of the readers are there too, and expect stories set in home territory. Rather daft theory, really, considering what I often read here :).
Hi, Clare! Great topic. I have a very strong need as a reader for a specific location. I don’t care if it’s glamorous London or someplace relatively mundane like Dayton, Ohio, USA — but I need to have a city name, some idea of the climate (stickily humid, dry desert heat, rainy all the time, yellow pollen settling all over the parked cars in spring, whatever), and some idea of the physical characteristics of the city.
I mean, does it sprawl like Los Angeles or is it vertical like Hong Kong or Tokyo? I also love a sense of a city’s culture. I mean, you can go to places in Phoenix AZ and San Antonio TX where everything’s in Spanish and it’s like you’re in Mexico. Fascinating!
I share your awareness of the pitfalls of trying to write about an unknown city and getting the landmarks and streets wrong. I wrote something a while back set in Baton Rouge LA, where I’ve never been, and I felt very nervous, ha, ha! I used Google Maps, Wikipedia, Google images, the Weather Underground (wunderground.com) etc. to try to fill in details. I was astounded by the ability of Google maps to show me a detailed street view sattelite photo.
Anyway, I need the sensory details of place and the cultural feel of the city for the escapism. The actual street names don’t matter, though I enjoy them, too, when I get them. If I read something set in a generic, vague USA city, I get the irritated feeling that the writer is (1) sloppy and careless, (2) in too big a hurry to get published to do the research, (3) being sort of condescending to both us readers and the m/m genre itself like, “Oh, just give ’em more sex scenes and they won’t care that there’s not a real location.”
I’m probably a little extreme about this topic, ha, ha! I may also be in the minority here. But some of my favorite books have that specificity of location that I crave: P.A. Brown’s Los Angeles books, A.M. Riley’s Los Angeles books, Jordan Castillo Price’s Chicago books, Nicole Kimberling’s Bellingham WA books, J.M. Snyder’s Richmond VA books, Lynn Lorenz’s New Orleans books, Storm Grant’s Toronto books, Sarah Black’s books set in the USA southwest, and others.
I’m with Tam, too, on loving an international city. I totally look for everything I can find set in the UK, the European countries, the Middle East, Canada, the Far East. Like a lot of people, I loved the Martin Cruz Smith mysteries set in Moscow. I don’t know how he managed to get them so specific, especially during the 1980s when it wasn’t all that easy to visit.
Hi Val! I’d only just finished reading your blog this morning where you said how much you liked a definite place-holder for your fiction and I thought *ouch* LOL.
I don’t think your preference is extreme at all, and you describe very well what you like in settings and why you like it. We both know how Pat’s books are perfect for that blend of people and place, I also like examples such as the Janet Evanovich series in New Jersey and (mentioned above! I’m such a fan!) the Inspector Morse books in Oxford, England.
I’ll also agree that sometimes the lack of background is ‘laziness’ though not always deliberate. And sometimes I like to use that effect deliberately, to block out distraction or to add confusion and disorientation.
I think the most interesting thing in your comment for me is the recognition of what impact place has on your senses – it’s often said that really good writing should engage all the senses, not just sight. And as you say, it can portray the cultural context far better and enrich the reading experience.
Thanks for dropping in 🙂
Hi, Clare, you’re welcome! I suspect I may be just like your husband:
” I live with a husband who can tell you in a movie that the railway station they’re using isn’t accurate – and probably the train is travelling in the wrong direction through the surrounding countryside!” 🙂
Oh give me a home where the buffalo roam, and I’ll show you a home that’s a mess… I know a Native American teacher who lives in Texas and actually does have a pair of buffalo on the land; they had to get the male calf a girlfriend when he hit puberty because he kept attacking the pickup truck. Talk about testosterone overload!
Seriously, how much setting to put into a story depends not only on the author, but on the story. For a short, self-contained piece, a house or even a flat can be setting enough. That would be difficult to manage in a longer story, though it occurs to me that most of Ransom was set in just a couple of cabins on a ship–kind of an extreme case.
It depends on the writer, too; some folks seem able to write background spontaneously, as an organic part of the narrative. I’m still learning that–my own writing tends to generate as dialog, and I often have to go back and paint in the background. The best piece of writing criticism I had, years ago, was from someone who read a first draft and said, “Where are they? These two guys are standing in a gray box talking to each other.” She was right. Which is odd, because IRL setting makes all the difference in the world–I can’t write without trees.
I love reading stories that show me places I’ve never been, if the author has either real-life experience or is willing to do homework. If the author is willing to create a town that has a reasonable consistency, that’s fine with me–but it’s more interesting when the setting is a real place.
Or almost-real. Of course, there’s the license of fiction. Nero Wolfe’s New York brownstone never existed, any more than 221B Baker Street did. Scrooge & Marley never paid rent on their offices, and Jack Aubrey never really held command of HMS Surprise. But the settings were so real that people still write to Holmes at his old address. I wonder how successful Conan Doyle would’ve been if he had not had that gift of place–the snug security of Mrs. Hudson’s rooming-house, the clatter of the London cabs, or the mist swirling through the threatening dark out on the moor.
So–yes, please set more things in London! I only spent a couple of days there, but I got the impression that it’s like Chicago in a way–that depending on the neighbourhood, there is more than ‘one’ London.
Do you think it’s possible for anyone to do an ‘anonymous British city?’ My guess is that it isn’t; I think one could do Columbus OH or Indianapolis IN (two cities I’ve spent time in) without changing much, but that didn’t seem to me to hold true for the UK.
Hi Lee! What a charming view you have of London and I’m so glad we didn’t disappoint. Like you suspect, there are *many* Londons :). And I think what enchants people is that they’re so accessible. Being so small compared to N America, we can reach another world just a few miles away – I know, I work in an area just a few streets in one direction from one of the most affluent and middle-class ‘villages’, then the same distance in the other direction takes you into a much more cosmopolitan, lively, aggressive, multi-cultural setting.
I love the bus rides – I love being in the thick of it. You see all kinds of people and all kinds of real life, albeit domestic drama. Later this year, I’m determined to finish the story of Felix, a nurse who works in one of the London hospitals and thinks he has a relatively modest, under-the-radar life with an occasionally-flaky boyfriend and a brother who needs lots of attention – under the radar, that is, until one night on the bus home, he gets his bum pinched by an amorous suitor, but when he turns around to protest…no one there! 🙂
Loved your story about the buffalo! 🙂
I love a story with a good sense of place. That’s why I tend to write places I know. Dan’s apartment, the store, the coffee shop, the gay & lesbian center from “Singing up the moon?” All very real.
Claire, I have traveled by bus and had the most extraordinary experiences. Imagine, a Mennonite farmer, a one legged man from Nigeria, a Mexicali hairdresser and a lady trucker all sitting together and chatting clear across Kentucky. Only in America.
My Londons vary, just as my Kansas Citys vary. There is the Holmsian London, with the Dickensian flipside. There is the London of Orwell’s 1984. And there is the London of my own 1984, with Carnaby street, double decker busses, Hambly’s of Regents Street and heavy gold-colored pound coins that delighted me. And there is the London of the 20s, with newfangled motorcars and Edwardian tradition. My Kansas Citys are a similar composite: rough and ready cowtown, my own home town, and a weirdness magnet that draws in serial killers. (I’ve had second-hand encounters with three. My mother worked with one)
Hi Angelia, what a fabulous bus story! Now there’s a theme for an antho one day…
My favourite was the day an old man leaped to his feet at his stop, begging the driver to wait a moment and keep the door open because he’d lost his coconuts! Only after the rest of the bus had either laughed or smiled sympathetically did we find he really *had* lost 2 coconuts, they’d rolled under the seat, and in his shopping bag he had 4 more :).
Of course I’m biased, but London to me can be all those things and many more. The delight is in turning a street corner and being inspired afresh.
Thanks for dropping in!
Well, you know how I feel — that there’s nothing more important than character in fiction, and your explorations of human nature and interaction always strike deep. Keep it up, girl!
I think a sense of place can be conveyed with small, deft touches, and they can make a building or a room or a patch of sky just as evocative as a metropolis or a mountain range.
Sorry I was late to the party!
KZ, a visit from you is always a pleasure, never too late! 🙂 I like your description, too – that writing can delve into the human psyche rather than/as well as observe it from its outside surroundings. Maybe that’s what I like doing!
And your writing is the perfect example of how a scene or mood can be created with the words used – the ‘deft touches’ – not just description. I just finished the Prayer Waltz and loved it! Yes, I need to feedback properly…LOL.