A few months ago, I didn’t finish a general market book because of the setting and characters. Here’s what I believe happened:
The author did not want to write about where she lives, but she needed:
- A police force allowing a crime scene to be contaminated, along with other sloppy police work.
- A police force with corrupt and adulterous officers.
- A remote vacation spot.
- A coffee shop within walking distance of a vacation home.
- Another nearby town.
First, the setting. Judging from the plot, the author never set foot in the area where I live in Northern Virginia. The area the author described is not a rural vacation spot, but a gated community of residents. There is no coffee shop. The nearby town isn’t located where she said it is. I’m fine with some creativity regarding real settings, such as a fictional store, but the way the area was portrayed isn’t the vibe at all. The author apparently thought she’d found a backwater place she could abuse in her book. Abuse it she did, to total inaccuracy.
The portrayal of our local police reeked. I know some of our police officers, and they are people of the highest professionalism and integrity. While no profession is without bad players, the author wrote an insulting level of incompetence and immorality. Even worse, I didn’t see any upstanding officers to offset the poor ones.
The author’s disregard for me, a real person living in a real place, caused me to discard her book. Thankfully I had borrowed it from the library so I didn’t waste money, but I wish I could have kept it out of circulation.
So, what if you need incompetent, immoral people in your book? Balance them with upright people so you don’t paint an entire profession or group with a hateful brush.
What if you need a certain vibe in an area? Unless you know the area cold, create a fictional location. Offending local people or causing them to make fun of your writing because you’re so far off won’t sell books.
Bottom line? Always use care when writing about people, places, and even things.
Watch congregants, they come and go
from the portal beneath the steeple,
and in your watching come to know
that at end they are just people,
petty, grasping, foolish, vain,
with dreadful sin in open storage,
but turn away, then look again,
and you may see shining courage
that stays the course when all seems lost
in sad failing relationship,
willing each day to pay the cost
that’s wired to choice not to slip
away in anonymity,
but remain to build community.
My first—and often nonsense seems to be my first thought—was “Well, I never been to Spain…”. (Think: Three Dog Night)
My second thought was that it’s vastly important to research setting and KNOW where actual places exist. That will especially impress readers who know the locations of a book. We can’t always visit places personally. Foreign locations can be visited with Rick Steves or by a trip to the library. And, YES, never vilify a location, even if the bed was uncomfortable and the waiter was rude.
Great advice, Tamela! Thanks for sharing.
I think this advice is spot on, Tamela. Even if the portrayals of people aren’t insulting, I’ve stopped reading a novel when it has cardboard characters like I would never find where the story is set. I’ve rolled my eyes when real mountains like the Rockies are backdrops for a story set where the highest geological feature is a tall hill. I’ve set down books when today’s social sensibilities are given to historical characters who would never have responded like they are portrayed. Research takes time, but other readers and I appreciate authors doing the research that make us feel like we’re right there in a real place with real people that reflect the reality of the time of the story.
Thanks to advice I got at this blog almost ten years ago, I turned the research I had to do to get people, place, and time right for my own novels into a history website with many detailed articles about living in Roman times. I keep it PG-13 or milder so teachers and students can use it, but it’s also super handy for anyone writing stories set in NT times. It’s at carolashby.com, and if anyone has specific questions they can’t get answered there, there’s contact info to ask me directly.
Thanks so much for all the many how-to articles your group has published over the years. I would never had succeeded like I have without them. You’re all a blessing to us writers.
Hmmm? She used an actual existing town? I agree if she hasn’t researched it she should change the town name. Author Lisa Carter did this well in one of her earlier books. I lived in the town where her story was placed and she was spot on and I easily imagined the location which made the story believable. In your explanation of the plot I almost get the feeling she had an ‘axe to grind’ or just bad writing. Appreciate your perspective.
Thanks for asking, Daphne. Yes, she used not just one but two locations, which revealed that she didn’t have any idea about the area. Yes, she used real town names. Hmmm, I don’t know about an axe to grind. Could be!
Thank you for complimenting Lisa Carter. She’s one of my friends and I agree she’s an amazing author!
Thanks, Tamela! I appreciate the instruction you offer here.
That is an annoyance to say the least. Why risk alienating part of your potential audience?
Thank you for the recommendations with regard to balancing immoral people with upright people as well as location choices.
Great post Tamela!
I’d say that researching locations not only helps the book, but it also rewards the writer with his/her own unique reflections, enabling the unique eye of the writer to tell some detail of the real place that hasn’t been written before (a metaphor, a feeling, an inspiration, a thing that makes your book unique). I made a two-day trip to the site of the Woodstock Festival to drive the back roads getting there, walk the grounds, and see the place, the sky, the terrain, with my own eyes and mind. There are thousands of accounts, photos, written descriptions, and videos available, but none of them was mine. I had interviewed dozens of people who were there and read excellent pieces about it, but I hadn’t gone. Once there, standing at the upper edge of the 1/2-mile-wide natural bowl, what struck me was how SMALL the stage would have appeared, how tiny the performers, and how flimsy the sound towers would have been in the high winds on Sunday morning. When I returned home from my own trip, I said to myself, “NOW I can write about it.” I felt grounded. Since my protagonist happened to be an engineer in his regular life, I knew that I would have to have him notice and worry, just a passing thought, about the towers falling on the packed crowd, something I’d never have gotten from any of the accounts I’d read. Thanks again for the post, Tamela. You got my nostalgia going!
Good information.
Reading your post, lawsuit comes to mind. Who need to take the risk?
Thanks, Tamela
Excellent advice,Tamela. Thanks and blessings.