“Location, location, location.” The Realtor’s Mantra
This certainly holds true just as much in story telling as it does in realty. After all, you don’t want to write a pulse pounding tale of survival in a tsunami based in an above ground pool in Wichita, Kansas. Although that would make for a funny children’s book, “How to survive with a bully in the pool.” How interesting would Huckleberry Finn be if Mark Twain had him floating down a flooded drainage ditch? And since you brought up Huck Finn, Mark Twain, and locations. If Illinois (a free state) was right across the river from Missouri, why did Huck and Jim float down the Mississippi deeper into slave territory so Jim could escape to freedom? I guess that made for a much better story than just saying: “Den me and Huck done swum acrost da riber. De end.”
Some writers can bore you to death with location details, some make you work to figure out where they are, and others may not go overboard with details but they remind you every other paragraph like a cheesy sales commercial telling you the phone number to call ten times at the end of it. Me? I’m a snippet kind of guy. I’ll tell you where you’re at in the beginning but you’ll have to remember it after that. Most of my stories are not location stringent so the reader can pretend it is happening right next door.
In a story I wrote, titled “Otis and Vivian”, I looked for a small hamlet in one of the Plains States. My little Ipod came with a weather app installed that has a satellite view option. My fingers swiped the screen through the fly-over states of the mid-west every, once in a while I’d have to stop and let the screen refresh. Then I’d zoom in and out scouting for that perfect location. I finally found what I was looking for in Dana, Iowa. A dinky farming village 72 miles northwest of Des Moines. With the satellite function it told the street names and I could count the number of houses. In fact, it zoomed in so close, if anybody was sunbathing nude that day I’d a seen em.
Another thing about location is the location of the writer. I’ve watched episodes on HGTV’s House Hunters International series where someone is moving halfway around the world to find inspiration for a novel. Maybe it’s just me but I think if you aren’t inspired where you’re at you probably won’t be inspired someplace else. The next time I see one of those episodes I should write down their name and Google them to see if it worked. I’ve been inspired by seeing a piece of litter rolling down the street and I get a lot ideas while I’m sitting on the pot. (And don’t you dare say they’re probably shitty ones.) Anyway, that’s why I had armrests installed on my toilet. Plus it makes it easier to balance the TV tray on when I eat. But now we’re wandering into the realm of TMI. I suppose a change of scenery can rekindle the spark of imagination. It could happen some writer, in frozen North Dakota, goes on vacation to the warm beaches of south Texas where they see a fat hairy man in a speedo, then they write a heartwarming story of a hairy fat man who donates the hair on his back to make wigs for those who are follicularly impaired. It could happen.
But there is one more important location, at least to me anyway. And that is the location of where the writer’s head is at. It’s next to impossible to write a love scene when you want to rip somebody’s head off. Or to write about an argument between two characters when you’ve got the giggles. My wife says she can tell what kind of story I’m writing because my personality changes. I put my head into the story and it carries over into real life. I guess I have to make sure I don’t write any stories about some animal-abusing-meth-head-nudist.
So remember … location, location, location. Do the research for your story location, be comfortable in your work location, and make sure your head is where it needs to be. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go to my favorite thinking location, put down the armrests and find some inspiration for my next blog.
