Plotting stories: locations

Plotting stories: locations

I am sure I am not alone in using locations I have been to in my stories.

Most of the time I deliberately do not state which country the city is in so if you are an American reading my stories you can visualise the city being in New York maybe, or if you are English you might think of London. However, there are invented places, venues or rooms within those stories that come from real life inspiration:

 

Portmeirion is my inspiration for the children’s story I am writing (as I mentioned on Monday). I am using the layout of the village in the story for the Lyon Isle as well as the symbolisms around the village from the various statues for my characters, eg, lions, mermaids, dolphins etc.

In Alien Manhunt 3 I used my experiences at the spa/sauna in Center Parcs (I included a hot stone massage and waterbeds!).

 

A nude photography session done professionally (for my 50^th birthday) was included in ‘The Sub Who Switched’ (the hero is a photographer!)

There was a threesome in a hot tub in ‘Retraining the Dom’… yep! I have been in a hot tub. Whether I had a threesome in one I am leaving up to your imagination!

For the BDSM manor of decadence in BDSM Weekend – I studied various English country mansions to get a flavour of what rooms they held, eg, pool room, dining room, dairy, stables, maze, gardens, portraits up the grand staircase and so on) and then studied a map of English looking for a forested area where I could literally drop my invented mansion as I didn’t want to use a real one! I chose Lincolnshire in the end.

I often use real people’s names for roads, parks, towns etc when I am inventing them, eg, Pickford Park (in Wife for Three), Seller’s Street (in Dark Captive) are two of my work colleagues in the day job!

Spring Valley, Deer Park and Hawk Ridge in Collared by Wolves were all named for the areas three writer friends lived in or we went to when I visited them.

Then there was The Last Werewolf (my only co-authored book with the lovely Susan Laine) which started off in Yorkshire (where I live) but most of the action takes place in Finland (where Susan lives) as we felt it a good setting for a werewolf story. However, I did have to rely on Susan to describe the locations to me. You can only get so much from the internet! (I am lucky to say that I did get a chance to visit Finland - but only after we had written the story!)