NOT YOUR USUAL SUSPECTS

A group blog featuring an international array of killer mystery, suspense, and romantic suspense writers. With premises and story lines different from your run-of-the-mill whodunits, we tend to write outside the box. We blog several times a week on all topics relating to romantic suspense and mystery, our writing, and our readers. We welcome all comments and often have guest bloggers. All our authors can be contacted separately, too, using their own social media links.

We find our genre delightfully, dangerously, and deliciously exciting - join us here, if you do too!

NOTE: the blog is currently dormant but please enjoy the posts we're keeping online.


Julie Moffet . Cathy Perkins . Jean Harrington . Daryl Anderson . Nico Rosso . Maureen A Miller . Sandy Parks . Lisa Q Mathews . Sharon Calvin . Lynne Connolly . Janis Patterson . Vanessa Keir . Tonya Kappes . Julie Rowe . Joni M Fisher . Leslie Langtry

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Location, Location! and an audio trailer



LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION by Clare London

“Look,” says Hubby with a wry smile. We’re snuggled on the sofa together, watching a movie last night. “It’s set in London.”

Is he psychic, you ask? A close friend of the producer? A devout follower of IMDB and/or the celebrity movie news websites? No. He’s just seen the double-decker red bus trundle past in the background LOL (and it *was* a James Bomd movie!).



So many movies and pictures rely on triggers like that, don’t they? For London, we have the buses, the black taxis, the phone boxes (vanishing fast), the London Eye, Big Ben, Tower Bridge … to be honest, we’re spoiled for choice of iconic scenes.

My suspense thriller FREEMAN is set in London. When I first drafted it, I deliberately set it in AnyCity rather than a specific place. It was to add to the mystery of the story, the “Everyman” nature of Freeman himself. But when I re-released it in 2013 at Wilde City Press, I made it clearer that the city I used as its setting was London.

Excuse my bias towards London, but I’m living and working there, it’s the city I know best, and it fascinates me. But I’ve also written stories set elsewhere in the UK: in Brighton, Totnes in the south-west, Exeter, Scotland and various “alternative, no-name” cities around the British Isles.

And of course, other cities - as they say - are available! I’ve read and enjoyed many stories set in the United Kingdom that evoke marvellously the spirit of the place, its scenery, its history and the unique characteristics of its inhabitants.

Of course, Hubby and I also joke about movies set in the US, how it sometimes seems there are only 5 cities in existence - New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco – and they’ve been devastated by enough giant monsters / aliens / natural disasters / Decepticons to make us wonder how there’s anything left for any future features LOL. But again, in fiction, there’s the option of so many more places that can come alive in the reader’s imagination.

How do you feel about physical setting in the books you read? Do you skip over the scene-setting as background wallpaper, or does your reading act as a travel pass to exciting new places? Do you admire the author’s love for the place, or wonder just how much research they’ve done to get authenticity? How do you feel if a book features *your* place, or somewhere you know well – does it thrill or creep you out?

Let us know! As they say, it’s all about Location, Location, Location.



And do you like an English accent?!
EXCLUSIVE : this link to an extract from FREEMAN, read aloud for your entertainment!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1Kk9uDPrmE

*************************

Clare London
Writing … Man to Man


 







6 comments:

Rita said...

I admit I’m one of those who considers the setting as a character. I adore being drawn in to the book by the author’s use of the senses. I don’t care if it’s an 18th century historical where the heroine needs to traverse the streets carefully to avoid the slops being thrown in the street, or a contemporary aboard a nuclear sub and the author is describing the close quarters so vibrantly I’m getting claustrophobia. I do not like subs. I’ve noticed more detailed settings turn a good book into a great book for me. I’m working very hard to improve this in my own books.
AND I do love an accent.

Rita said...

OH! And just who read that? BTW I think Freeman is a great book.

Anne Marie Becker said...

I love when setting becomes integral to the plot, especially if it tortures characters. Hah! The most recent show I watched in which setting was key was Fargo - the series based on the movie. Loved it, and you could feel the way the cold made your bones ache.

Elise Warner said...

I treasure the settings in books. Brings back lovely memories of travel and sometimes transports me to the past. The sights, the sounds, the smells and the behavior of the people.

Marcelle Dubé said...

Freeman sounds like a great book, Clare. Fun excerpt, too. Love the guy's accent (yes, Clare, he has an accent). Setting is absolutely crucial to me. I don't care if it's real or made up, but I have to know where the characters are and how that setting affects them.

Clare London said...

Lovely to hear your comments, sorry it's taken me a few days to get back to them! They're very motivating to me. I think location is something I've been nudged into considering more carefully with my writing, over the years. I may have been a tad lazy with it in the past :).

And LOL Marcelle, of course he doesn't have an accent! Everyone ELSE does *g* *and a london wink*.

PS just between us, it's Son#1, bless him.

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