Ed Lynskey's Blog: Cracked Rearview Mirror - Posts Tagged "settings"
I Like My Settings to Be Vivid Ones
As a kid, I fell in love with reading the traditional Westerns penned by the fabled writer Zane Grey (1872-1939). Recently I took another a look at one of his novels. The stilted prose left me cold and, I had to wonder at my youthful infatuation. Who today uses "ejaculated" as a dialogue tag?
But then consider this vivid landscape description: "A league-long slope of sage rolled and billowed down to Red Lake, a dry red basin, denuded and glistening, a hollow in the desert, a lonely and desolate door to the vast, wild, and broken upland beyond."
The settings, then, were Grey's strength as a fiction author. That's why he'd captivated my attention. My new Appalachian noir, Lake Charles, has been cited by Publishers Weekly as "vividly rendering" the Great Smoky Mountains vista. If a setting offers a distinctive quality, I try to use it in telling the story.
By Ed Lynskey
Twitter: @edlynskey
Author of Lake Charles
"Nice addition to anyone’s summer beach reading schedule."
Florida Times-Union
But then consider this vivid landscape description: "A league-long slope of sage rolled and billowed down to Red Lake, a dry red basin, denuded and glistening, a hollow in the desert, a lonely and desolate door to the vast, wild, and broken upland beyond."
The settings, then, were Grey's strength as a fiction author. That's why he'd captivated my attention. My new Appalachian noir, Lake Charles, has been cited by Publishers Weekly as "vividly rendering" the Great Smoky Mountains vista. If a setting offers a distinctive quality, I try to use it in telling the story.
By Ed Lynskey
Twitter: @edlynskey
Author of Lake Charles
"Nice addition to anyone’s summer beach reading schedule."
Florida Times-Union
My Small Towns Are Far Beyond GPS
If you drive south from Washington, D.C. into Virginia's hinterlands, you'll veer close but then not quite reach my small towns. They don't exist except in my fiction's print.
When I started out writing novels, it felt weird to place fictional towns in the actual geographic areas. Now I don't give it a second thought. I've created a string of made-up towns and cities: Pelham, Old Yvor City, New Yvor City, Quiet Anchorage, and finally Umpire, Tennessee found in my new Appalachian noir, Lake Charles.
Credit the great, late Ed McBain for turning me on to the idea. He wrote his 87th Precinct tales set in Isola, a fictionalization of New York City. He once made the valid point of never getting the geographical details wrong and hearing about it from disgruntled readers.
Sometimes I wonder just where the border lies between the real and the imagined. That's how vivid the small towns are established in my mind.
By Ed Lynskey
Twitter: @edlynskey
Author of Lake Charles
"I had a blast."
Ransom Notes: Barnes & Noble Mystery Blog
When I started out writing novels, it felt weird to place fictional towns in the actual geographic areas. Now I don't give it a second thought. I've created a string of made-up towns and cities: Pelham, Old Yvor City, New Yvor City, Quiet Anchorage, and finally Umpire, Tennessee found in my new Appalachian noir, Lake Charles.
Credit the great, late Ed McBain for turning me on to the idea. He wrote his 87th Precinct tales set in Isola, a fictionalization of New York City. He once made the valid point of never getting the geographical details wrong and hearing about it from disgruntled readers.
Sometimes I wonder just where the border lies between the real and the imagined. That's how vivid the small towns are established in my mind.
By Ed Lynskey
Twitter: @edlynskey
Author of Lake Charles
"I had a blast."
Ransom Notes: Barnes & Noble Mystery Blog
Cracked Rearview Mirror
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