On location: Why and How I Chose the Setting

A Northern Gentleman is set in five different locations. The main character, Drucker May, is on an epic cross country journey and in each stop that he makes he gets into a new adventure, with a new set of characters and challenges that he encounters in each location. The setting of each of these stops is integral to what he gets himself into there.

Four of the five locations are real and one is fictional but very well could have been real. As I was choosing the cities that each section of the book would take place in, I found that the decision came down to the action that would take place in each. A small town, a state capital, a mining outpost, the coastline...each place brings with it the ability to host a specific sort of adventure -- and also a certain type struggle -- for Drucker.

So that’s the why. As for the how, I read other people’s fictional accounts that had taken place in similar locations to get a sense for how others understood the place. I read non-fiction historical accounts of those locations to make sure that I had my facts straight. But, to cite an old cliche, a picture is worth a thousand words, and the most useful resource in writing about a location was the photographs that I found of those places. Some were found through Google image search, others on Pinterest or in books. The pictures were incredibly useful as I worked on painting a picture of my own, using words.

Using photographs as a device for understanding the nature of a time and place -- that is, seeing a scene in order to set it, was also particularly appropriate given the first line of the book. “There’s a photograph that’s kept upstairs…” are the first words of the story. I didn’t realize until long after I’d written them, how those words would foreshadow so much of what followed them in the Drucker May’s epic journey as well as my own writing process.