Reading like a Writer: Elin Hilderbrand

As I dive into work on my second novel, I'm learning that a sense of place is very central to my writing. In HOW TO EAT A CUPCAKE, I felt that plot and place were closely entwined -- what happened to those characters wouldn't have happened in the specific way they happened in any other city than San Francisco. In the book I'm currently writing, three characters have a strong connection to the beach town where they spent their summers in childhood, and I hope I'm able to breathe enough life into that relationship and that place that it will become a central character in its own right.

Who better to teach a master class on place as character than Elin Hilderbrand? Silver Girl is the first Hilderbrand novel that I've read, and I found myself taking little mental notes the entire time I was reading. SILVER GIRL, like all of her novels, is set mostly on Nantucket, and she does a wonderful job of making the island, and her characters' relationships and history with the island, come alive. I've never been to Nantucket, but I found myself seeing the island clearly through the eyes of the two main characters, heading out with them to the market, the restaurants, and the beaches.

What hooked me? The details. Not untethered, omniscient details, but the details only these specific characters would notice, the details tied to memories: the beachside playground with the metal slide that was always too hot for Connie's now-estranged daughter when she was young, how the curves of the house that her now departed husband designed pull at her heart. These are the details that create place as character.

Reading Hilderbrand, I'm reminded to think about how each of my three characters would look at the beach town of their childhood summers and see, or remember, different things. Each character has her own relationship and memories with the place, and uncovering those unique details will be the way to bring place to life.

Thanks for the writing lesson, Elin Hilderbrand!