Why I Set my Novel in the Yorkshire Dales.

Writers choose locationsfor their fiction for all manner of reasons. Sometimes it's because the placeis a familiar haunt. Sometimes the setting is exactly right for the fabric ofthe story. Sometimes the landscape is so alien to the author that it stimulateshis imagination.
I grew up in Yorkshire andit has been my home for much of my adult life, though by no means all of it.Many years ago, when I was married to my first wife, in fact, (and I've beenmarried to my current lovely lady for coming up to 24 years) we were walking ina particularly remote and rugged part of the Yorkshire Dales. There are somesink holes in this area. For those who don't know, these are geologicalfeatures that are best described as vertical caves. Often quite deep, usuallynarrow, they are places where water has eaten away the porous rock and left adeep pit in the surface of the Earth. The Buttertubs, as this particular set ofsink holes is known, are a series of pits close to the narrow and precipitousroad that leads from Hawes to Muker. Readily accessible, they are a touristattraction for many motorists but few walkers.
It was a chill and windyday when I approached these holes in the ground, grey clouds skimmed a palesun, and the gusty wind made waves through the long grass. At that time, thepits were unfenced and entirely open to public gaze with none of the modernobsessive concern for 'health and safety' rules. It was possible to step rightup to and, indeed, over, the edges of these shafts. I am uncomfortable withheights and, since I was determined to gaze into the bottom of the largest anddeepest, I sank to my knees and crawled forward until I could safely peer intothe dim depths. As I did so, quite inexplicably, I was visited by a brief imageof a woman's body at the bottom and the question was posed in my writer's mind,'What would you do if you found a dead body down there?'
That thought stayed with meover the years. A divorce and remarriage took me to different parts of thecountry and overseas for the first time. But I was drawn again and again to theYorkshire Dales until, almost on a whim, my wife and I with our new daughterjust 2 years old, moved into the area to live. Our walks became regular events,regardless of weather. We experienced everything from dry thirsty heatwaves toicy winters cloaked in deep drifting snow and everything in between, as canonly happen in good old island Britain.
It was whilst we lived inthis location that the initial question slowly coalesced into a plot, peopledby the characters I had long lived with in my imagination. The story developedand the setting became part of the narrative, as much a character in the taleas Faith or Leigh, in fact. It was the natural setting for the rugged and toughtale and the fact that I was living in it made the descriptions so much easier.So, the first draft was completed at the same time as I renovated the housewe'd bought and worked part time for a local holiday accommodation company.
Life came along, in theform of redundancy, just days before the new millennium was about to commence.At the age of 51, I understood my chances of re-employment in the area wereslim and I moved the family back to my native East Yorkshire, where I found ajob. It was some years before I found time to write again and dug out thatfirst draft. I changed the viewpoint characters, giving both the male andfemale protagonists a chance to have their say in first person. I changedrelationships that formed essential background to the story. I changedincidents. I changed the ages of the protagonists. What I didn't change was thesetting. The Yorkshire Dales remained as valid a landscape as it had been fromthe beginning.
For those who don't knowthe area, it is a National Park. An area of outstanding natural beauty andconsidered by many to be the best walking country in Europe. It's populated bya native people who are as tough as the characteristic dry stone walls, asstubborn as the local sheep, as different as individuals as are the inhabitantsof any region.
I changed the time frameto a period that was historically real: the severe drought of 1976, since theweather and the burgeoning philosophy of 'free love' allowed me to introduce adegree of external nudity that would otherwise be unlikely in this wildcountry. The nudity was an essential element in the relationship of the twoprotagonists and a useful tool in examining the fight between innocence andcorruption that is at the heart of the story.
So, there you have it.Those are the reasons I came to set my romantic thriller, Breaking Faith, inone of the most beautiful parts of the English countryside. Many readers havecommented on how apt the setting is. Whether you'll agree or not can only bedetermined by reading the book. And I give you the opportunity to do that forfree here on this blog. Each week of this year I am posting a chapter. Thereare 50 in all, so it'll last for almost the whole year. And each post isaccompanied by one of my photographs taken in the Dales, so you can experiencethe landscape for yourself. I started in January and the link to that firstinstalment is here. You'll find the rest of the early chapters listed inthe archive and you're welcome to join the readers as we take the journeytogether to the end.