Gimmer Shelter (or win one of my books)

There is a setting in my work-in-progress, The Lies We Told, that I need to name. You, my readers, have helped me name both books and characters in the past, so I'm turning to you once again for inspiration. If I use the name one of you suggests, I'll send you an autographed copy of The Courage Tree.

Here's the setting: Picture a backwoodsy area of coastal North Carolina. In real life, there's a (much nicer) area called Holland Shelter on a tributary of the Cape Fear River. I like the word Shelter, which fits both the locale and the storyline. So I'm looking for "_____ Shelter".

_____ Shelter is actually a peninsula of sorts. Like Holland Shelter, it's on a tributary of the Cape Fear but that's where the similarities end. _____ Shelter is attached to the mainland by a long, very narrow strip of land, so that when the area floods and that strip is underwater, _____ Shelter becomes an island, cut off from the mainland. If you don't have a boat, you're trapped until the floodwaters go down. And of course, my characters don't have a boat.

The house in the picture (a real house I snapped on a recent trip to the area) belongs to one of the characters who lives in _____ Shelter, so you get an idea of what life is like. Not great. :(

The situation is scary from a pyschological perspective and to a lesser degree, from a physical perspective. But it's also an emotional story. As is usually the case with my books, there's a little bit of everything! So the blank in _____ Shelter should be a word that evokes trouble and mystery, with a healthy dose of poignancy.

I look forward to your ideas, and may the best ______ win!
 •  3 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on June 23, 2009 17:06 Tags: book, carolina, chamberlain, courage, diane, north, peninsula, shelter, tree, win
Comments Showing 1-3 of 3 (3 new)    post a comment »
dateUp arrow    newest »

message 1: by Sheila (new)

Sheila I dont really have a name... but this sounds like Bar Harbor in Maine. Where there is a sand bar that you can drive on but when the tide comes in your stranded as the other part of the sandbar becomes an island. :-)

Very cool.


message 2: by Karen (new)

Karen Sounds really good Diane. A little online research says the Cape Fear Indians didn't leave behind any language and that the area was settled by whites in the 1600's so the _______ Shelter sounds like it would have a mishmash of an Indian word corrupted by Old English. The other closest tribe to the Cape Fear Indians was the Waccamaw. Maybe you can find something in their language?


message 3: by Diane (new)

Diane Chamberlain Interesting about Bar Harbor, Sheila. And love your research, Karen. Will put my thinking cap on!


back to top