Choosing a Novel's Setting

By Elaine L. Orr

Sometimes an idea comes for a character or the starting point for a book, but I can't really start writing without knowing the setting. I have to see it to write it, right?

I prefer smaller town settings, in part because a sleuth can know a variety of people well. In a city, people  know their corner, so to speak, but it isn't possible to be familiar with the mayor and most business owners or know which are truly the best restaurants or best places to buy groceries. There are too many options.

I like to create characters who have a command of their environment. That can be in a beach town, midwestern community, or mountain town. While the settings are in my imagination, they model real places.

River's Edge, the Iowa town in the series of the same name, is drawn from several towns along the Des Moines River in Van Buren County, Iowa. The photo is of a boat ramp in Farmington. Those towns were too small to let character Melanie Perkins find enough crimes to solve, but the sense of community is the same.

Though set at the Jersey shore, Ocean Alley is a combination of several beach towns in Maryland and Delaware. As a teenager, I watched cotton candy being spun on the boardwalk and visited countless souvenir shops looking for the perfect conch shell. 

Some things I consider when developing a new setting are:

• Can I imagine myself walking through a town or along a trail in the woods?
• Can the town grow with a mystery series? 
• Will I enjoy learning more about the kind of place so I can create the fictional place?
• Are there enough opportunities for a sleuth to not only thrive but find problems to solve?

Right now I'm working on a new series that I wanted to be near water, but where? Suddenly I did a true forehead slap. Why haven't I set anything along the Chesapeake Bay? I owned a cottage there for five years! It's underway. I can taste the crabcakes

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