I've noted there are a few writing stories about journeys around the world and I wondered if you considered your own travel essential to this. I got quite annoyed with the number of times I heard someone say back to me 'But you've never been anywhere!' when I said I was writing about backpacking. Yes, it could be perceived as the Bronté approach, but I genuinely felt that if I had been to any of the places I was writing about, my experiences would seep through and colour the otherwise pure fictional tale. I fear I am alone! Have your travels made it in to your work?
My current work is set in Lapland, a place I have only explored in my imagination.
I have come close to this landscape when visiting other places, notably Norway and Iceland, but Lapland, for me, remains ethereal and imagined.
I think that it is precisely because I have not visited it that I can evoke the mystery and otherworldliness of it.
I want it to seem unreal and imagined and slightly intimidating/awe inspiring. I think too much reality would have a negative impact on what I am trying to achieve.
While my book is very much character based and psychological, the landscape itself has formed those characters and has had an affect upon their psychological development and I try to allow the space and the land to become part of the characters themselves, rather than to be a subject ion and of themselves.
Not sure if this helps or makes any sense......
Sorry, I was in a hurry for work earlier and should have said thanks for sharing all that, Jean-Marc. I did have a problem with pinning my gargantuan plot (it's a five book series now) down to a specific point in each book because so much of Peter's life and battles seemed relevant to my overall plot. Several of the books rambled a bit, seemingly with no objective, because they all served the higher plot of portraying Peter's complete life story. It's taken a really long time to hone them down into individuals with their own arcs, so don't be too hard on yourself for finding that even more difficult with a story that contains so much truth.
Isabella
Thanks for that. I actually think it's a different experience for the reader to be completely in the world of an entirely fictional tale, even if that world is based on the real one we inhabit. There is far more escapism involved, even if the book has a serious point to make about, for instance mental health. When someone writes a fictional tale based on events they have experienced, there is usually far more depth, but sometimes it stops being a leisure time distraction and becomes a tale of importance. That's what some people do and I have no issue with that form of writing, it's just not what I do. I very much hope the point of my story seems as important as I believe it is and there is enough reality in my story to transfer those messages, but it still must always be a wonderful and entirely escapist leap into the impossible life of Peter, which has as little to do with reality as a Punch and Judy Show.
Hello Victoria. I feel that if your books are character led then the country it's set in could be considered inconsequential - maybe I should say of secondary importance. Fantasy or sci fi settings are generally figments of the author's imagination. I would suggest that you go with strong characters, strong plots and the rest can be researched if you are basing the setting on real places. I'm all for the Bronte experience. Before the days of travel for the common man, most people learned about foreign places through reading and letting their imagination take root. But I agree with Jean-Marc - there is enough information on the internet to get a good feel for what a place is like. Good luck.