Finding Ireland

Today I welcome Susannah Sharp to Terry's Place. Susannah is trying hard to get motivated to finish the revisions on her first novel, “I Am of Ireland: Saving Loarlis,” a contemporary romance set in Ireland and the first of a series that will alternate between contemporary and historical novels in the same setting. She is a medical transcriptionist by profession and lives in Utah with her husband and the youngest of their three children.

How do you take a city, or even worse, a country and distill all of its history, its culture, its beauty, down to just a few powerful images and then try to share it in words with other people?

This is a question I have been struggling with ever since I started working on my series of novels, and believe me when I say that has been a long time and is still an ongoing effort.

I am getting close to publishing the first novel in an entire series set in County Cavan in Ireland. I absolutely adore Ireland and have been blessed in my life to be able to get there three times (so far!) from my home in Utah. But I’m not Irish and my combined total of a few weeks staying there hardly qualifies me as an expert. Still, though, I want to give as authentic feeling as possible when I write my books. I want people who read my books to believe they’re there. I want them to be transported. I want them to breathe deeply and smell the countryside, even if they’re sitting in an apartment in Ohio.

Real Life and Writing (and a giveaway)

What I'm reading: A Creed in Stone Creek, by Linda Lael Miller

I'm still talking characters at Coffee Time Romance (link in the sidebar).

And don't forget my goal of 500 followers by the end of the year. And 250 likes. Giveaways when milestones are reached. I still can't count on the followers gadget to show up, but I'm optimistic things will stabilize.

We've had family visiting all week, so we've had a change in our routine. I was going to recycle a writing post I'd posted before, but thought I'd simply share one of our 'adventures.' On the other hand, it IS a writing post, because everything can be considered writing fodder. I can think of several writing connections here. What about you? Leave your ideas in the comments, and I'll given one commenter a download of Finding Sarah once it goes live. And now, join us for tea.

Hubster's sister is a tea aficionado, so we went to our local coffee house that advertises "high tea." In our rural area, any sort of approximation of elegance is rare, so we didn't know what to expect. We know the coffee house well—we have breakfast there almost every Sunday, but despite it's decor, which reminds me of my grandmother's house, it's more 'local grub'—breakfast burritos, biscuits and gravy type stuff. And the clientele is usually the "rugged" sort.

Setting: It's not just a place

Today my guest is Laurin Wittig, who writes historical romances set in the Scottish Highlands. She’s blogging today on how to make your settings do more than just be the backdrop to your story. And as a bonus, it's also my day over at The Blood Red Pencil.

When you create a story, does the setting matter to you? It should. The setting is an important backdrop for your story but it can be so much more than Aubusson carpets, castles or spaceships. If you can pick your story up and put it in another setting without changing it, then you are missing an opportunity to deepen both your story and your characters.

I was recently critiquing a story written in first person which included a lot of what I termed "reporter" mode whenever the protagonist went into a new environment/setting. The place and the things in it were described well enough that I could picture where she was, but it was flat and frankly a little boring. The setting didn't matter to the character, so it didn't matter to me. That's when I realized something I've intuitively known for a long time: it isn't the description of the setting that is important to the reader's experience, it's the point of view character's perception and emotional response to the setting that's important.

You know how writers are always spouting off about "show, don't tell"? This is a great example of why that is so important. Let me give you an example of reporting/telling about a setting:

Souvenirs That Don’t Need a Suitcase

Today I'm welcoming Jane M. H. Bigelow to Terry's Place. Jane is a fantasy writer and part-time librarian in Denver, Colorado. She loves writing, traveling, gardening and music. She has one novel published and is wrestling the rough draft for a second novel in that Arabian Nights world, into submission.

I love traveling to faraway places. I love it in spite of the cost, the frustrations, and the need to remove my shoes (and sometimes more) at airports. I love it in spite of the other things I have to give up to do it. I love local travel, too. Denver’s close to mountain passes, historic railroads, and the annual sandhill crane migration.

One of the reasons I love travel is the way it changes my life, and my writing.

It shakes up assumptions I didn’t know I was making. Sometimes it’s only a little assumption, such as street signs. We directionally challenged persons rely on them.

A man in Morocco was puzzled when I asked about the frequent lack of signs. “But why would you need to be told at every crossing what the street is? It’s the same street!”

Using Your Hometown to Set the Mood

Join me in welcoming Ann Ambrosio who shares her love for setting as character in writing.

Thank you for inviting me to your blog, Terry. The location of your story can set the mood and I like to “feel” the place before I write about it. I grew up in the Saratoga Springs, New York area and naturally place much emotion there; that’s why I like to have Saratoga as a setting for a story. I’d like to tell you a little about Saratoga Springs.

Saratoga has a long, rich history. It’s where an important battle took place during the Revolutionary War and where the British General Burgoyne surrendered. Perhaps that’s why I feel a freedom loving spirit in that area. It was first settled in 1776, and it was incorporated in 1819 as a town. It’s now a city of about 26,000 residents and the population swells in the summer with visitors.

During the Revolutionary War Native Americans brought a wounded British soldier to a spring in Saratoga to bathe his wounds. They felt the waters had medicinal properties. Interest in the springs spread through America and Europe.

Roads and Settings

Roads – we've been driving on a lot of them. Through major cities, around major cities, and out in the middle of nowhere.


When we started, as I mentioned earlier, we took the 'meet at a designated rest stop' option. Throughout Florida and Mississippi, they tended to be about 30-50 miles apart, which worked out well, giving us frequent opportunities to touch base and make sure everything was going well.

When we hit Louisiana, we discovered that the signage didn't always live up to what it advertised. At one point, a sign said there was a stop in one mile, and the next would be about 39 miles farther down the road. I was in the lead at that point and called to see if hubby wanted to stop or wait. We'd decided to stop, even though it hadn't been that long since our lunch break. Glad we did, because that next stop which was supposed to be 39 miles away never materialized. At that point, we decided we'd stop at ALL official rest stops.

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Some highways didn't offer official rest stops, which meant leaving the highway at gas stations or restaurants (like all those Waffle House stops!). This meant a little more coordination, which would have been easier had cell phone reception worked better. Although we were normally not more than half a mile apart, the phones kept dropping calls before we could answer. Sometimes the calls would go straight to voice mail without even ringing.

In Texas, we were on US 287 for a long, long time. Rest stops were about 75-100 miles apart. However, there were picnic areas about every 30 miles. These were simply a couple of picnic tables under cover, with grills. No facilities of any kind. I guess these folks like to stop to eat at frequent intervals.

Other things of note. In some areas, driving in the left lane was not permitted except to pass. Of course, on these roads, the right lane was in miserable condition while the 'illegal' left lane was smooth.

The other day, I mentioned how Lori Wilde talked about giving characters different world views. When hubby and I would meet up, we'd compare what we'd seen, and many times we didn't "see" the same things. Of course, at 70+ mph, it's easy to be looking the other way at the instant something catches the other driver's eye, but there are also things that he'll zero in on that I might not notice.

He's much more likely to notice birds (and to identify them). I see some of them, but since I'm not as well versed in ornithology, I see many of them as generic 'birds'. He also knows that the aggregation of big white things was a wind farm. We both notice trains (hard to miss), but he's much more excited about them. And the John Deere dealerships.

Once we got into central Texas, the roads went on and on. Long, straight, with rolling hills. As expected, there were lots of cows. Lots of horses. What wasn't expected: llamas, which I saw but hubby didn't. He saw coyotes, but I didn't. But the kicker was the field with a herd of camels. Those were definitely unexpected. We also saw pronghorn antelope. And despite the warning signs at rest stops, we didn't see any snakes, poisonous or otherwise.

Lots of roadkill as well. Skunks. Armadillo. Deer. Flat stuff.

Weather was another factor. One day, we started in a gray drizzle. Although the weather wasn't really bad, the spray from the cars ahead (and worse from the semis) made visibility an issue. Then, fog rolled in, and visibility became more of an issue. Instead of 60 mph, in order to see, it was more like 30 mph. We pulled off at a rest stop and when we came out, the rain began in earnest. Thunderstorms. Luckily, we were on the edge of the storm, so we emerged into the sunshine within about half an hour, giving us the best view of the entire trip so far. Bright golden light, the bare, wet trees standing out in dark relief against the clear blue sky.

And then the wind picked up. Hubby noticed his pickup being pushed around, so you can imagine what was going on with my little Fit.

On Monday, our route took us down even smaller roads, where there was nothing but ranch and farm land. No traffic on that road, but if I hadn't had a GPS saying that I was only 45 minutes away from our destination, I might have been concerned that I was totally lost.

We pulled into our last "on the road motel" after a relatively short driving day. This is a small town—population 7237, and judging from the smell, most of them are cows. But it's interesting. The sense of smell is tied to memories, and for hubby, it smelled like where he grew up. I don't find it quite so appealing, although I get the same reaction to birdseed, because my great uncle had an egg ranch, and I remember visiting and being allowed to help feed the chickens. The smell of birdseed always takes me back.

When you're writing, setting is important. And even the same setting won't elicit the same reactions from all your characters. If your story is set in one locale, changing the weather can change the setting. Character viewpoints will make the setting richer as they will have different perceptions of the same thing. And don't forget to use all the senses.

And make sure you come back tomorrow - some fantastic wildlife shots from Jason!