murder.booklocker.com

I got an email this morning from a Park Ridgian who has started reading the book and was thrilled with being able to recognize places.

I had wondered about that. I always seem to enjoy books more when I can say, “Aha! I’ve been there.” I don’t know how other authors handle fictitious towns, residences, workplaces. When I wrote about Park Ridge and the senior center, I had no trouble visualizing either of them. The center with the wall of windows in the rec are or the chill of the ceramics room are part of my experience — I have no difficulty calling them up. I think if I had “made up” the place that I would have had to draw myself a map!

As it was, I had to create separate character files to keep everybody straight. There were: four card-playing killers, five victims, one director, one detective, and the detective’s mother — that’s twelve, in case you weren’t counting. I was in and out of the files frequently. How does this person sound? What does this person like? After it was over, I could tell you what the Professor preferred for breakfast. Or that Teresa would rather go ballroom dancing with Stan than line-dancing (even if that doesn’t appear in the book).

I got to know these fictitious characters pretty well, maybe even intimately. It just might be that phony places are the same sort of thing.