I'm back from spending a few days on the Oregon Coast. The first day I was there it was raining so hard the drops were going sideways and thirty seconds outside got your clothes soaking wet. The second day the wind was gusting so hard it was difficult to walk in a straight line but no rain. The third day it was sunny, calm and gorgeous--must have been in the fifties. The last day it was drizzling, cold, a little windy and the sky had that snow or heavy rain look.
   If I had been there on any one day I might have thought that day's weather was the norm. I thought the wind was the norm that day and didn't know we were having a storm until my mother told me she'd seen it on the news.
   As writers we love to set stories elsewhere, but we run the risk of getting our setting very wrong. How do we prevent it? After I read Outlander many years ago, I was surprised to read that the author, Diana Gabaldon, hadn't been to Scotland before writing the book, since I found it so evocative. More recently I listened to it on tape, and was interested to hear there really wasn't much setting done specifically. Yet somehow Gabaldon got the picture across, at least to someone like me who hasn't been to Scotland either.
   I used to travel a lot, and loved to read books set in that place while I was there. I also perk up when I see a book set where I live or have lived. I imagine a lot of readers are the same way, so we writers really have a challenge to get our setting right.
   I guess the solution for one piece of the setting is to keep an eye on the Weather Channel for the period of time our story is set. This of course requires pre-planning. Hmmm. Not sure I've solved that one yet.
   Ironically the first book I (co-) wrote about twelve years ago was set on the Oregon Coast. I'm curious to go back and look at it now - did I get the setting right?

 

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