I’ve been struggling with the last third of a story, much of which takes place mainly in the Lake District. I knew the ending, on the Scottish border close to Gretna Green, but I could never work out how I could find enough story for my 12-year-old heroine as she walked there from Lake Windermere.
I spent hours studying books of photos and Google Maps, measuring distances, calculating how far she could walk in a day and trying to mould my plot around all those distances. Trying to be as faithful to the landscape as possible, I kept asking myself what she could do in all those miles. I ended up covering pages and pages with her walking and looking for food and water and shelter. And it was BORING! Nothing happened. There was no drama!
Then one morning I realised that I was writing a story. My story. And since it’s set in the future, in a landscape destroyed by pollution, I’m not exactly constructing a documentary. So if I wanted to cut the distance from Lake Windermere to the Scottish border in half, I could. And add a castle where there isn’t one. Which I did.
Once I’d done that, the ideas emerged and everything began to flow. I was able to get a decent storyline down with little trouble.
And it all became fun again.
2 comments:
I feel for you so much, Nick. I have to sit in a landscape or place for a very long time to feel I've 'got it' but then 'it' isn't the story and all that research is over in a couple of short descriptive lines, which needed the research, but still. Sometimes I envy Thomas Hardy going on for pages about Eggerton Moor [or however it's spelt in The Return of the Native]. I hope your fantasy Lake District is a deeply fulfilling place.
Thank you, Rowena. As far as 'fulfilling' goes, I don't know if anybody who's ever been to the Lake District will enjoy what I've done to it. But it was fun - yes, fun - thinking up the neglect and despoliation of a place I love. (Time for my therapist?)
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