Most of the time, when I write "on the road" columns, I'm talking about me
going places for booksignings and conventions or about how you can find places
to meet authors. But have you ever gone on the road to visit a book's setting?
Of course, I try to visit the places where the books I write are set so I can
incorporate that description into the story. However, I also enjoy visiting
settings for books I enjoy as a reader. I haven't deliberately planned a trip
specifically because of a book, but it is fun to realize that I'm at a place
I've read about.
One of my favorite books is To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis, which is
set around Oxford, England, both in the near future and in Victorian times. On
my first trip to England, I ended up staying on the outskirts of Oxford, and
when I was settling in at my guest house, I realized from the directions left
in the room on how to get into the city itself that I was just down the road
from one of the locations mentioned in the book, a little Norman church on the
Thames. I headed out to find it, and there it was, just the way it was
described in the book. From there, I went on to find other locations mentioned
in the book, as well as some settings related to other novels, like the shop
where Alice in Alice in Wonderland bought sweets (that shop now sells
Alice-related souvenirs). I also found the pub where writers like J.R.R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis used to hang
out.
In London, I enjoyed stumbling across settings from various books I'd read
almost as much as I enjoyed seeing the more touristy attractions. There was the
church where the heroine in a favorite chick lit novel got married, the bridge
I remembered a character crossing. I think I got more chills from walking in
the footsteps of fictional people than I did from treading the same ground as
famous historical figures. It really made the books come alive to me.
Closer to home, I'd enjoyed Sarah Bird's novels because most of them were set in Austin, where
I went to college. She frequently used settings I was quite familiar with
because they were in the neighborhoods surrounding the university campus. On a
later trip after I'd read these books, I was with a friend who'd also read
them, and I drove her around the routes the characters had taken in the books,
pointing out the specific settings. Even though I already knew these places, it
was fun looking at them again through the eyes of the characters.
Now I'm about to hit the road again for conventions and booksignings. Next
month, I'll have a report from the Nebula
Awards weekend.
Shanna Swendson writes "Fairy Tales for Modern Times" and is the
author of the Enchanted, Inc. series about a Texan in New York City, a
magical NYC. Visit her
website or blog
for more information.
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