Hidden Springs – A Small Town Setting

“Write what you know.” That is advice many writers, especially new writers, hear. Some say it’s good advice. Some say it’s terrible advice. True, if I only wrote what I had experienced personally, I’d have very limited story ideas. Writing what I know would have all my stories about a small town country girl who loves dogs and kids and nature.

I think those who say write what you know isn’t good advice are taking it all too literally. Those who give that advice are trying to encourage a writer to feel what her characters are feeling. To imagine what might happen if they had lived some of the things they write about in their stories.

However, whatever you think about the advice, it can be good to delve into one’s own experiences or known surroundings to enrich a story. When I decided to write a mystery set in a small town, what better town to model my fictional town on than the one where I had walked up and down the streets and shopped in the stores? The town where I had gone into the courthouse and heard my footsteps ringing on the polished stone floor that never showed wear in spite of the thousands of feet that walked the hallways. The stone steps twirled up to the courtrooms and to the public health office where kids got shots to keep them well.

The double front doors made a creak and swoosh when they were pushed open. Voices drifted out from the offices along the corridor. And there was a jail in the back. Or so they said. Glad not to have personal experience with that. But I could imagine. And I did.

Those courthouse steps were the ones I imagined a murder victim slumped against one of the pillars. I imagined how the discovery of that body could start a series of events that would change the lives of the people in that little town.

My little town does have a barbershop right across from the courthouse where the barber might be able to see the courthouse steps. As far as I know no barber ever kept a cat in his barbershop, but he might have. I do know a beautician who did have a shop cat. I never got my hair cut at the barbershop across from the courthouse or took a son there for a haircut, but I know what barbershops look like inside.

Up and down the other streets in Hidden Spring, I put store owners happy to welcome in customers and ready to go the extra mile to help the same as the people in my little town. My town had a newspaper office right up the street from the courthouse. It had a screen door that slapped shut behind you when you went in to grab the local paper or place an ad. The newspaper editor could go out that door onto the street to see what was happening in our little town. While I rarely went to the grill up the street, I had no trouble imagining the local people gathering at the grill up the street for a cup or coffee and a piece of pie with a side helping of local gossip. Small town things that I let my characters experience.

My little town was the model for my Hollyhill stories that are set in the Sixties. But it is also the model for my Hidden Springs mysteries. Michael Keane, the main character in the stories, knows the feel of those sidewalks under his feet. He knows the people he meets on the street. And he wants to keep them all safe as all good law officers do.

I’ve never been a deputy sheriff, but my character has. And I set him right down in the middle of a little town I know well. I put people on those streets and in those stores who have all the emotions and troubles and joys that any person might have.  Sometimes it’s easier to make those fictional people come to life in your story in a setting that is not only familiar but is the same as home.

If you haven’t visited Hidden Springs, you might like to get to know Michael and all the others there. You can make that visit right now by downloading the e-books, Murder at the Courthouse, Murder Comes by Mail, and Murder Is No Accident  at the super low price of 99 cents each. I love that the sale gives new readers a chance to walk down those same familiar streets with my characters. Check the sale out at Kobo, Amazon, or Barnes & Noble. You can find out more about the stories and convenient buy links on my book pages here. But the sale will be over soon. So, grab them while you can and head to Hidden Springs where you can meet my small town characters and Deputy Sheriff Michael Keane who does his best to keep everyone safe.

What do you think about the advice to a writer to “write what they know?” Or is it better to just say to “write what you can imagine?”