Whenever I read a story set in high school — and I read a lot of stories set in high school — I always picture the same high school. Oddly enough, it’s my the layout and look of junior high but it’s somehow transmuted into a fictional image of a high school.
For instance, as I read “Evermore,” “Cracked up to Be,” “The Naughty List,” “North of Beautiful” and others, I imagined all the school scenes taking place at a school up on a hill, with a U-shaped main hallway/classroom area, a huge field just to the left. Of course, the principal’s office in all these fictional settings was the very place where I sat with my cat Elinor the day she followed me to school in eighth grade and I had to wait in the principal’s for my mom to come pick up the cat before I could go to class. (Maybe this is why I picture junior high — this was clearly such a seminal moment in my life especially because mom wasn’t too happy about driving to school to retrieve the cat! “Daisy had a little cat, little cat, little cat. Daisy had a little cat who followed her to school.)
I also have a few houses I cycle through when reading and I often picture variations on a house I lived in on Dug Road in New Paltz, New York when I was in grade school. This house has morphed itself into the beach home in “Along for the Ride” and in Kate’s house in “Perfect You” while the banks on the stream across from it served as the location — in my mind — for the early chapters in “A Thousand Splendid Suns.”
Perhaps I suffer from a supreme lack of imagination. But still, this makes me wonder — do you have houses, schools, stores, streets from your childhood or adulthood that you picture as the places in the novels you read? Which homes from your life playing a starring role in your interpretations of other stories?
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Absolutely! One of my current wip’s is set in an imaginary town in southeastern CT. It’s based on a real town (East Lyme/Niantic) where I lived for a couple of years. My last wip was based on my current neighborhood and town. I have to envision the place where my stories take place, even if they’re nothing like what my readers will imagine. Great topic!
YES! Four houses from my life/childhood (mine, my grandparent’s, a family friend’s, and my childhood BFF’s) are continually cycled through when I read. And also when I write, I visualize those houses too! Glad to hear it’s not just me!
Oh yes I completely do this both when I read and write.
The funny thing is in Perfect You I picture the vitamin stand in the shopping centre I used to work in but as this was a tiny, dingy centre in a small English town I’m sure it’s not at ALL what Elizabeth Scott was writing about!
Hi Daisy! Thanks for swinging by my blog today! Congrats on your book getting published! You’re probably already through rewrites and edits and gearing up for your next novel!
I too, had a cat that would follow me to school. He had to be securely inside before I left in the morning. My mother said that as soon as I walked out the back door, he would run to the front window to watch me walk down the street. Clearly, he had separation anxiety.
As to locations, I’ve started five novels and every single one at least starts at the house I live in, which was my grandmother’s house where I spent all my childhood vacations.
My sister once said that we needed to find me a location, the way many of Dorothea Benton Frank’s novels are set in the “Low Country.” I already have a location! It’s right where I live.
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